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Description
Edit: I think the links in this tutorial might be dead, if that's the case I may have to make another tutorial from scratch as I no longer have access to the original images.

How to draw Sonic The Hedgehog:

I'd really appreciate some feedback on this tutorial, should I continue and make more of these, or is it not helpful? I honestly don't know what to think, I'ts my most viewed devitation but I hardly have any feedback on whether it's helpful or not?

-Introduction-

Hey Everyone, I realise out there, there are a huge amount of Sonic fans who are fustrated because they want to bring their wonderful and creative ideas of Sonic fan-fiction to life but just can't seem to draw Sonic, no matter how hard they try!
Thats why I have created this 19 step tutorial to help everyone of you out, starting completely from scratch, it does not matter if you have any experience in drawing or not because I guarantee by the end of this session you will be able to draw Sonic just like in the picture above.

Now I'm no expert, I didn't have the privilege to study art at school or read books on how to draw, everything I do is entirely self taught and I have always kept to my own standards and style, slightly improving over time with each new piece I create.

The key to becoming good at art is to -Never Give Up!- going through this step by step guide, even if you follow everything I said your version of sonic may not be as good at first but keep at it and remember everything that's taught, and you'll soon be on your way to becoming a pro!

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[Update: I will go through all the text below later sorting out all the spelling mistakes etc, its really late for me now and I need to rest until morning.]

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In this tutorial I will show you how to draw 3 different versions of sonic, A realistic version of sonic, an anime version and an angry sonic. in the more advanced tutorial I will compare retro sonic with the modern version, I will show you the sonic adventure style and how to draw the back of sonic.
-

First of all I want to say, I'm not an expert, I made this tutorial to show you all how I personally draw Sonic characters and hope that it will help beginers and amature artists who have always struggled to draw, improve their skills and broaden their horizons.
I will show step by step how I draw sonic and hopefully for those of you who couldn't draw him before will be well on their way to now!
Ok so lets get started!
Click on the links in each step to see the image and follow the instructions.

step 1. - img20.imageshack.us/img20/5020…

First off I start with the Nose, thats very important for me because that positions sonics face so I can tell what direction he's facing the picture, what expression I can take from there and most importantly what angle the rest of his head will be facing.
don't forget to position the tip of light on his nose accordingly, how big or how small the gloss effect on his nose is, is never important, but it does help the audience to identify the structure of lighting in the (soon to be) environment around him.
Remember that tip of light is just a reflection of gloss, It's not actually a part of his nose or some kind of birthmark patch.

step 2 - img20.imageshack.us/img20/231/…

next, I start off with the mouth, Now It's quite hard to get the shape of the mouth right at first but keep practising and get used to the shape, the curvy smile should be easy to replicate.
if you look below you'll notice I'm begining to draw a Second Sonic now which will represent my 'anime sonic' while this main one will be my 'realistic sonic', I'll show you both styles and let you choose which one you preffer to adapt to, either way it makes no real difference in the end
Personally I find anime sonic more work because of the added gloss effect but realistic sonic requires a bit more presision and attention to detail!
One thing you'll notice about anime sonic is his new trademark 'toothy grin' that he now often wears, to do that, just start off with an open smile but instead of filling the smile with a mouth, just do 3 small lines inside the mouth from the bottom, working their way up and stop! You'll never need no more than 3 if it's a small grin, maybe 4 lines if his grin is a lot bigger.

step 3 - img20.imageshack.us/img20/3831…

Eyes. Sonic's legendary eye socket is very unique to the series and is what instantly identifies Sonic apart from other cartoon/video game characters. Even if it's a character you don't recognise like mighty the armadillo, ray the flying squirrel or bean the dynamite, you instantly see the eyes and with that, you just know that character belongs only to the sonic universe!
This is where the importance of the shape of the mouth comes in because I use that curve in sonic's mouth, to decide where the eye socket begins and take it from there.
The size and direction of the eye socket depends entirely on sonic's (to be) facial expression, notice in my anime sonic he is preparing for a cheeky/hyperactive look where as the main sonic is calm and more relaxed. this is important because the height, width and angle of the eye socket is utterly essential to his expression, if he is angry, the eye socket won't have a lot of height or width, it will be more argulated like Shadow's eye socket, which takes after Sonic's angry look as shadow as obviously designed after sonic.

step 4 - img268.imageshack.us/img268/80…

Now to finish the eye socket, depending again on the expression and the angle the head is facing, if it is anything like anime sonic you would bring the brow up into the air and end it, then bring another line up from the opposite end of the face to complete the look. As for realistic sonic, because his angle is more towards the camera than anime sonic so you would more likely be required to draw the other eye socket in full, It can be hard to keep both eye sockets accurate, believe you me I did mess up as well but don't give up and keep going with it!

step 5 - img20.imageshack.us/img20/2018…

Now for the eyes themselves, first begin within the centre of the 'main' eye socket (the eye socket closest to you is always the main one in the sonic universe) and draw an overal eye ball, make it big because you will then need to draw the pupil of the eye within the eye, but not too big because it will make sonic look Chibi and that's not the look we're going for right now if we want to be accurate so Sonic team's design.
the eye we're drawing now is the 'green eye' and it will need to fit the 'classic black and white eye' within it. As for the other eye it is always to the side of the second eye socket, rested against the corner, hidden between the eye and the nose, it is rarely ever floating away from the eye brow unless sonic is looking away from the camera.
And now to save time I will also draw the eye brow's themselves, the main eye brow goes above the main eye socket, always in this fashion, even when he's angry. The second eyebrow will variate into two styles, for a realistic sonic you will draw it from the tip of the mouth up to the second eye socket, but for anime sonic, instead you start the brow from near halfway up the tip of the second eye socket and kinda draw around the line of the second eye socket, bring it over to form the second eye brow.

As I have spoken quite a lot about angry sonic I will now begin drawing him as well in the left hand corner so you can compare all 3 versions of sonic and see hwo the expressions are drawn differently.
Notice how angry sonic begins to ressemble shadow in facial expression more than the cheerful versions of himself, although it's near impossible for shadow to draw away from his style of expression, he too could possibly simulate sonic's emotions as both him and sonic are from the same species of hedgehog.

Step 6 - img31.imageshack.us/img31/8500…

I will now fill in the eyeballs and add full detail to them, sometimes you see light reflecting off both the top and the bottom of the eyeball but in most cases, this is never really required, it's more of an additional bonus that the old american art style liked to include.
(Fun fact: althrough it was almost impossible to ever notice, sonic did in fact have an eye colour in the old japanese segasonic style before sonic adventure, it was infact a really dark blue that blended in so well with the black and white eyeball style you'd have to look incredibly close to ever notice it was there.)
I should now tell you the difference between the eye detail in realistic sonic and anime sonic, although it gives you the impression that the white in sonic's eye is part of the eyeball it is in fact, like on sonic's nose, a gloss effect reflecting from the light, in the realistic version of sonic this light source can come from anywhere, it really doesn't matter, but as for anime sonic, the light in sonic's eye is always in the top left hand corner of his eye and dominates at least 2/5th's of his eyeball.
Note that no matter where sonic is looking, the light source will always stay within the top left hand corner of his eye and never move, it is not his eyeball, just the light caught up in it. I know the anime, Sonic X uses a different style of eyeball but that's because that show was made by different animators and artists, we're taking on the Sonic Team's style of drawing anime characters.

step 7 - img20.imageshack.us/img20/4748…

Now we begin to draw the pointy triangular ears for sonic, this is important and quite hard to get right as where the ears are places positions his entire head so It's imprtant to get right unless you want him to have a really Big or small shaped head! (I must admit mines not perfect but as Im going to be drawing big long spikes on realistic sonic I think I can manage to pull it off ok)
Now the thing is, really, you should always draw the main ear first (the ear closest to the main eye socket), and leave out the second ear till after you've drawn the base of the head, this is because in the anime version, the second ear is always behind the head, never in front! But for realistic sonic, as I'm going to be drawing spikes on both side of his face It's ok to get away with it, though I'd still reccommend being patient and waiting for the head to come together first.

step 8 - img269.imageshack.us/img269/45…

This is where it starts to get a bit complicated now because I've got 3 different sonic's on my page each doing a unique pose so I have to explain 3 different sequences seperately.
I normally draw the head of sonic before the body but for realistic sonic, because I'm having him in a pose where he's sticking his chest out I need to draw the chest first as it sticks away from the arms and his spikes
So for realistic sonic's chest it is just a circle that comes just underneith his chin.

For the anime version's of sonic, I will be drawing the arms and hands next to follow my lead.
Start off with a long sausage like arm for sonic, starting from one end which will be where the glove is drawn, working your way up to sonic's jaw, then when forming a nice round edge, work your way back down again to match up with the first line, this creates sonics arm (ignore angry sonic for now because I will go on to him later when I need to draw the glove itself.

step 9 - img20.imageshack.us/img20/4003…

Things begin to get really hard and complicated now as we begin to draw sonic's gloves on anime sonic, depending on what angle your looking at sonic depends on how you draw the gloves, if your looking at sonic from above, you would show partly the inside of the glove and it would be slightly baggy with line to end the arm and stop you looking in (look at angry sonic). The old classic style of sonic had really baggy gloves and socks where they would sag open and reviel an almost black abyss but now It's all just simply done with a line to close it off.
But if your looking at sonic from below like the anime sonic on the right, you would draw the top part of the outside of the glove first, not showing any part of the inside whatsoever. try not to get confused, the more you work with sonic the more you will begin to notice that difference.

try to ignore realistic sonic for now, I normally make it a rule never to draw the body until the arms are done but for this particular pose sonics arms don't interfere with his body so there's no need to worry for the arms and the body crossing paths and making a mess of the picture. (Remember always draw the arms BEFORE the body! Especially if the arms are infront of the body! never make that mistake or you WILL pay for it with a ruined picture!)

step 10 - img268.imageshack.us/img268/90…

Im leaving realistic sonic for now to focus on the hands of the other two, see not with anime sonic I've completed the glove and began working on the fingers, as you can see he kinda has long, droopy like sausage fingers but never draw his fingers like some cartoon sausage dog, you should know that even though you can't see it, sonic does have a bone structure like all of us and he does have bones in his fingers, but for his anime look we're tryign to make sonic look less 'macho and boney' and have more of a sleek, cartoony appeal, so just don't get over carried away with the fingers and remember to always draw one finger infront of the other. His hands don't strech out like an open palm, the fingers rest between each other, draw one then draw the others behind it.
As for angry sonic you can see I've already finished off the rest of his arms, he's going for a contempt shadow the hedgehog look with his arms crossing over each other, I was never good at this so i tried to simplify it as best I could, It's not perfect but you can see I've taken some detail away from his hands to help you concentrate better on his arms and gloves if this is your first time drawing sonic.

step 11 - img20.imageshack.us/img20/962/…

Again ignore realistic sonic for now as Im going to focus solely on the two anime sonic's. As you can see I've finished off the hand of anime snic fully, adding the smaller fingers bringing it up to the back end of the hand. As for angry sonic, I've finished off the arms, stomach and shoulders to keep up with anime sonic.
Now Im going back to the head and the line that I'm drawing is to seperate the face from the spikes, this is important (not required for realistic sonic, only the anime sonic's) to position where sonic's head is and where his spikes will go.

step 12 - img31.imageshack.us/img31/8870…

I've now begun to draw the bottom spike of both sonic's, thats the most important spike as, like the main eye socket, it positions sonic's face and head into perspective and you use it as a guideline to bring the rest of the head together.
I accidently made a mistake on anime sonic's armpit, damn Big Brother live was distracting me, sorry, lol
Now as for the other arm, you can see I'm getting sonic to do a Thumbs up, I started from the thumb and pulled it up, you can't see the tip of the thumb but Im bringing it down and begining to draw the fingers curled up into his palm. I found it best to use my own hand as a drawing refference for this as It's quite a complicated area to perfect.

Step 13 - img20.imageshack.us/img20/8955…

Ok starting from Spike number 1 and working your way up to 2 (middle) and 3 (top) then bring it back from the tip of the top spike all the way down to the second eyebrow. Or, you can do vice versa and start from the eyebrow, work your way up to form the top spike then bring it down to make room for the second spike.
Im a little embarrest, I must admit this is not my best anime sonic, Im getting too distracted by Big brother live, lol but as everyone will eventually gain their own unique style of drawing sonic, big or short spikes are acceptable, as long as the face is accurate as possible. thats all that truely matters.
Also for the second ear, don't fill it in for anime sonic, leave it blank as in anime form, his second ear faces away from the camera, yet in realistic sonic is stays in place like the first ear.

step 14 - img20.imageshack.us/img20/7708…

Your now ready to begin working on sonic's body, draw a line that stays almost parrallel to his yellow body and follows it along travelling upwards, do NOT join it to his arms or head as you leave a gap to draw his main back spike. remember sonic only has 2 spikes on his back, 6 on his head but you only see 3/6 at a time unless your looking at sonic from a unique angle where you can see both sides of his face or his back.

step 15 - img43.imageshack.us/img43/6838…

Im now drawing sonic's legs, you should note they are no longer short and stubby liek they were in the old style of sonic, Now they are long and sleek, they remain extremely thin like the rest of his body and never need any real attention to detail like kneecaps or calfs or anything, they are thin and bendy, like his arms, never really stretchy but definatly bendable.
I have also drawn sonic's tail, I will save his second backspike till next as the tail should come first.

step 16 - img190.imageshack.us/img190/92…

Now we're drawing sonic's socks, In the same style of his gloves, weither his socks are droopy or solid/stiff is entirely up to you, whichever you preffer best but in modern days his socks are more droopy and have a bit more attention to detail as sonic sprints and his knee's bend.
Im not bothering to draw the backspike on anime sonic as his body is drawn at a particular angle where you don't need to see it, bit thats only acceptible at this exact angle, any other angle and you will always need to draw two back spikes.
Im also now going back to finishing off realistic sonic, the reason I left him out before was because I wasn't sure how big the other two sonic's heads were going to be and I didn't want them to get in the way of realistic sonic's shoes.

step 17 - img20.imageshack.us/img20/5571…

Now that I've finnished the socks, Im drawing the base shape of the shoes, they're kind of a cone shape but never draw them with the intention of drawing them triangular because you will fail if you try in that technique, unlike the DIC cartoon series, sonic does not have flat feet, they're actually quite big. Try to draw them in the shape I have shown.
I have also included spikes to the realistic sonic model but take note of the spikes I have done and question why I haven't done the others... you will soon see why.

step 18 - img196.imageshack.us/img196/22…

I've now added the classic white stripe to sonic's sneakers and the gold buckle that most new-to-sonic artists often neglect or arn't actually aware exists. the gold buckle is always on the edge of sonic's feet furthest away from each other so the gold buckle on his left foot is on his left and the buckle on the right foot is on the right, so they're not touching each other.
Notice again how the stripe on anime sonic's sneakers look more around and cartoony, simply joining lines from one end of the foot to the other, where as the realistic sonic's sneaker stripes make the feet appear more 3D as they eventualy drag up then across the foot then bring back down to the buckle.
you should note that you rarely ever see both shoe buckles at the same time as sonic's feet are always positioned away from each other.
Also now I have finished realistic sonic's spikes, as you can see unlike the anime sonic models, sonic's top spike isn't sharp, it droops downwards and sags just above the 2nd spike (which I call the twins. remember sonic has 6 spikes on the back of his head, 2 x 2 x 2, but whats interesting is that you only normally see 3 spikes at a time. Anyway As realistic sonic's more 3D and flexible, you can see his forth spike with ease, normally anime sonic restricts this and only allows you to see 3 spikes when you look at sonic from a side angle. remember this difference as it is very important to leting your audience know which version of sonic your attemtpign to draw.

step 19

Now adding detail and shading is entirely up to you, for sonic team's unique anime style, they add a streak of ligght along the base of their characters, like with sonic for example, they have a light streak go along the blue fur where all the lines you have previously drawn meet up. It's a very hard style to perfect so learn to draw sonic without it first then eventually begin practicing when you feel confident to experiement with styles. Even Im far from perfect yet, but I personally preffer the realistic sonic style anyway.
Well thats it for this beginers tutorial, I will admit these arn't my best drawings of sonic as Im still far from a proffessonal but I will continute this with an advanced tutorial on how to draw classic sonic and modern sonic from different angles.
have fun and hope this helps you on your way as a sonic fan to start making your own sonic fan illustrations and maybe comics and animation in the future.
Soon I will make tutorials for other characters such as Tails, Knuckles, amy and co.

Description
Edit: I think the links in this tutorial might be dead, if that's the case I may have to make another tutorial from scratch as I no longer have access to the original images.

How to draw Sonic The Hedgehog:

I'd really appreciate some feedback on this tutorial, should I continue and make more of these, or is it not helpful? I honestly don't know what to think, I'ts my most viewed devitation but I hardly have any feedback on whether it's helpful or not?

-Introduction-

Hey Everyone, I realise out there, there are a huge amount of Sonic fans who are fustrated because they want to bring their wonderful and creative ideas of Sonic fan-fiction to life but just can't seem to draw Sonic, no matter how hard they try!
Thats why I have created this 19 step tutorial to help everyone of you out, starting completely from scratch, it does not matter if you have any experience in drawing or not because I guarantee by the end of this session you will be able to draw Sonic just like in the picture above.

Now I'm no expert, I didn't have the privilege to study art at school or read books on how to draw, everything I do is entirely self taught and I have always kept to my own standards and style, slightly improving over time with each new piece I create.

The key to becoming good at art is to -Never Give Up!- going through this step by step guide, even if you follow everything I said your version of sonic may not be as good at first but keep at it and remember everything that's taught, and you'll soon be on your way to becoming a pro!

-
[Update: I will go through all the text below later sorting out all the spelling mistakes etc, its really late for me now and I need to rest until morning.]

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In this tutorial I will show you how to draw 3 different versions of sonic, A realistic version of sonic, an anime version and an angry sonic. in the more advanced tutorial I will compare retro sonic with the modern version, I will show you the sonic adventure style and how to draw the back of sonic.
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First of all I want to say, I'm not an expert, I made this tutorial to show you all how I personally draw Sonic characters and hope that it will help beginers and amature artists who have always struggled to draw, improve their skills and broaden their horizons.
I will show step by step how I draw sonic and hopefully for those of you who couldn't draw him before will be well on their way to now!
Ok so lets get started!
Click on the links in each step to see the image and follow the instructions.

step 1. - img20.imageshack.us/img20/5020…

First off I start with the Nose, thats very important for me because that positions sonics face so I can tell what direction he's facing the picture, what expression I can take from there and most importantly what angle the rest of his head will be facing.
don't forget to position the tip of light on his nose accordingly, how big or how small the gloss effect on his nose is, is never important, but it does help the audience to identify the structure of lighting in the (soon to be) environment around him.
Remember that tip of light is just a reflection of gloss, It's not actually a part of his nose or some kind of birthmark patch.

step 2 - img20.imageshack.us/img20/231/…

next, I start off with the mouth, Now It's quite hard to get the shape of the mouth right at first but keep practising and get used to the shape, the curvy smile should be easy to replicate.
if you look below you'll notice I'm begining to draw a Second Sonic now which will represent my 'anime sonic' while this main one will be my 'realistic sonic', I'll show you both styles and let you choose which one you preffer to adapt to, either way it makes no real difference in the end
Personally I find anime sonic more work because of the added gloss effect but realistic sonic requires a bit more presision and attention to detail!
One thing you'll notice about anime sonic is his new trademark 'toothy grin' that he now often wears, to do that, just start off with an open smile but instead of filling the smile with a mouth, just do 3 small lines inside the mouth from the bottom, working their way up and stop! You'll never need no more than 3 if it's a small grin, maybe 4 lines if his grin is a lot bigger.

step 3 - img20.imageshack.us/img20/3831…

Eyes. Sonic's legendary eye socket is very unique to the series and is what instantly identifies Sonic apart from other cartoon/video game characters. Even if it's a character you don't recognise like mighty the armadillo, ray the flying squirrel or bean the dynamite, you instantly see the eyes and with that, you just know that character belongs only to the sonic universe!
This is where the importance of the shape of the mouth comes in because I use that curve in sonic's mouth, to decide where the eye socket begins and take it from there.
The size and direction of the eye socket depends entirely on sonic's (to be) facial expression, notice in my anime sonic he is preparing for a cheeky/hyperactive look where as the main sonic is calm and more relaxed. this is important because the height, width and angle of the eye socket is utterly essential to his expression, if he is angry, the eye socket won't have a lot of height or width, it will be more argulated like Shadow's eye socket, which takes after Sonic's angry look as shadow as obviously designed after sonic.

step 4 - img268.imageshack.us/img268/80…

Now to finish the eye socket, depending again on the expression and the angle the head is facing, if it is anything like anime sonic you would bring the brow up into the air and end it, then bring another line up from the opposite end of the face to complete the look. As for realistic sonic, because his angle is more towards the camera than anime sonic so you would more likely be required to draw the other eye socket in full, It can be hard to keep both eye sockets accurate, believe you me I did mess up as well but don't give up and keep going with it!

step 5 - img20.imageshack.us/img20/2018…

Now for the eyes themselves, first begin within the centre of the 'main' eye socket (the eye socket closest to you is always the main one in the sonic universe) and draw an overal eye ball, make it big because you will then need to draw the pupil of the eye within the eye, but not too big because it will make sonic look Chibi and that's not the look we're going for right now if we want to be accurate so Sonic team's design.
the eye we're drawing now is the 'green eye' and it will need to fit the 'classic black and white eye' within it. As for the other eye it is always to the side of the second eye socket, rested against the corner, hidden between the eye and the nose, it is rarely ever floating away from the eye brow unless sonic is looking away from the camera.
And now to save time I will also draw the eye brow's themselves, the main eye brow goes above the main eye socket, always in this fashion, even when he's angry. The second eyebrow will variate into two styles, for a realistic sonic you will draw it from the tip of the mouth up to the second eye socket, but for anime sonic, instead you start the brow from near halfway up the tip of the second eye socket and kinda draw around the line of the second eye socket, bring it over to form the second eye brow.

As I have spoken quite a lot about angry sonic I will now begin drawing him as well in the left hand corner so you can compare all 3 versions of sonic and see hwo the expressions are drawn differently.
Notice how angry sonic begins to ressemble shadow in facial expression more than the cheerful versions of himself, although it's near impossible for shadow to draw away from his style of expression, he too could possibly simulate sonic's emotions as both him and sonic are from the same species of hedgehog.

Step 6 - img31.imageshack.us/img31/8500…

I will now fill in the eyeballs and add full detail to them, sometimes you see light reflecting off both the top and the bottom of the eyeball but in most cases, this is never really required, it's more of an additional bonus that the old american art style liked to include.
(Fun fact: althrough it was almost impossible to ever notice, sonic did in fact have an eye colour in the old japanese segasonic style before sonic adventure, it was infact a really dark blue that blended in so well with the black and white eyeball style you'd have to look incredibly close to ever notice it was there.)
I should now tell you the difference between the eye detail in realistic sonic and anime sonic, although it gives you the impression that the white in sonic's eye is part of the eyeball it is in fact, like on sonic's nose, a gloss effect reflecting from the light, in the realistic version of sonic this light source can come from anywhere, it really doesn't matter, but as for anime sonic, the light in sonic's eye is always in the top left hand corner of his eye and dominates at least 2/5th's of his eyeball.
Note that no matter where sonic is looking, the light source will always stay within the top left hand corner of his eye and never move, it is not his eyeball, just the light caught up in it. I know the anime, Sonic X uses a different style of eyeball but that's because that show was made by different animators and artists, we're taking on the Sonic Team's style of drawing anime characters.

step 7 - img20.imageshack.us/img20/4748…

Now we begin to draw the pointy triangular ears for sonic, this is important and quite hard to get right as where the ears are places positions his entire head so It's imprtant to get right unless you want him to have a really Big or small shaped head! (I must admit mines not perfect but as Im going to be drawing big long spikes on realistic sonic I think I can manage to pull it off ok)
Now the thing is, really, you should always draw the main ear first (the ear closest to the main eye socket), and leave out the second ear till after you've drawn the base of the head, this is because in the anime version, the second ear is always behind the head, never in front! But for realistic sonic, as I'm going to be drawing spikes on both side of his face It's ok to get away with it, though I'd still reccommend being patient and waiting for the head to come together first.

step 8 - img269.imageshack.us/img269/45…

This is where it starts to get a bit complicated now because I've got 3 different sonic's on my page each doing a unique pose so I have to explain 3 different sequences seperately.
I normally draw the head of sonic before the body but for realistic sonic, because I'm having him in a pose where he's sticking his chest out I need to draw the chest first as it sticks away from the arms and his spikes
So for realistic sonic's chest it is just a circle that comes just underneith his chin.

For the anime version's of sonic, I will be drawing the arms and hands next to follow my lead.
Start off with a long sausage like arm for sonic, starting from one end which will be where the glove is drawn, working your way up to sonic's jaw, then when forming a nice round edge, work your way back down again to match up with the first line, this creates sonics arm (ignore angry sonic for now because I will go on to him later when I need to draw the glove itself.

step 9 - img20.imageshack.us/img20/4003…

Things begin to get really hard and complicated now as we begin to draw sonic's gloves on anime sonic, depending on what angle your looking at sonic depends on how you draw the gloves, if your looking at sonic from above, you would show partly the inside of the glove and it would be slightly baggy with line to end the arm and stop you looking in (look at angry sonic). The old classic style of sonic had really baggy gloves and socks where they would sag open and reviel an almost black abyss but now It's all just simply done with a line to close it off.
But if your looking at sonic from below like the anime sonic on the right, you would draw the top part of the outside of the glove first, not showing any part of the inside whatsoever. try not to get confused, the more you work with sonic the more you will begin to notice that difference.

try to ignore realistic sonic for now, I normally make it a rule never to draw the body until the arms are done but for this particular pose sonics arms don't interfere with his body so there's no need to worry for the arms and the body crossing paths and making a mess of the picture. (Remember always draw the arms BEFORE the body! Especially if the arms are infront of the body! never make that mistake or you WILL pay for it with a ruined picture!)

step 10 - img268.imageshack.us/img268/90…

Im leaving realistic sonic for now to focus on the hands of the other two, see not with anime sonic I've completed the glove and began working on the fingers, as you can see he kinda has long, droopy like sausage fingers but never draw his fingers like some cartoon sausage dog, you should know that even though you can't see it, sonic does have a bone structure like all of us and he does have bones in his fingers, but for his anime look we're tryign to make sonic look less 'macho and boney' and have more of a sleek, cartoony appeal, so just don't get over carried away with the fingers and remember to always draw one finger infront of the other. His hands don't strech out like an open palm, the fingers rest between each other, draw one then draw the others behind it.
As for angry sonic you can see I've already finished off the rest of his arms, he's going for a contempt shadow the hedgehog look with his arms crossing over each other, I was never good at this so i tried to simplify it as best I could, It's not perfect but you can see I've taken some detail away from his hands to help you concentrate better on his arms and gloves if this is your first time drawing sonic.

step 11 - img20.imageshack.us/img20/962/…

Again ignore realistic sonic for now as Im going to focus solely on the two anime sonic's. As you can see I've finished off the hand of anime snic fully, adding the smaller fingers bringing it up to the back end of the hand. As for angry sonic, I've finished off the arms, stomach and shoulders to keep up with anime sonic.
Now Im going back to the head and the line that I'm drawing is to seperate the face from the spikes, this is important (not required for realistic sonic, only the anime sonic's) to position where sonic's head is and where his spikes will go.

step 12 - img31.imageshack.us/img31/8870…

I've now begun to draw the bottom spike of both sonic's, thats the most important spike as, like the main eye socket, it positions sonic's face and head into perspective and you use it as a guideline to bring the rest of the head together.
I accidently made a mistake on anime sonic's armpit, damn Big Brother live was distracting me, sorry, lol
Now as for the other arm, you can see I'm getting sonic to do a Thumbs up, I started from the thumb and pulled it up, you can't see the tip of the thumb but Im bringing it down and begining to draw the fingers curled up into his palm. I found it best to use my own hand as a drawing refference for this as It's quite a complicated area to perfect.

Step 13 - img20.imageshack.us/img20/8955…

Ok starting from Spike number 1 and working your way up to 2 (middle) and 3 (top) then bring it back from the tip of the top spike all the way down to the second eyebrow. Or, you can do vice versa and start from the eyebrow, work your way up to form the top spike then bring it down to make room for the second spike.
Im a little embarrest, I must admit this is not my best anime sonic, Im getting too distracted by Big brother live, lol but as everyone will eventually gain their own unique style of drawing sonic, big or short spikes are acceptable, as long as the face is accurate as possible. thats all that truely matters.
Also for the second ear, don't fill it in for anime sonic, leave it blank as in anime form, his second ear faces away from the camera, yet in realistic sonic is stays in place like the first ear.

step 14 - img20.imageshack.us/img20/7708…

Your now ready to begin working on sonic's body, draw a line that stays almost parrallel to his yellow body and follows it along travelling upwards, do NOT join it to his arms or head as you leave a gap to draw his main back spike. remember sonic only has 2 spikes on his back, 6 on his head but you only see 3/6 at a time unless your looking at sonic from a unique angle where you can see both sides of his face or his back.

step 15 - img43.imageshack.us/img43/6838…

Im now drawing sonic's legs, you should note they are no longer short and stubby liek they were in the old style of sonic, Now they are long and sleek, they remain extremely thin like the rest of his body and never need any real attention to detail like kneecaps or calfs or anything, they are thin and bendy, like his arms, never really stretchy but definatly bendable.
I have also drawn sonic's tail, I will save his second backspike till next as the tail should come first.

step 16 - img190.imageshack.us/img190/92…

Now we're drawing sonic's socks, In the same style of his gloves, weither his socks are droopy or solid/stiff is entirely up to you, whichever you preffer best but in modern days his socks are more droopy and have a bit more attention to detail as sonic sprints and his knee's bend.
Im not bothering to draw the backspike on anime sonic as his body is drawn at a particular angle where you don't need to see it, bit thats only acceptible at this exact angle, any other angle and you will always need to draw two back spikes.
Im also now going back to finishing off realistic sonic, the reason I left him out before was because I wasn't sure how big the other two sonic's heads were going to be and I didn't want them to get in the way of realistic sonic's shoes.

step 17 - img20.imageshack.us/img20/5571…

Now that I've finnished the socks, Im drawing the base shape of the shoes, they're kind of a cone shape but never draw them with the intention of drawing them triangular because you will fail if you try in that technique, unlike the DIC cartoon series, sonic does not have flat feet, they're actually quite big. Try to draw them in the shape I have shown.
I have also included spikes to the realistic sonic model but take note of the spikes I have done and question why I haven't done the others... you will soon see why.

step 18 - img196.imageshack.us/img196/22…

I've now added the classic white stripe to sonic's sneakers and the gold buckle that most new-to-sonic artists often neglect or arn't actually aware exists. the gold buckle is always on the edge of sonic's feet furthest away from each other so the gold buckle on his left foot is on his left and the buckle on the right foot is on the right, so they're not touching each other.
Notice again how the stripe on anime sonic's sneakers look more around and cartoony, simply joining lines from one end of the foot to the other, where as the realistic sonic's sneaker stripes make the feet appear more 3D as they eventualy drag up then across the foot then bring back down to the buckle.
you should note that you rarely ever see both shoe buckles at the same time as sonic's feet are always positioned away from each other.
Also now I have finished realistic sonic's spikes, as you can see unlike the anime sonic models, sonic's top spike isn't sharp, it droops downwards and sags just above the 2nd spike (which I call the twins. remember sonic has 6 spikes on the back of his head, 2 x 2 x 2, but whats interesting is that you only normally see 3 spikes at a time. Anyway As realistic sonic's more 3D and flexible, you can see his forth spike with ease, normally anime sonic restricts this and only allows you to see 3 spikes when you look at sonic from a side angle. remember this difference as it is very important to leting your audience know which version of sonic your attemtpign to draw.

step 19

Now adding detail and shading is entirely up to you, for sonic team's unique anime style, they add a streak of ligght along the base of their characters, like with sonic for example, they have a light streak go along the blue fur where all the lines you have previously drawn meet up. It's a very hard style to perfect so learn to draw sonic without it first then eventually begin practicing when you feel confident to experiement with styles. Even Im far from perfect yet, but I personally preffer the realistic sonic style anyway.
Well thats it for this beginers tutorial, I will admit these arn't my best drawings of sonic as Im still far from a proffessonal but I will continute this with an advanced tutorial on how to draw classic sonic and modern sonic from different angles.
have fun and hope this helps you on your way as a sonic fan to start making your own sonic fan illustrations and maybe comics and animation in the future.
Soon I will make tutorials for other characters such as Tails, Knuckles, amy and co.