The Many Faces of Sonic The Hedgehog 

Notice how at the end of the scene in 12:09 when it ends and Sonic turns to face forward, his mouth also moves smoothly from the side to the center. Really impressive, I think it's the only Sonic game to do that (Unleashed and Colors just snapped the mouth, and idk of any other games to even care).

Knuckles angry with the sharp teeth is the best

0:01 chaomix asserts his dominance over the haters😂

9:03 something to also note here is how much attention to detail is put into these animations. You know Knuckles is saying something angrily when his teeth suddenly go sharp, in contrast to his usual straight teeth. It's amazing how cartoony they were able to make the cutscenes in this game, absolute gold.

7:50 just look at knuckles forming himself over there

That's funny, I was just thinking about Sonic's lack of expressions in the new Sonic games yesterday. Sonic has big squishy eyes, and yet they prefer using only the eyelids for different emotions. It's probably because it's "easier" to animate, or probably because deep down they don't care.

7:56 exactly. I'd rather have Sonic with exaggerated expressions, including his quills reacting to his emotions any day over Cardboard/stiff modern Sonic

The expressive facial animations in ‘Sonic Riders’ has always kinda reminded me of the ‘Teen Titans (2003)’ show.

SA1: The man of many faces

One of my favorite details about Boom's animations is that they finally really give their ears some life. It's such a nice small touch that makes them feel less like cardboard and more like living breathing creatures. I love when they give various parts of the character designs some extra life. It really helps sell their emotions and movements.

Ralph Breaks The Internet pretty much animated Sonic very well. His expressions are very well animated. As for his mouth movements, it actually moves to the side depending on where the camera is instead of staying on one side unlike in Sonic Forces. They should do something like that in a future game.

I'd love to see more expression from these characters. They just don't feel lively any more. Riders and Unleashed are pretty good templates for how expressive these characters can be and I hope they use those as examples for the future.

Hey chaomix, Sonopedia here

"Super Mario World" *"Earthbound"* "Chrono Trigger" "And of course the classic sonic games" Im gonna have to sub now

At first I thought this video was gonna be about how every era represent Sonic's character and attitude, it may not be that but I'm not complaining !

"I think the worst part is definitely the lip-syncing. It's still pretty hit-or-miss." Not in Japanese, it isn't.

I think Unleashed has the best sonic design, but I love the Adventure style too. Great vid!

I like to think that Sonic's mouth movement is so weird in the adventure games because he isn't used to talking (as generations revealed that Sonic was mute when he was younger)

I think the Sonic movie did pretty well with Sonic's expressions

I really wish SEGA would take advantage of the fact the characters are ANIMALS and actually use their ears, tails, and in the hedgehogs case: spines to show emotion. It would go a long way in helping them improve the quality. Also Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric as much as it pains me to say this, has the best facial animations. They make the characters look living without going completely over the top, it all feels oddly natural for a game as broken as it is.

Heck yeah, Riders and Zero Gravity knock it out of the park with expressive characters. Really want to see a return to that cartoony approach while allowing room for seriousness.

my favorites have to be boom, mania, the yt shorts, and knuckles' chaotix lots of good animations to be found in these also, to correct you on a statement you made about the "merch faces" in the mania shorts, tyson hesse commented on it when it became a huge discussion he said that there wasn't once a moment where he's animating and thinking about a certain frame getting merch or being memed it's quite apparent that it's just the sega social media doing it if you've seen any of tyson's previous work with sonic, his mega drive comics and fanart, you'll see a wide range of silly expressions and silly moments, he simply just wants to have fun with the characters /nm

Babe, wake up, Chaomix uploaded

Damn, he didn't even mention the Advance games and how fricken expressive the animations can get. Great video tho, I def agree with you on Sonic Boom.

The feeling when you have been consumed by sonic so much that you begin to do the SA faces almost regularly in an ironic way

I unironically love SA1s expressions

8:19 look at Amy's eyes

For what it is, I think SA1 has some of the most impressive animation of it's time. Back then, facial expressions were extremely stiff (if they were done at all), and not only do the mouths and eyebrows move up and down, they actually make recognizable expressions. I think the only 3D game that beats it is Mega Man Legends, which uses textures to convey facial expressions instead of modeled features that are moved around.

Both versions of Adventure 1 have beautiful faces.

that thumbnail-

I love it whenever chaomix uploads (it's definitely not because we both live in the same Windy City)

my favourites are the riders emotions, as well as the boom ones, i kinda grew up in the boom era and it's what got me into sonic in the first place so it holds a special place in my heart

my day be good then chaomix uploads my day be great

Great video by the way, I also care a lot about the facial expression in the games and cartoons. I'm glad I'm not the only one! I think it is very important to utilise it well to convey the emotions and the exaggeration is great, I think they hit the nail on the head with unleashed

Bro you put so much work into your videos, thank you!

That Neo Green Hill Zone music really takes me back, sigh. Great video dude!

Hey! I'm a new subscriber and wanted to say I love your videos! I gotta say Adventure 1 & 2 are my favourite looks of Sonic, Heroes too!

This is fantastic thanks for going into depth into this topic

AWE YEAH THIS IS HAPPENING

Oh cool, uploaded on my bday. Also sweet video dude

I always thought it was just me, but Sonic adventure 2 and sonic riders alwasy stuck out to me the most for those same reasons. The very first scene in Sonic Adventure Two where he leaps off the helicopter, grins at the camera in that cool pose and spirals down into the city will be burned into my mind for the rest of my life. And Sonic Riders gives the other characters, XD especially Knuckles as you just saw, some deep personality through their expressions. All and all, I believe it's a fair point to take note of character expressions, as Sonic is so iconic becuase cause his cool,snarky and thrill-loving personality.

I always thought Sonic's face in the original SA1 was actually a little scary, I'm glad they fixed it in DX.

Love your videos!

12:08 OMG, YOU CAN _CLEARLY_ SEE THE SIDE MOUTH SMOOTHLY CHANGE TO MIDDLE MOUTH! That's *amazing!* Knux's mouth changed sides when he gave the Avatar a pat on the back in Forces and it made me visibly cringe. But this? I LOVE this. People hate middle mouth for some reason but THIS is how it should be done! Middle mouth has its place in Sonic games just as much as side mouth. But I REFUSE to accept a bad case of side mouth unless it's artwork I guess.

I like how in some thumbnails you drew sonic when he is talking in game and the sonic adventure meme faces

Man what the hell happend too the intro? I luaghed so hard many times when i replayed this lol! But great video as ussual keep up the good work!

Hey, go look at some of the facial expressions of sonic advance 3. You'd be surprised how good they are

Honestly i’ll love 06 till the end of time. It was one of the first Sonic games ive ever played!

I know I'm late but I love the beginning where he did the bad lipsincing

Bonus points for using an expression from Adventure 1 in the thumbnail!

I never noticed Sonic's side mouth and now I will never look at his cutscenes the same way again

Great start

man in a couple months or maybe a year you'll get really big I can already feel it

I enjoyed what you did at the start

There's some things abt animating Sonic's face, since he does have just one eye 2 pupils, etc, but at the same time, it's extremely expressive, but there's a major difference abt 2D Sonic and 3D Sonic oficial animation by SEGA, the 2D ones They use Sonic’s eyebrows to express, and the help of his eyelids at times, Sonic adventure 1 & Mania adventures But then there's the 3D where Any facial expression uses a little of Sonic's eyebrows, and abuses his eyelids, the complete reverse both are great, but... Sonic 2006 looks like an GTA SA mod, they don't move their eyes In Forces even with a much lower budget, used lots of expressions that Sonic never used, when Sonic asks: Null space? With an expression of debauchery mixed with great doubt, that one's from side mouth, (i know Unleashed had that Sonic mouth sistem) Forces did better than Lost World, Generations and Collors... (Lower budget) But makes more sense in Forces, Sonic not having a sliding mouth lol but also cool. Sonic boom has the best models for expressions, since they have More anatomical hands and dimensions to animate... Also... I like Crash bandicoot because: since he has such big eyes, eyebrows, mouth etc he's super expressive even without talking. PS: Stop burning my Sonic Forces

Another great video✌

Omg, SA1 Sonic paused is crackin me up! Every frame is perfection XD

man why did i have to skip 4 minutes just to get to the actual video im looking at you chaomix

Whoa, never mind Sonic's face, you're pretty AF dude! 😍 I guess you must hear that a lot though hehe

If anyone's curious, the music at the very beginning is from pocket adventure, options menu. It's an 8-bit remix of data select from sonic 3. You're welcome

Gr8 vid dude! And thanks for the on screen shoutout! My most fav facial expressions would be from SA1 despite how janky they can look, but they’re so memorable and honestly quite hilarious to look back at

How do you upload so fast!? The videos are way to good to come out this quick!

This video is so good!

I hate to admit it...but Sonic Boom has the BEST facial expressions

0:05 - 0:12 A "handful of decades" could be as much as 40 years...

ur back

I love the thumbnail XD

I'm genuinely scared of characters of SA1, like, on one hands it's really fun to see their extremely exaggerated expressions, on the other hand, SONIC, DEAR, WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO YOUR JAW?? YOU GOOD????

10:35 GODDAMMIT, CHAOMIX!! I thought I was safe...

THANK YOU!! PEOPLE ALWAYS LOOK AT ME CRAZY WHEN I SAY SONIC RIDERS HAS THE MOST EXPRESSIVE CHARACTERS IN THE SERIES!! They're my favorite in-game look for the Sonic cast and part of that is nostalgia for the plastic ps2 models, but a lot is because of the great facial expressions and moments in that game

I've been watching this intro for 5 times now. Help

the limp-sync in SA2 is perfect with the japanese voice acting

the NPC stating "i don't wanna die" then dying is still my favorite quote out of a videogame ever. you can drop it anytime it works

Literally not even a second in and I'm already pissing myself

The best facial expression of the boost era is when you fall and don't tuch the controller in sonic forces and lost world, when you do that, sonic turn around, cross his arms and look at you like "look at me I'm cool" still not incredible but that's the face with the most expression in that era ( sad that you can only see it on gameplay)

Disney fixing the side mouth problem rather well, but I prefer when Sonic' mouth is in front like in the Eddie LeBron fan film.

That opening tho 🤧

i like the intro. it's funny.

I love how Sonic's ears and eyebrows sync more with his dialogue than his lips.

In Sonic mania, when he looks up and when he does the body shake, I see that as the cutest 2D animations out there

10:08 the song is ”Rooftop Run, Day”

Lol the thumbnail

Video starts at 4:38

I can't help but read your name as chadmix lol Also good video :)

Maybe Chamonix makes his own facial expression animations

The expressions in Sonic Boom (the show) were also really good.

I love the opening

I love your shirt

This video made me laugh so hardddd

A series about the Sonic voice actors. MAKE IT HAPPEN, CHAOMIX

The animations from sadx definitely have their charm even tough they're not perfect.

Yo @chaomix, which style do you prefer? Yuji Uekawa Style or Sonic's new art style in Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 which is based on Akira Mikame' style?

I never would have noticed if you didn't point it out but holy shit you're right, Sonic Boom legit animates the characters in a way that you'd WISH they animated the characters in the main series. And that side mouth? They legit put the effort in to switch what position the mouth is at depending on what direction their head is facing. Jesus Christ, how is that the one thing Boom got right over literally any of the other modern games.

7:50 can we talk about how I have no legs or left arm and then they just appear out of nowhere

Adventure 2's cutscenes are underrated imo. The emphasis on a more dynamic directing style and strong posing did a better job at hiding the stiffness of the models in comparison to sa1's constant idol animations (the helicopter scene is literally orgasmic).But it's bizarre how Shadow, Riders, Unleashed, and Boom are the only other 3d titles with competently made 3d cutscenes (aside from the often sexy pre-renders in other games)

i thought i was the only one who wasnt a fan of how sonic characters arent as expressive in recent sonic games!! i agree that sonic riders and sonic boom have really good expressions, and i personally think that they do it the best. sonic characters are anthro animals with exaggerated proportions and bright colours, so without exaggerated expressions they just feel lifeless and bland (in my opinion). its always been a huge pet peeve of mine with sonic games and im surprised more people dont talk about it *also, i love how in sonic riders the shape of knuckles teeth change from smooth to sharp if hes annoyed or angry, its something that happens a lot in cartoons/anime and really helps him become more expressive than he, and the other characters already were in that game :D

The two faces of Squidward

in mania adventures case, i'd argue that the animators aren't going out of their way to put in "meme-worthy" faces. exaggeration in cartoons is just inherently a part of good animation in 2D animation so if people find it funny and meme it, it's just...good. a lot of early disney and looney tunes stuff have memeable faces but it was just playing a part in exaggerating a funny moment or giving more expression to really sell a character's emotion and stuff

My favorite 2.5 Cyberpunk game is Spider The Video Game, it's actually quite crisp and the music makes it feel very modern, this is actually one of Rockstar Games' games before they became that.

0:00 WHY HE POSING LIKE THAT, LMAO!