Anti-aircraft gun on top of the Chain Bridge. Budapest, 1944.
via reddit
Anonymous asked:
Well, the first instance of Eggman/Robotnik having black eyes dates back to the development of Sonic 1, all the way back in 1990. Where he was being redesigned for the western market, and features on this poster. Here though he simply has black dot eyes as seen in many cartoons and comics:

Something more similar to the ‘classic’ western design appeared in the Sonic the Hedgehog promotional comic that came out in the autumn of 1991. Again though, no red pupils:

In both cases it seemed that the marketing team decided to interpret Eggman’s dark glasses as eyes, maybe to make him more expressive. The red pupils were probably an addition by DiC (though there may be a poster or something that predates it), maybe by Milton Knight himself in his model sheets:

These came out in late 1992/early 1993 (which was when both AoStH and SatAM were developed. Contrary to popular opinion, SatAM started development first), Metal Sonic’s designer, Kazuyuki Hoshino, began working on the character in early 1992, so that beat’s DiC to the punch. However it’s doubtful that either group knew of each other’s work. Indeed DiC’s shows drew direct influence from Sonic 2 rather than CD. There’s also another thing that isn’t taken into equation here, another metal doppelganger of Sonic, Mecha/Silver Sonic from Sonic 2, who also has red irses.

As for which was first developed, it’s pretty convoluted, both Sonic 2 and Sonic CD were being made in 1992, by different teams (2 in the USA and CD in Japan) and around the same time, and we don’t know if Metal or Mecha came first. We do know that DiC would have seen materials from Sonic 2, so the red-iris Robotnik idea idea could have come from that. And I’d say with 80% certainty that Pseudo Sonic from AoStH was based off Silver Sonic rather than Metal Sonic (if based off him at all, robotic doubles are a common trope). Then there are the comics by Archie which started off with a 4-part mini-series which was first published in November 1992(?), so again around the same time SatAM/AoStH started being made (perhaps even a bit before it). Here Robotnik has the black eyes and red irises. However as you can see from this cover it states March, which is contrary to what the wiki says (maybe they were published in other magazines?), you can see why this is a much harder question to answer than it should be. Edit: Apparently it’s common for comics to have the cover date be a few months after their release, to increase shelf-life).

I know I’m being very vague with these dates, but the simple fact of the matter is we know more about the chronology of historical battles and campaigns that occurred hundreds of years ago, right down to the hour in some cases than we do about a lot of early Sonic development, game, comic or cartoon. We know that Marshal Ney committed his final cavalry charge against the British/Allied centre at Waterloo at around 5:30pm on the 18th of June 1815. Whereas no-one at Sega Technical Institute ever seemed to have written down, “dear diary, just came up with a snazzy new badnik. 5/5/1992″. At least if they did nobody seems to have made a record of it since for a history of the series. It’s a mess.

So, we’re just going to have to go with release/airing dates here. Therefore to answer your question “which character was the first to exhibit the black eyes with red irises trait?” it was neither Metal Sonic or Western Robotnik. It was Silver Sonic/Mecha Sonic from Sonic 2, probably. There might just be a drawing of Robotnik with red eyes in Andy Heyward’s office that he drew on a napkin from 1991 for all I know.
Please feel free to correct me here, I’m sure someone knows.
Anonymous asked:
oh-jiji answered:

testing different techniques