Disclaimer: None of these recolors are shown with the intent of mockery. If you created one of these and see this page, I'm not here to make fun of you! If anything I thank you for the fun memories!
Alright, so I often see people nostalgic over like, Mary Sues and sparkledogs (real ones from back in day that made edgy comics, not your shitty ironic exaggerated ones made by people who turned PLUR into "I SUPPORT ABUSERS") - but I NEVER see that energy for recolors, which kinda stinks because they're just as important to the history of fandom culture as the former.
I'll be talking about Sonic recolors, but I am well aware this sorta thing was prevalent in other fandoms such as Naruto, Lucky Star, Happy Tree Friends, and even those freaking Chipmunks movies. but Sonic was my jam as a kid, so that's what we'll be going over.
The legacy of the Sonic Recolor
The Sonic recolor and fan character community has existed since essentially the Internet was first a thing. Sonic fansites and forums were the birth of these. Sadly I'm not all too familiar with the really early stuff, I was too busy playing flash games on the Nick Jr. site at that point. From what I understand, most of the recolors there were people editing game sprites for little comics. Oh, and there were of course flash games and movies on Newgrounds had popular fan characters made from sprite edits - examples being Aeon the Hedgehog and Seelkadoom. Buuut let's talk about the genre of recolor I'm most attached to...
The Sonic X recolors from 2007-2010ish
In the mid 2000s, Sonic X was all the rage. YouTube was still in its infancy, so classics like this popped up
Sonic X had a very clean and sleek art style so it was ripe people to edit screenshots to make their own characters over them (and the Seedrians from Season 3 were a cool new species that added even more opportunities for OCs). There was quite the range of the type of fan characters, and they often coninsided with what people thought were also "cuh-ringe," such as edgy-boi versions of official characters and self inserts made to be shipped with an official character (this before the internet had an understanding of kinsonas and self-shipping soooo...). Back in the day, there was a site called Team Artail, a Sonic and furry-centric website. There was a section dedicated solely to Sonic X screenshots from every episode, and that's where most people got them to recolor. (Think of it like how old YouTube Poopers used the QuebecGamers site for CDI footage before there we better rips)
....And thus, a community was born. Recolor content on Youtube came in all shapes and sizes.
First, let's talk about people's methods of making these.
The Color-Over
For those who remember Sonic X recolors, this is what mostly comes to mind. An edited screenshot with the details changed but the background remains. Some people would literally just scribble the needed details onto the screenshot, while others with a lot more patience would actually use the MS Paint polygon tool and then clean up the edges with the line tool. Some of these could actually look kinda impressive especially if they had a more firm grasp on how the show's coloring style looked - some of them could even edit the backgrounds a bit to accommodate for edited details.
MS Paint was the go-to for a lot of these kids (not sure what Mac users used tbh), since it was readily available and simple. Keep in mind, this was before we had Medibang, Firealpaca, Ibispaint, etc, so actually-good programs weren't easily accessible. However some kids actually did have Photoshop - whether they pirated it or were simply just the rich kids, I don't know. The ones with Photoshop were the cool kids who could make even more impressive edits, with things like hue-sat and the lasso tool.
I'm not even kidding, this one made by RikatheFox is what taught me how to do lineless art
The Trace
I made this one when I was 12 lol
This was my preferred method as kid. It allowed a bit more creativity for the characters' details and also a custom background. If course, mine were solid Ms Paint default colors because I was wonderfully incompetent
On MS Paint, people would use the line tool and then make the line white, then using the attributes function to get rid of everything else. I felt like a wizard when I figured that out. The more skilled teachers would use a premium program that had layers, mostly Photoshop or even Sai and add a custom background.
Traces weren't as common as the color-overs since they generally took a lot more time, and sometimes you'd see a combination of the two methods, actually.
What kind of videos were made?
Painting at Sonic Speed!
Speedpaints, bejbah! Not only were these were showcases of how these recolors were made, but they were just a major time capsule of the era. The Unregistered Hypercam 2 watermarks, the 2000s pop and rock music accompanying them, and the accessories some of these characters would have. The guys got edgy scars and weapons no doubt inspired by another anime or game they liked, while the girls got goth fashion that more or may not have been based on what they wore or wanted to wear IRL
AMVs
A slideshow music video! Sometimes this would be a random compilation set to some pop song or a "Nightcored" up tune, or a romantic set of images set to Everytime We Touch, or my personal favorites, the edgy narrative ones. I remember this one I found on the old Kidz Bop site that had user-submitted videos. It had an "oOoooOo I have a dark demon side" story and the song was Figure 09 by Linkin Park. I wish it wasn't lost, Because I thought that was the coolest shit ever when I was 11. Oh and some of them were LOL XD random too. Peak comedy.
The Movie Makers
Some people were so ambitious that they made up their own story by making a slideshow movie on Windows Movie maker. These stories of course knocked off whatever anime the creator was really into and had tropes like avenging the death of family or OooOoo spooky edgy demon side.... and yes, some had both. Some of them had Movie Maker text and music while others were voice-acted Sadly these were the ones that caught the attention of the commentary community, so the creators of these often got harassed and a lot of these cheeseball pieces of fanfiction are lost due the creators deleting the videos or closing their accounts to get away from that.
Here's a prime example of one that was infamous back in the day (that currently only exists in commentaries :c). Hell, I remember that other recolors guys thought this was too much even for them. Man, I really wish this wasn't the only episode that wasn't lost, because this ..oh man. Not gonna lie, Bludshot the Hedgehog was so bad it was hilarious... but also it was a guilty pleasure of mine as a kid. Even young-me knew this was stupid and cliche, but... it also tickled my fancy... my edgy tween fancy ;p
A ramble about recolor in-fighting/drama
Like a lot of communities, there was a lot of infighting among peers. Keep in mind, this was a community of kids and teens so it was very cliquey.
ok boomer
Spriters from older fan forums frowned upon the Sonic X recolor community since the latter tended to take their work a lot more seriously. Kinda dumb honestly, like damn.
My Hedgehog's Better Than Yours
Kids that had recolors with more time put into their designs tended to pick on other kids for not having more "original" designs. This actually got to the point where they didn't even like their work being called recolors and would insist to be called "edits." My guess is that some people deemed "recolor" as sorta derogatory, since some people did use the word as such. Tracers especially sometimes had this attitude, understandably - even I had it.
You Recolored my Recolor!
Yes. This happened. I sadly cannot find an example specifically but people did recolor over other recolors. Often the targets of these would be the ones that made the higher-effort changes. This was seen as a big no-no in the community. Yes, it is kinda silly if you think about it, but eh, I can kinda see why this was an issue. Kids are protective of their work, no matter how derivative.
To recolor or not to recolor
Recoloring fanart was kinda controversial, and for good reason. If you want my opinion, I don't think it's okay. There's a difference between editing a frame from a show made by a million-dollar corporation vs editing an independent artist's work.
Why isn't there more nostalgia for them?
super long-winded ramble ahead sooo...
TL;DR Irony, misconceptions, commentary, and cringe culture tbh
I think the reason these aren't remembered as fondly as other brands of "cringe" OCs is due to a couple of factors. For one, peoples' idea of what a Sonic recolor is has been completed overshadowed by memes. Lemme be the first one to say is that Coldsteel is 100% a parody, and honestly, not a super faithful one. I don't really like parodies like him honestly because they're often made by people who didn't actually witness legit fan-characters made by kids and they often trick dumbasses into thinking they're unironic - they can be funny, but my autistic ass can usually tell what is and isn't a joke in this regard.
Oh, and Sonichu. Let's talk about Sonichu, another punching bag whenever recolors are mentioned. Sonichu of course was the creation of a mentally ill and disabled individual who originally just had a goofy passion, but then became a terrible human being due to the mistreatment from her shitty conservative parents, the abysmal treatment of disabled students in the 80s and 90s, and the myriad of people harassing her. Her goofy OCs frankly should be the least of anyone's concerns.
Since we mentioned Chris-chan, let's talk about the backlash from back in lhe day. In the late 2000s, the first incarnation of the YouTube commentary community would shout into their crappy mics about how recolors were terrible and the people making them were these awful human beings. Oh and get this, these guys would say that it's constructive criticism and that if these kids didn't conform to their demands, they'd get called pussies and get harassed. Some of them didn't respond to this very kindly (keep in mind, these were mostly 12-17-year olds) so it was essentially an ouroboros of internet slap fights.
After old-school recolor community died out, that's when cringe culture started to get really bad. The kids who edited Sonic X screenshots moved onto using bases or they started to draw, but at the same time, people who had nothing better to do than to bully kids for being "cringe" were on the rise. Bad Art Blogs plagued Tumblr and YouTube would have these chucklefucks that would just laugh at kids' art. I would explain further, but then I'd be talking about the history of the Deviantart rant community and then the general art commentary community and that's a whole other can of worms.
I've mentioned the latter because I think that right there is why people are just... downright afraid to remember this stuff. Like yeah, silly 2000s anime and furry OCs still have their cool nostalgia factor, but the Sonic side of things is filled with mostly shame, regret, and trauma. It be always breaks my heart whenever someone makes a video or something showcasing their old art and when they show off old Sonic stuff they go "UGHHH I was so CUH-ringe."
Face it folks, we'd all be would be looking at this stuff more fondly if nobody bullied them. The combination of internalized trauma from the harassment and the reputation of recolors being a punchline, people would rather forget about the old community or pretend it didn't happen. Sure, I was also heavily affect by these dark times, but I also refuse to let the fun memories die. I made this page to hopefully help others see what recolors were Actually like and why they should be embraced as a piece of the mid-to-late 2000s c:
If you want to see what the raw, unironic recolors looked like, go look up the speedpaints or look Sonic fan character pages on Fanpop. Unfortunately, the best place people posted them back in the day, Photobucket, did a capitalism and just fucking did a massive purge and if you didn't pay for their bullshit, "Oops, every you posted is lost media now BYEBYE! :DD"
Overall, yes, these weren't very creative and it's obviously a lot better to just actually learn to drawn, but like with traced anime based and dollmakers, they were a jumping-off point for lot of young artists. They were my first foray into digital art, and the friends I've made who also recolored went on to all be great artists with their own unique styles!
Also I met one of my closest friends who I still talk to every single day through laughing at some guy's goofy recolors, but that's a story for another day ;p