Canon goes schlurrrrrrrpy

[Locit]

I don't follow the comic, so maybe this is old hat. But I felt compelled to share it anyways:



And then:



I don't know who we've got on he inside, but I just want to thank them for making sure the canon included a schlurrrrpy Tails Doll transforming into a towering, tentacled vagina dentata that is also impressively phallic. It's probably as pure an artistic representation of this forum as we're ever like to see in an officially licensed product.

[Jingles]

The first thought that popped into my head was "Does it ejaculate Drano?"

[G.Silver]

Man, Big the Cat, Cream, and Heavy & Bomb. Talk about your B-list team!

Great art though!

[Dr. BUGMAN]

I don't follow this comic either. Word on the street is that it's magnitudes better than it's ever been, but that's a low bar, and that messy-as-hell design for that bobcat(?) doesn't inspire me to start now. (Is she supposed to be Honey? What's Her Face from X-treme? Bubsy's twice-removed third cousin?)

Anyway, Tails Doll as an eldritch nightmare has had permeated the fanbase at large for years now. I'm also sure his transformation there is a Shin Megami Tensei reference.

I caught wind that there's a Sky Patrol arc in the works. So, f yeah, witchcart.

[G.Silver]

I would say that I don't follow the comic at all as well except I do happen to know that the bobcat(?) is the physical manifestation of Nicole, that hand-held computer thing that Princess Sally used to carry around with her. So I guess I must be following it somehow.

[Malchik]

I, too, have not read the comic beyond the first few issues back in the early nineties.

I'd actually like to start reading some of it, as I've become somewhat fascinated in some of the choices I've seen been made over the years. Sort of like how Star Trek Voyager had potential, some good episodes, but ultimately damaged by bad writers and studio meddling.

Some of the comics obviously had dedicated writers and talent, and people who were there strictly for a pay check.

Also, it's impossible to have drawn that monster without intentionally putting a vagina on it.

[Crazy Penguin]

Nicole's hologram form is a lynx.

Speaking of Tails Doll, at the most recent Summer of Sonic, Kazuyuki Hoshino revealed that he was created by Sonic R's background designer - he was originally intended to be just an obstacle you shoot on the factory stage. I guess they still had this idea in mind when they designed E-102 Gamma's first stage in Sonic Adventure.

[big_smile]

Speaking of Tails Doll, at the most recent Summer of Sonic, Kazuyuki Hoshino revealed that he was created by Sonic R's background designer - he was originally intended to be just an obstacle you shoot on the factory stage. I guess they still had this idea in mind when they designed E-102 Gamma's first stage in Sonic Adventure.

When I heard Hoshino say this, I got the impression that he didn't remember who Tails Doll was and was confusing him with the one from Sonic Adventure.
Otherwise his comments don't make much sense, as there are no shooting mechanics in Sonic R and it's unlikely that Final Egg would have been in development during Sonic R's production process.

[G.Silver]

Otherwise his comments don't make much sense, as there are no shooting mechanics in Sonic R and it's unlikely that Final Egg would have been in development during Sonic R's production process.

Since Sonic Adventure was supposedly in development on the Saturn in 1997 this doesn't seem all that surprising to me. Maybe not "Final Egg" as we know it but some sort of factory stage would have certainly been in consideration from the very beginning. Tails Doll and the other robot characters might not have been in Sonic R's initial planning stages but considering what small amounts of resources each is made up of (do they even animate?) they could have been added pretty easily at the last minute.

Nicole's hologram form is a lynx.

A bobcat, it turns out, is a type of Lynx!

[Malchik]

Speaking of Tails Doll, at the most recent Summer of Sonic, Kazuyuki Hoshino revealed that he was created by Sonic R's background designer - he was originally intended to be just an obstacle you shoot on the factory stage. I guess they still had this idea in mind when they designed E-102 Gamma's first stage in Sonic Adventure.

It makes sense. People often mistake the crystal on his head as an antenna but I believe it's supposed to be a sewing pin, as in the Tails Doll is pinned to a post like in Sonic Adventure.

[G.Silver]

Voodoo then! I suppose the resemblance to a crystal (we're conditioned to seeing those from other Sonic Team games from the time) could also just be chalked up to low-poly requirements. It doesn't glow either, a feature common to fan depictions, along with the floppy antenna-like quality. Speaking of fan depictions, a google image search for Tails Doll yields this delightful work as its number one result.

[Dr. BUGMAN]

It had occurred to me that I have no idea how Tails Doll's second jump works. Its arc baffles me due to TD's incessant bobbing. The museum page states that it functions like Tanooki Mario's descent, but man I just can't get a bead on it!

[Neo]

What double jump? He just floats higher as long as you hold down the button.

[big_smile]

It makes sense. People often mistake the crystal on his head as an antenna but I believe it's supposed to be a sewing pin, as in the Tails Doll is pinned to a post like in Sonic Adventure.

But his bio says it is a power plant:

As a last resort, Eggman manufactured this to catch Sonic unprepared. This, except for the power plant embedded in its head, is a mere stuffed animal, whose meager form nevertheless exhibits considerable ability in races due to its lightweight design. Still, it is also able to float in the air for a long time.

This is why I think that Hoshino is mistaken and just confused the two characters up, as his bio doesn't really sit with him just being a factory obstacle (I guess they could have whipped up the bio later on, but the whole thing seems very odd). There is also the fact the two characters bare little resemblance to each other:

tailsdoll.jpg

The SA one doesn't have the power plant, the stitching, the big nose, the creepy eyes, the hair, the colour...

[G.Silver]

So I was just going off what CP said before, I just listened to the interview now and have to agree, he does not seem to be talking about Tails Doll. (Also the guy asking questions asked about Metal Sonic when he clearly meant Metal Knuckles. I guess they're all a little confused!) It still makes a lot of sense that they would have stemmed from the same doll idea (not that they're the same character in the game fiction), and if I were Hoshino looking for something interesting to say in an interview I would definitely have confirmed the connection if it were true (it's interesting to me, anyway!) but it doesn't really seem like that's what he's doing.

[big_smile]

This Sonic Boom Q&A session is much better. In it, Hoshino says the same thing about Tails doll, but they ask Iizuka some of the questions I sent in (about the moon in SA2 and the Chaos Emeralds). ^_^

[Pepperidge]

I don't want to watch that video. What does he say about the moon?

[Neo]

The obvious fake-out answer: the moon is still broken, we've just been looking at the opposite side. (This is not how the moon works.)

[G.Silver]

(This is not how the moon works.)

Maybe the impact to the moon was so severe that it temporarily broke free of its tidal lock just long enough to turn around to face the opposite way. I'm sure Hoshino considered every detail!

[Dr. BUGMAN]

I figured the poor, shell-shocked natives rebuilt their beloved home, stopping only long enough for the tears to stop:



Eggman's greatest act of evil and no-one cared, not even Sonic. Hope SonicRetro's cool with me hotlinking; I daren't comb Tumblr or Imageshack for Sonic pics.

[Crazy Penguin]

Sorry to bump an old thread, but...

Speaking of Tails Doll, at the most recent Summer of Sonic, Kazuyuki Hoshino revealed that he was created by Sonic R's background designer - he was originally intended to be just an obstacle you shoot on the factory stage. I guess they still had this idea in mind when they designed E-102 Gamma's first stage in Sonic Adventure.

When I heard Hoshino say this, I got the impression that he didn't remember who Tails Doll was and was confusing him with the one from Sonic Adventure.
Otherwise his comments don't make much sense, as there are no shooting mechanics in Sonic R and it's unlikely that Final Egg would have been in development during Sonic R's production process.

Otherwise his comments don't make much sense, as there are no shooting mechanics in Sonic R and it's unlikely that Final Egg would have been in development during Sonic R's production process.

Since Sonic Adventure was supposedly in development on the Saturn in 1997 this doesn't seem all that surprising to me. Maybe not "Final Egg" as we know it but some sort of factory stage would have certainly been in consideration from the very beginning. Tails Doll and the other robot characters might not have been in Sonic R's initial planning stages but considering what small amounts of resources each is made up of (do they even animate?) they could have been added pretty easily at the last minute.

So I was just going off what CP said before, I just listened to the interview now and have to agree, he does not seem to be talking about Tails Doll. (Also the guy asking questions asked about Metal Sonic when he clearly meant Metal Knuckles. I guess they're all a little confused!) It still makes a lot of sense that they would have stemmed from the same doll idea (not that they're the same character in the game fiction), and if I were Hoshino looking for something interesting to say in an interview I would definitely have confirmed the connection if it were true (it's interesting to me, anyway!) but it doesn't really seem like that's what he's doing.

It's pretty confusing!

Summer of Sonic 2013 Q&A
Sonic Boom 2013 Q&A

The Sonic Boom Q&A was a bit of a loud and obnoxious clusterfuck, but surely in the Summer of Sonic Q&A he would have heard "Sonic R" and "Sega Saturn". To make things more bewildering, in the Sonic Boom Q&A he mentions Sonic Adventure directly. In both he mentions that the Tails Doll creator is a background artist on Sonic Lost World.

The connective tissue to all this appears to be Yoshitaka Miura. According to that Sonic Channel interview he joined Sega in 1997 as a Sonic Adventure background artist. Sonic Adventure does indeed credit him as a Field artist.

In Sonic Lost World Miura gets the top billing of all the Field Artists, which is consistent with Hoshino's description of the Tails Doll designer being Lost World's "lead" background artist.

Looping this back around to Sonic R, in the Saturn version Yuji Uekawa is credited as Character Designer. But Yoshitake Miura is given a Special Thanks credit.

In the PC release of Sonic R, both Yuji Uekawa AND Yoshitaki Miura are credited as Character Designers.

Sonic R was released 18 November 1997, and according to Jon Burton took six months from start to finish to turn their F1 prototype into a Sonic game.

Putting all these pieces together, the most logical explanation seems to be that Miura joined Sega to work on Sonic Adventure in 1997, designed a Tails Doll as a shootable object for Gamma, and somehow the idea wound up getting put into the hastily developed Sonic R as a playable character.

[big_smile]

That's good detective work. Although I'd be careful about the Sonic R Special Thanks credits. In the UK Sega Saturn Magazine, it was revealed that Travellers Tales just padded them out with any old names. That's why most of the staff from Sega Saturn Magazine and C&VG are listed even though they didn't do anything.

It looks like they wanted metal characters of the main cast as secret characters in Sonic R. Perhaps Uekawa saw the Tails doll from Sonic Adventure and it influenced his design? The only thing is SA Tails Doll and Sonic R Tails share no similarities outside of both being dolls.