I think of all the Sonic pictures I've done this one took the longest. I don't know if that's total time spent but I kept having trouble getting time to do this one (I have been busy lately) so all together it was like two weeks!

Spring Yard Zone is actually my favorite Sonic stage, so it's a bit surprising that it took this long to get to it! I had this general idea way back with the first set, but I was troubled by the layout and just felt too intimidated to go for it. In the end, it's quite different from what I originally had in mind but it's certainly close enough!

My favorite bit is the Roller dodging out of the way of the spiked ball and clamoring up to the other badniks. That whole area is extremely lively and I was a little worried that Sonic wouldn't stand out at all by comparison. I redesigned the Rollers to be more flexible, although I'm sure some people prefer the flip-top design, they were just too rigid so I altered them to be more like the little rolling guys from Sonic CD, and they're still plenty recognizable. Their legs are quite similar to Metal Sonic's in the game, I never noticed that before. Was it intentional, or is that just how Ohshima does robot legs? I also brought in a few motobugs to round out the crowd better, and I already did Yadorin in Marble Zone.

Sonic's spines were a bit of a struggle, I wanted them to be "blowing" back behind him, but I didn't want to make them all long and crazy. Hopefully they don't look too odd.