I originally created a design for Metal Sonic a while back and thought, HEY, wouldn't it be cool if I animated this into a mini reveal trailer? It would be a really great project to get stuck into!

Yep, great ideas always start with a 'What If' and then slowly avalanche into a 'I wish I never started it....'.

All jokes aside, I guess it's not really until you get half way through a project that you see the potential of what something could be. I always tend to hit a brick wall and like I've mentioned on previous creations, I hate it, hate it some more, hate it to the point of quitting and then suddenly LOVE IT!

This was a little different in a way, I could see what I wanted from the beginning and I was lucky enough for it to just fall into place.

For those that aren't familiar with some of the easter eggs I've added in, obviously Metal Sonic has been a fan favourite, probably more than Dr Robotnik and I really wanted to add an Avenger-Level threat to the universe, something that could stand out and look epic.

So for those that have watched it through, yes, I gave him a mouth. Don't hate me. I feel that characters are more engaging when they have the majority of facial features. Something like Darth Vader is great on the design side and looks fearful, but there's not a great deal of interest or possible expression. So I wanted to do something at least cool with it and give him a Knightrider effect mouth that moves with each syllable.

The irony behind it is that the original US illustrator mistook the initial drawings of Metal and thought that a shine on his mouth covering was an actual mouth. So in some respects, he had a mouth at one stage, I'm just giving him a voice to go with it.

The poem, or rather song recited in the trailer is actually from the one and probably only theme tunes written for Metal, called 'What I'm Made of', composed by Jun Senoue and preformed by Crush 40.

The initial track was hard rock as you can imagine if you've never heard it before, but I wanted to take a part of those lyrics and put a sinister twist on it for this, I'm sure fans of the band will appreciate it (I hope!).

Metal's spinning stomach I've created to incorporate his insatiable need to collect data from the Sonic heroes. I imagined this would play a much larger part in this imaginary film, whereas Metal copies data from our 3, probably 4 man team including Shadow who was teased, finally transforming himself into his ultimate form, whether it would be Neo Metal or something else completely.

And finally, the end segment poses a type of annihilation event, where we can see Metal at the forefront, with...... any guesses what's in the background?

Metal first appeared in Sonic CD for the Mega CD in the mid 90's, the main reveal from the opening sequence was that Sonic had to travel to a place called 'Little Planet' tied down with a huge chain link. Little Planet is not by any means the most foreboding of names, but for this, I added it in for a fan service from the early days.

Hope you like it as much as I loved creating it.

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