original title:
A Crisis of Infinite Hedgehogs

original description:
Well. Here we are. (I think you have to zoom twice to really see the full thing.)

I'm gonna tell you right now that if I do a legend of this monster it'll be done later.

LIKE MUCH LATER.

Like when I have a weekend or eight to blow.

You'll notice that the art style here is actually my old, original art style before I changed things around and improved in my depictions of the Sonic character models over time. That's because this piece was started long ago when I first began working at Archie — like, fresh out of putting my own old webcomics "Chip and Walter" and "Time Trouble" on hiatus kind of "long ago". Don't hold it against me! I was dedicated! LOL

I dunno why I did it. I guess really it just boiled down to me wanting to do something neat. See, originally I wanted to do a George Perez style "Crisis on Infinite Earths" parody but with Sonic characters. Mostly because I wanted to see if I could do it and finish it, secondly because I'd had a lot of time to spare between when I'd finished my undergrad degree VS when I started Grad School at SVA.

Well I did all the first two pages of this (the Perez portion of the piece) and suddenly realized that even though I'd budgeted out plenty of space for game, comic and even a few cartoon elements, I'd actually not attributed for every character — which meant nothing given the scope of George Perez's original piece of art and what it included/represented. Plus, I felt that it was only right to add my own take on it to give it some bits of originality and not bit completely off of Perez's entire sense of design, y'know?

So, I added another page. Then I realized that I'd not really taken account the multiple character designs that the book housed for so many years, and I'd had a lot of extra space that needed to be used after the fact — so then I accounted for that, making Page 3 focus on heroes while Page 4 focused on villains.

Before I knew it, what was originally a double page spread became a 4 page monster that was simply done whenever time permitted with whatever ideas or characters I could find that had popped into my head that i had not drawn yet. So yeah, I kinda think I might be borderline insane but hey — FUN IS FUN RIGHT!?!?! :D :D :D

…


:P


I'd stopped drawing "Crisis" just prior to Ian having taken over writing duties on the book which is why his stories aren't really represented here outside of a scant few nods that would be revisited much later when he was performing clean-up duties and bettering/fixing the continuity. Would I add an extra page or two for his stuff on down the line? Sure — why not. Let's expand it some more maybe when I'm retired. Or maybe dead. But not now! LOL!

Anyway, prior to me being hired full time at Archie I figured why not present it to them for use as a poster for use in the books. This is when it was still in pencil form, but lets be honest. NO ONE in their right mind would ink this monster without some serious pay so, that left it up to me to ink it all on my own, but I also didn't want to ruin the pencils. SOOOOOOOO, I took some acetate, re-drew/lightboxed what I had on THAT with my drawing pens (god bless whoever invented ink erasers) and then by the time I was done I was utterly and totally exhausted.

Then came time to color it and — well you know the drill.

However, coloring is NOT AT ALL my forte. I like working in blacks and whites and greys so…any attempts to even try and flat color this thing was like HELL NAW SHORTY</i>. That and my work computer was ancient. I could barely do anything with a hi-res file that size which meant "TRY AGAIN LATER". My schedule got busier and busier with graduate school and eventually work and there it sat. Since it was impossible for me to color it with the attention it deserved I've never really released it until now cuz, (and I have to be honest with myself here) it'd take me so long to color this the right way and I want to dedicate my art time to my other babies that I've neglected for so long — namely, my own stuff.

Realistically, t'll probably never be used in the books anyway (where would we put it, most posters are double spreads — not quads. And then there's other issues that dare not speak its name concerning it) so… I figured that now was as good a time as any to release it as is.

And that is the long and tiring story of the Sonic poster that I drew in my spare time which is currently the centerpiece of my professional portfolio.

And now you know the story…

GOOD DAY.