So I've been posting a lot lately about my revised Sonic the Hedgehog original character, 'Laik the Wolf', an offshoot of my fursona, Advrik Drahcir and all-around video game avatar. What do I mean by the last bit? Well, I'll tell you... In just a bit.
I want to preface this whole thing with the fact that I've been alive for longer than Sonic has existed. I grew up experiencing all of the highs and lows of the franchise. I have legit home videos of my playing through the original trilogy, doing voice-overs and creating my own narratives for what was going on in the games, circa 1995-1996.
The last time I was legit this interested in Sonic the Hedgehog was 2004, post-release of Sonic Heroes. After that, the character and franchise just kind of faded into the background for me. If I wanted anything at all to do with the character, it was through re-releases or new products involving the Classic era version of the character.
But me being the type of person who can’t have little minute character developments, I had to have a wild change of heart one day when I (digitally) picked up the first few issues of the IDW Sonic the Hedgehog series. I instantly, somehow, fell back in love with not just the character as a whole, but the entire franchise; I suddenly wanted to experience everything I had missed over the last 21 years.
Everything.
That meant creating an OC in order to help feel more immersed with the fandom, so I got to work. Dredging up old screenshots from 2017 of the wolf character I had created for Sonic Forces. This was prior to my return to the Furry fandom as well, so I simply made a blue-furred, blue-eyed wolf with white sub-fur. No real thought or anything was put into it other than it being my representative in a very mediocre game.
Since I’d already developed and fully fleshed out my fursona in the form of my namesake, I thought, “heck, why not just adapt his look into a Sonic model and be done with it?” Well, that didn’t turn as exactly as I envisioned it, and I was and still am very grateful to the artist who helped to do so. I was never going to feel content with how off-model he looked when compared to official characters.
And that is something I am very much a stickler for. I like for the characters I design to fit the world they’re in, philosphy-wise. That means following the design guidelines even if it goes against my own ideal. There was nothing about Advrik’s design that was going to work together when tossed into the Sonic character machine.
So that was when I sought out some outside help and, miraculously, stumbled across the user ‘Ghostlykuma’ on Bluesky advertising their open commissions. I shot them a quick note with some questions, and to my absolute delight, they agreed to help break down and then recompile Advrik into the form you see today!
With Whisper as a template, we first did away with the rich brown hair color, instead making his entire body colored in a greyish-brown, harking back to the fact that his progenitor was a grey wolf, so I wanted the color to be somewhere in there. He was given a thick lock of hair, kind of resembling Whisper, but at the same time not. The tuft of silvery fur—akin to Shadow—that also colored his mouth/muzzle(the heck is that called on a Sonic character anyway?) was retained from his previous Modern rendition and carried backwards to his Classic era version as well for more consistency. Finally, the fur that masks his face was colored slightly brighter than his primary fur color.
Because I wanted him to be a legit Sonic character, I had to separate his origins from the anthro he was originally based on, but I still wanted to maintain one sliver of that identity in his name. Advrik is already a highly corrupted and condensed version of a short phrase that only I know the origin of, so I thought it was only right to further that movement by ripping the last three letters of his name out and giving it to my shiny new Sonic the Hedgehog OC.
July 10th Update: I have since decided to disconnect Advrik from this OC entirely by renaming him to Laik (Like the body of water).
Thus, Laik the Wolf was born.
Okay. So, going back to the beginning, where I mentioned that he was not just a Sonic OC, but a general video game character overall. In his story, because I incorporated the fact that he was the Rookie character in Sonic Forces, I changed some key aspects of the ending by having it so he had been sucked into the last portal the Phantom Ruby produced, sending him spiraling through a wormhole and witnessing multiple worlds, far removed from Mobius. Even landing in our New York City at one point and learning that he’s just a fan character in that/our universe. Eventually, he stumbled into the Mushroom Kingdom, where he was ultimately shown the way back home.
I did that with Laik because I wanted to be able to write more than just simple Sonic fan-fiction when I’m not hammering away at Last Tail or Secret of Memoria. This idea had been inspired by the upcoming racing game, Sonic Cross-World Racing where it is bringing not only other Sega franchises into the mix, but properties like Spongebob and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as well.
Having been writing stories in my own worlds for so long, that creative muscle can get stretch very thin and sometimes I just need a break from it all. A break to play around in a familiar world, not just from Sonic, but other properties as well, all the while my little Sonic-inspired dude is running around having fun.
Don’t get me wrong, A LOT of thought and research has gone into little ol’ Laik and I am happy to have him. He's there with Brigid as far as my favorite creations go.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to outline further just how I’m going to give him a world-crossing ability, the limitations it’ll carry and who I’m going to ship him with.
