“Sonic the Real Hedgehog”

Back in 2008, German artist Marcus Blättermann set out to create a digital painting of Sonic as if he were a real hedgehog. On his website, Marcus wrote of the challenge of translating the fanciful character into a realistic creature:

“The original Sonic looks everything but realistic. He is so stylized, that it’s hard to tell if he is a hedgehog at all. This made it hard to find a middle course between the initial design and the look of a real hedgehog.”

Marcus pulled through with an amazing rendering. He even created a small piece of “real Sonic” pixel art (seen in the corner) that shows what the first game may have looked like if the hedgehog’s creators had used nature as their guide.

(Illustration: Marcus Blättermann)