Oh, sorry if I sounded argumentative myself, didn't mean it like that.
I should mention the palettes are probably not final, ideally they're all 15-colours, Mega Drive accurate, but odds are between recolours and recolours some ended up getting mixed. For an example, I genuinely thought there were only two shades on Knuckles' socks, and just discovered a stray darker gray pixel on Shadow's furrow :V
I think the divergence here is in aesthetics, likely. You mention S3 is a lot closer in style than Chaotix, but I genuinely don't think so (at least for anyone that isn't Tails :V). Sonic 1, 2, and CD use the same basic sprites, but 3 changes them for much more evenly proportioned, rounder, IIRC actually made from pre-rendered models, sprites. They're shinier, the shoes are smaller, etc. Then Chaotix comes out, and at least with Mighty (and Sonic and Tails, blah blah Crackers), it's once again the Sonic 1-2-CD base sprites, just shaded differently. I consider 3 and Knuckles to be an entirely different sprite style, as mentioned again, rounder blah blah, while Chaotix I put with the other games.
Put another way, Sonic 1-2-CD-Chaotix feel to me are drawn sprites, with things like Sonic's feet and whatnot not making sense tridimentionally, while Sonic 3-Sonic and Knuckles have tridimentional sprites.
Following this, Knuckles in 3-K has all these quirks, rounded, etc, whereas in Chaotix, he looks drawn again- he's cartoonier, he moves more organically, and only the added overworked shading makes him feel like he could be pre-rendered.
Should also be mentioned, Mighty is my main indicator here, because Chaotix also has the question of its characters just generally looking weird overall, by design itself. I mean, hard to compare when previously you always had characters kinda look like Sonic, and now you get a slim crocodile and a bee :V Chaotix isn't a perfect approximation to the 1-2-CD art style, even if we ignore the shading- the badniks are too big, as is Espio for some reason. I just find it regardless to share much more of its artistic DNA with CD than Sonic 3 does, and this is where we could get into a long discussion about theories on what Sonic Team members designed what characters etc :V
Anyways as far as the shoes go, I do like the S3K ones, but I dunno. The ones I have right now look kinda weird because they were my attempt to apply the same kind of shading that CD Sonic's shoes have, might have to add a shine there instead at some point.
EDIT: Or in a simpler visual way, this is my thought process
![[Image: 2oZzg4P.png]](/image.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2F2oZzg4P.png&hash=7cb34a5c1a48a2bccb2e7ffa8418d1ac)
I should mention the palettes are probably not final, ideally they're all 15-colours, Mega Drive accurate, but odds are between recolours and recolours some ended up getting mixed. For an example, I genuinely thought there were only two shades on Knuckles' socks, and just discovered a stray darker gray pixel on Shadow's furrow :V
I think the divergence here is in aesthetics, likely. You mention S3 is a lot closer in style than Chaotix, but I genuinely don't think so (at least for anyone that isn't Tails :V). Sonic 1, 2, and CD use the same basic sprites, but 3 changes them for much more evenly proportioned, rounder, IIRC actually made from pre-rendered models, sprites. They're shinier, the shoes are smaller, etc. Then Chaotix comes out, and at least with Mighty (and Sonic and Tails, blah blah Crackers), it's once again the Sonic 1-2-CD base sprites, just shaded differently. I consider 3 and Knuckles to be an entirely different sprite style, as mentioned again, rounder blah blah, while Chaotix I put with the other games.
Put another way, Sonic 1-2-CD-Chaotix feel to me are drawn sprites, with things like Sonic's feet and whatnot not making sense tridimentionally, while Sonic 3-Sonic and Knuckles have tridimentional sprites.
Following this, Knuckles in 3-K has all these quirks, rounded, etc, whereas in Chaotix, he looks drawn again- he's cartoonier, he moves more organically, and only the added overworked shading makes him feel like he could be pre-rendered.
Should also be mentioned, Mighty is my main indicator here, because Chaotix also has the question of its characters just generally looking weird overall, by design itself. I mean, hard to compare when previously you always had characters kinda look like Sonic, and now you get a slim crocodile and a bee :V Chaotix isn't a perfect approximation to the 1-2-CD art style, even if we ignore the shading- the badniks are too big, as is Espio for some reason. I just find it regardless to share much more of its artistic DNA with CD than Sonic 3 does, and this is where we could get into a long discussion about theories on what Sonic Team members designed what characters etc :V
Anyways as far as the shoes go, I do like the S3K ones, but I dunno. The ones I have right now look kinda weird because they were my attempt to apply the same kind of shading that CD Sonic's shoes have, might have to add a shine there instead at some point.
EDIT: Or in a simpler visual way, this is my thought process