The Ult. Sonic Fanchara Guide

The Ultimate Sonic Fan Character Creation Guide

DISCLAIMER TYPE THINGY: This is a guide of tips for making the most unique and awesome Sonic fan character possible. Everything in here is what I believe makes a truly awesome and not "Mary Sue-infested" Sonic fan character, and is strictly MY OPINION. You, as the reader, do not have to follow these guidelines exactly. I am not, in any way, personally attacking and/or defending any fan characters out there and/or any fan characters mentioned here. I also do not claim any of them as my own. There are many Sonic fan characters out there who break these guidelines and are still unique, awesome, and greatly received by the public. I even broke some of these rules. Heck, SEGA themselves even went past these limits. But like I said, no one is being forced to follow these guidelines (even if I capitalize "DO NOT DO THIS"), so continue reading to find out how to make your character super special awesome! And if you have any questions, feel free to comment! Thanks! ;3

STEP 1: Your Character's Name
So you want to create a Sonic fan character, right? Well the first thing I do is come up with a name. You may want to skip this step for now and come back, if you're one of those people who comes up with the name after designing the actual character. The following lines are tips and suggestions to follow when creating a name.

-Notice how most of SEGA's official characters have names that are REAL WORDS. Sonic, Tail(s), Knuckle(s), Shadow, Silver. Therefore, your character's name should be an actual word that you can look up in the dictionary and easily translate into other languages.
-Adjectives or nouns make good names. Verbs don't really make cool names. Think about it. Jump the Hedgehog doesn't sound very awesome.
-OK this is a big one. DO NOT MAKE UP your own names for your characters. As I just said, you should be able to look up your character's name in a dictionary. Notice again how none of SEGA's characters are made-up. THEY ARE ALL REAL WORDS. Believe me, Xigflob the Fox is a really lame name.
-Try to avoid names that are elemental or are derived from elemental words. Try not to use Flame, Flare, Crystal, Frost, Lightning, Spike, Blade, Light, Darkness, Angel, etc.
-Try to avoid names that are similar to SEGA's characters. Sonicboom, Ears, Fists, Shade (official character FTL), and Shiny aren't good.
-Color-related names are kinda half and half. SEGA has done it with Rouge, Cream, and Silver. They do tend to get annoying, but some colors work, especially if they aren't widely used in the world or are in different languages than your native tongue. Chiffon (Yellow), Periwinkle (Blue), and Viridian (Green) are good uncommon names. Verde (Italian), Azure (French), and Rojo (Spanish) are good foreign names (don't take Azure, I already did XP).
-Planet, Birthstone, Star Sign, and Zodiac names are also somewhat 50/50. Nothing much to elaborate on here, it just seems a little cliche to me...
-Here's another big point. Some characters' names are real words, only with some letters changed or added, but they still retain the same pronunciation as the real word. "Corruption names" is what I call them. These are OK, since they basically are real words (and I've seen a lot of good characters with names like these).
-Yet another big one. DO NOT use an actual human name as a name for your character, unless it's a girl (for a SEGA example, Amy). Believe me, Jason the Hedgehog or Dan the Echidna sound boring and unappealing.
-Do not name your character after yourself.
-Do not make your character's name long and complex.
-Do not name your character Archaic. That's the name of my fan character.
-Once you have thought of your name, search on dA (or whatever website you are posting the character) or Google to see if there's already a fan character with that name. If there is, the best choice would be to go back and think of another name.

STEP 2: Your Character's Design
Next comes the most important part of your Sonic fan character. It's design. There are many major points of advice here, so PAY ATENZIONE (that's attention in Italian) NOW! The following lines are tips and suggestions to follow when thinking of your character's design.

-Your character should have gloves and some kind of footwear (sneakers, boots, hi-heels, sandals, slippers, etc.), along with some kind of accessory on their wrists and ankles. Socks, wristbands, belts, or rings are good, for example. And make sure to custom design the shoes with patterns and stuff like that on them. Don't give them an official SEGA character's shoes.
-When designing the head, make sure it has features appropriate to what animal they are. Hedgehogs should have small ears, a basic oval muzzle, a "connected eye", and spines on the back (and possibly front) of their head; foxes have no spines, fur on the sides of their muzzle, two separate eyes, spikey bangs in the front, and big ears; echidnas have spines that hang down, no ears, and two separate eyes... Well, you get the picture.
-The body should also have the appropriate features on it, depending on the animal. Hedgehogs have either an oval skin colored chest/stomach area, a patch of chest fur, or a furry mane; foxes have a white oval shape chest/stomach area with fur connected to it on the sides of their neck; echidnas have some sort of pattern on their chests, like Knuckles' white half ring marking, etc.
-Also feel free to add extra accessories. Good examples are necklaces, extra wristbands, scars, watches, headbands, etc.
-Posilutely absitively DO NOT make your character just a different color version of an already existing SEGA character. This is called a "recolor character." These are greatly frowned upon in most countries and the Sonic community will make fun of you 'til no end if your character is a recolor.
-DO NOT give your character wings (unless they are just an accessory and are not real) just for the heck of it. That's unrealistic. The only species that should have wings are bats, like Rouge.
-One thing you can do to "spice up" your fan character is put little white or colored patches of fur on the end of their spines. I've seen some people do this and it looks awesome!
-And finally, just because your character has minor features of other species (for example, a hedgehog with bangs like a fox), that does not make them a hybrid species. So basically, do NOT make your character a combination of two species (like a hedgefox, hedgecat, hedgebat). Out of the countless numbers of hybrids that I've seen, there is only one GOOD fan character that is a hybrid.

STEP 3: Your Character's Colors
Now you should decide your character's colors for their fur, eyes, gloves, shoes, and accessories! The following lines are tips and suggestions to follow when thinking of your character's color scheme.

-Well your character's main fur color can virtually be any color... There are really no limits for this.
-The color of your character's eyes can also be any color, but they should be a color that is not already present on your character. Notice that Sonic has green eyes, but no green anywhere else. The same is for Tails (blue), Knuckles (purple), Amy (green), Shadow (orange), Blaze (yellow), etc. One exception is Silver, who has yellow eyes (probably to be a similarity to Blaze), but has yellow elsewhere on his body.
-The color of your character's gloves should probably be white, although they can be any other color and even have a design on them.
-The color of your character's shoes, like their eyes, should be a mix of colors that are not already on your character. They can have one color in common (Knuckles is an example), but I wouldn't go as far as that. Notice that Sonic has red and yellow shoes, but neither of those colors are on the rest of him. For some reason, there are many exceptions of this rule in the SEGA characters. Some examples are Amy (red boots, headband, and dress), Shadow (red/black/white shoes, gloves, and fur), Rouge (pink/white boots, gloves, and accessories), and Blaze (magenta shoes and cloak).

STEP 4: Powers, History, and Personality
Last step! Finally we decide on your character's supernatural (or not so super) powers and their history/backstory. The following lines are tips and suggestions to follow when thinking of these things for your character.

-The number one thing to remember when giving powers to your character is to not make them overpowered. Your character should not be stronger than any of the SEGA characters, so don't give them Chaos Powers, psychokinesis, AND the control of water.
-Your character should not have any powers of any of the official SEGA characters (with the exception of psychokinesis, if they are from Silver's time, when PK is normal, see next tip).
-Psychokinesis in the Sonic universe is a tricky thing. If I remember correctly, Silver's psychokinesis is different than everyone else's in the future. Basically, his psychokinesis is more powerful and developed than everyone else's. So if you are going to give your fan character psychokinesis, make sure it's less powerful than Silver's.
-Don't give your character eighty two different forms. That counts as being overpowered. Two should be enough.
-Now let's move on to your character's history. The number on rule here: DO NOT BE CLICHE. If you don't know what cliche is, it's a word used to describe things that are used over and over and over so many times that they are generally deemed lame and uncreative. Cliche things in a character's history include being created by Eggman, Gerald, or any doctor/professor type guy, their parents being killed when they were young (and/or dead at all), their brother/sister/cousin being evil/their worst enemy, conveniently being friends with every SEGA official character possible, living in the same house/apartment with any SEGA official character, breaking the Sonic series' canon/continuity, etc.
-Try not to make your character's history so complicated that other people won't understand it. Remember, sometimes simple is good enough.

CONCLUSION: Well I hope that this guide to making an epic Sonic fan character helped all of you who read it! Now just remember, all of these things listed here are just my opinion of what makes a good fan character, and I am in no way forcing you to follow these guidelines. Oh, and if want to see a bunch of Sonic fan characters that I believe are super unique, check the Artist's Comments for a link! ;3 And don't forget the number one rule: Have fun! =3