SONIC ARTIST SPOTLIGHT - Yuji Uekawa

Easily the most well known and popular Sonic artist, Yuji Uekawa joined Sega in 1994. His first role at SEGA was the Character Designer for cult classic Ristar, but his next jobs were Sonic R and Sonic Jam as the character designer and artist (alongside Satoshi Okano) respectively.

In 1998, an internal contest was held to redesign Sonic for his first 3D game in order to make his model more palatable during gameplay; among the four who entered, Uekawa's design won out, but he synthesized elements from the others to create the Modern Sonic we know and love.

From here on, most of his work would be tied to Sonic Team and the Sonic franchise. He was the art director for the Sonic Advance series and the Sonic Rush games, and he continues to make new art for Sonic Channel, the official Japanese Sonic website.

Despite his key art mostly being sidelined in favor of 3D models, Uekawa continues to excite and inspire may Sonic artists to this day.