UK Area Sonic the Hedgehog School Supplies Page 3
The UK, while not having as much in the way of school theme stuff like Japan (but in the area of skool...Japan is nearly invincible stuff-wise) still turned out a nice selection. Most of these things are modern. If you see any classic items (true oldies) you'll need Ebay to find those.
That's what it says in the little orange sunburst at the top. It's a clear sack with 2 bags inside for school. The first is a schoolbag (Though not as big as a traditional one) with running Sonic at the top, checkered band, and clapping Sonic at the bottom. He says "Time for fun...homework's Done!!" as he claps near the Game Gear logo.
The second bag is a hip pack/belt bag/fanny pack type smaller long item. It has the Sonic logo on the front & features Robotnick chasing after running Sonic. The top to this is lavender to match the school bag, and has a red zipper.
These MAY have had a dual release, both in the UK and in the USA. This bag, or a similar bag may have also been sold by itself/not on a value pack.
A Sandwich Tin! This is a metal box about the size of a piece of bread. When you use a soft-sides lunch carrier, or even a regular lunch box, you can put your sandwich in here to keep it from being squished when packed/shaken around on the way to school or work. It also keeps it fresh & you don't use energy by throwing away tons of baggies. It's a pretty handy item.
The square tin has close up/off the edges winking forward-facing classic Sonic for the lid & a blue/white checker pattern for the box base. Sadly, it also has "Faux Wear" or the purposeful design chipping to make it look 'vintage', but generally comes across a bit shabby instead. This is a 2016 item, but where could it be found?
But...without seeing inside, it's kind of hard to tell. It's likely to be a boxed set and this is just a photo of the lid. But what's inside? You can write in for credit if you know what is in here. It has a screen-cap of Green Hill Zone for the background, and forward-facing art for Sonic & Tails in the foreground...but they're positioned as running on nothing/toward the viewer. There's some kind of 'explosion rays' going on in the mid-ground also/maybe a destruction of that animal-container at the end of the level? The classic logo is at the top.
The art is a little strange, look how super pointy the shoes are, and how they're both in exactly the same pose. Tails' lower face is big as well. For whatever reason, this continues the region's absolute love of depicting "forward facing Sonic" even though that is literally his worst angle/especially in older art & he has the "triangle head" going on again. Entry will be updated if anybody ever finds out what's in this.
The set though, had 100 cards in it! So many! And...they're kinda wierd, so let's get into it.
So this set of postcards was clearly done around the time of Sonic 3 or so, after Sonic CD came out. 1996-97But, instead of using normal art, whatever company this was, decided to do CG scenes to make all of the items. But, due to the era, CG was still really hard to do, and, even harder to get it to look right and actually work.
However, they didn't let this stop them, so the result is dinner-plate-eye dino Rexxon here along with kinda-dumpy Metal Sonic. The models have lots of problems, like Tails with huge eyes, not knowing what to do with Sonic's eye border, stumpy Metal with poorly planned eye & the usual really flat/blah texture for the background. Notice also that they've got AOSTH Robotnick in there instead of Eggman and he looks even stranger.
The problems arise further when actual scenes from the games look better than the cards do. Remember: in this time there weren't really cinematics & etc, CD had animated/hand drawn parts because the CG just wasn't there and they didn't want it to look bad. So it was common that merchandise would use something OTHER than the game/shots because you could 'do better' than 8-bit Mario screen cap with some cute Mario art, for instance.
And this set brings more attempts that sssooorta work. You've got the Sonic vs Metal race but the background is vague and wierd. They did attend to Tails tails in 'twirl' shape there for the 2nd one, but every head for him except where he's in the half-pipe has the bangs wrong. They add Knuckles, but (as is common with UK art for whatever reason) they're obsessed with making his eyes really tall, which always looks bad. Also look at the thick sole to the shoe/frankenstein style. Where is 3 blue squares area supposed to be with Tails?
The combination of awkward backgrouns and kinda blobby CG that's not fabulous (or particularly shaded?) really screams "Era! Late 90s!" , so these are certainly reflective of the time.
The last 2 images shows the back (plain white, 1 small actual stock Sonic art in the corner there) and the front / cover of the set which shows 2 cards, tells you that there's 100 in there & then pastes on the CG for Sonic, Tails & Knuckles, then puts an orbinaut at the top. Postcard scans by Caleb
It has a put-together version of GHZ, with curving ground, the usual palms/flowers/spring bumper and....lots of spikes. They use the spikes as sort of a pattern choice, but the curving odd and very prickly hill at the bottom gives the zone pictured on the bag an unfriendly or dangerous look. It has 16 bit Sonic running along the top ground toward some rings.
This has the usual back pack shoulder straps on the other side. Note the line where the zipper goes/it's vertical instead of around the usual arch shape. It has a top carry handle, as most bags do.
You CAN see the brand there at the bottom on the red tag, but because this, the only photo of it is so small you can't actually see what brand it is.