Sonic 2 escape ship reimagined in 3D

More artwork for the Sonic website; Zone Zero. Aquatic Ruin Zone

I wanted to spend some time on some projects over this winter holiday but my brain wouldn't let me concentrate on the projects I wanted to do. That's always the way, isn't it? You can concentrate on anything except what you need to. So I found myself returning once again to my duties as the illustrator for the website, Zone Zero. Im working through all the levels in the 16BIT Sonic games. I'm currently upto Sonic 2, level 3; Aquatic Ruin Zone.

Embarrassing Self Indulgence

This will be the only post I do of this sort, I promise :)

I have loads of drawings from when I was growing up, and here is a small selection. I think journeys are fun so here we go...

Chemical Plant Zone

My newest illustration for the website, Zone Zero. I'm working through one image for each level in the 16BIT games. 

Sonic CD fan art competition

The Sega Blog just ran a Sonic CD fan art comp. The rules were simple, depict a scene using the Mega CD game, Sonic CD, as a basis. Here's my entry which won me a copy of the game (which has just been re-released on XBOX XBLA) and a soundtrack CD.

Emerald Hill Zone

Being so busy at work has meant I may have neglected my duties as site artist for the website Zone Zero. Well here's my next piece, Emerald Hill Zone. The first from Sonic 2 and so my first to feature the deadly parasite, Tails.

Scrap Brain Zone

The sixth in my level pieces for website Zone: 0 


The final artwork I'm doing for Sonic 1, onto Sonic 2 now.

This is the furthest I've deviated from the original designs so far. But seen as though the music from Scrap Brain is so obviously inspired by Bladerunner, I wanted to pay a little homage too, though hopefully it's still recognizable as the original level.

EDIT: Doryan in the comments asked to see some sketches that led up to this. So I dug through some old hard drives to find the original PSD. Under all the layers was my original sketches underneath! UNFORTUNATELY, they are not very different from what you see. I settled on this idea immediately. This was early in my career as an artist and I had not yet been convinced by the importance of thumb-nailing  loadsa ideas! So all you see is this one idea evolving slightly.

Sorry, Doryan. If you were looking for cool images, you wont find them here. All you'll find here is poorly drawn compositional sketches!
In fact the only thing that really changed was the curve..


I initially started with this composition. Much closer on Sonic, and an exaggerated curve to the landscape.

Here you can see I zoomed out a little, but kept the curve.


Here's where I lost the curve...

And this is the final sketch I used as a basis for the piece.

Thanks a lot to Doryan for asking! It was fun to look at this one again, and I was very glad to see that there was loads of stuff I'd improve on if I was doing it today.

More Zone:0 artwork! SPRING YARD ZONE, LABYRINTH ZONE and STAR LIGHT ZONE!

I am doing one piece of artwork for each level in the Sonic games for the website Zone:0. Here's Spring Yard Zone recreated in 3D!


Here's the actual level



And here's Labyrinth Zone...

And Star Light Zone...

Artwork for Zone: 0

Zone: 0 is a Sonic the Hedgehog website, a pretty well made one too. A real labour of love for what at the moment is one guy. I thought I'd offer my services as site artist. I am doing a piece for each level. So far, Green Hill Zone and Marble Zone!

P.S I painted the far backdrop on green hill, but completely lost interest in doing the same for marble zone. So I ripped it from the game instead