My โItโs What You Wantโ Spoken For animatic is finally complete!! :D
this animatic is inspired a Sonadow fanfic titled โItโs What You Wantโ by @artificialchaoscola !
Because I hate myself, instead of doing my usual sketchy animatics in an actual animation program, I decided to fully color & shade different frames in my regular drawing app. My back and neck hurt so bad from crouching over my phone so much lmao.
idk why but this fanfic wonโt leave my brain. Itโs just so good and Iโm so invested.
Skdbeifbekfj anyways Arti I hope you and anyone else seeing this like it. I worked really hard on it and Iโm proud of it, so I hope others enjoy it.
WARNING: massive yap sesh under the cut. I explain why I did what I did for each part
Animatics thoughts/process:
The friend/foe parts were easy. For friend I drew Shadow with Rouge & Omega (I love Team Dark) as a reference to when the 3 of them went on that mission in chapter 3 that ended with Shadowโs capture.
โI could be a foeโ was just the opposite of the last one. Illusion Shadow with the other illusion villains conjured by Infinite. Also fun fact, all of them have magenta eyes like the phantom ruby instead of their usual eye colors. A nod to how theyโre not the real versions of the characters.
โYou make the decisionsโ- I had it switch between various characters whoโve made decisions for Shadow at various points of his life. (Gerald on the ARK, Black Doom, Commander Tower while he worked for GUN, and then eventually Infinite when he gets captured.)
the bright yellow in the background of the Infinite frame is a nod to fanart by @/ohposhers for the same fic. I really liked the bright, almost eye strain-y yellow used in their IWYW fanart. This same/a similar yellow is used later for another frame with Infinite
sinner - I drew a scene from chapter 5 when illusion Shadow enters Commander Towersโ tent to kill him. I know it described illusion Shadow as smiling, but I didnโt like it when I drew him with a smile.
Saint - the exact opposite. This one is the real Shadow right after capture. This frame is actually the reason this whole thing ended up colored. I knew I wanted to do something with the bright light that hurts Shadowโs eyes because light can be associated with heaven/the afterlife
Devoid - I originally considered drawing the brain scans mentioned in chapter 2 that Tails shows to the others, showing the severe damage done to Shadowโs brain. But then I realized Iโm not a doctor and have zero ideas what part of his brain wouldโve been blacked out/empty. So messy, bright scribbles over his brain it is.
Martyr - I drew Shadow as I pictured him in my brain when he was first described/found in chapter one. I altered the mask to how I saw it (even if it wasnโt entirely accurate to how it was supposed to be seen as). Itโs identical to infiniteโs, except thereโs no eyeholes and the ears are smaller. Not just blacked out eyeholes, just none at all. Making this worse for Shadow because why not. Also the ears are smaller because heโs a hedgehog and he has smaller ears than a jackal. The flowers heโs in arenโt super detailed, but theyโre supposed to be the flowers from the chapter titles. I didnt get into too much detail, but most of the flowers (from the first results I saw on google images) were pink, yellow, and white, so those are the colors I used.
next one is Shadow being carried by Sonic in chapter 2 when heโs running to get shadow to a resistance hospital. Itโs for the โI can be a causeโ part of the song because his possibility of being alive was the cause behind Rouge and Knuckles looking for him in chapter 1. Also heโs the โcauseโ thatโs making Sonic run to a hospital so fast. Also yes Iโm aware the posing of Sonic carrying Shadow is bad I tried several different times to fix it but I could never get it to look right. Sorry :(
next part is a pretty simple explanation: just various titles/names Shadow has been called throughout life (in my head at least, lol). The โsickโ part at the top of his head is supposed to stand out against all the other things heโs been called because itโs supposed to be Infinite calling him that. Considering Shadowโs โconditionโ came outta nowhere and Infinite is the only person to ever tell Shadow that he has a medical issues when he was supposed to be a cure
Canvas - I tried to make it bright and messy cuz this is when Shadow was tripping balls in chapter 4. It said โPetals unfurled in slow motionโฆ violets, cyans, and golds - each one glowed faintlyโฆโ using this description, I added glowing violet and gold flowers floating through the air. Later on it says โInfinite laughed softly, and the sound made gems fall from the ceiling to the ground.โ I didnโt want to have too many flowers, so I used the teal/cyan from the earlier description to color the gems instead. It later said โโฆwhen new shapes joined them - streamers unfurling from nowhereโฆโ It also didnโt really specify color, so I just used red for some little streamers/confetti.
Doll - it just Infinite holding a limp Shadow up (like at the end of chapter 4). treating him almost like a doll. The pattern in the background is a glowing swirl of the phantom ruby colors oooooo. To show how Infinite is using it to break/control/mess with Shadowโs mind.
Next bit is just Shadow freaking out. Digging his claws into the side of his head and eyes frantically darting around. Nothing fancy or deep.
I can be a woman/man - Okay so I had ZERO idea what to do for this bit. I tried and sketched so many ideas but I could NOT come up with one I was satisfied with. Since I was listening to Spoken For on loop, I listened to one of Flavor Foleyโs other songs called Ego Renegade Boy. Became obsessed itโs so peak. But anyways, this bit is sort of a reference to around 0:23 seconds in the music video because this part of spoken for mentions โwoman and manโ and ego renegade boy is a song about be trans masc/male. The bit at 0:23 had Rin and Len aka a girl (woman) and a boy (man). Idk I just liked that bit and thought itโd work for the animatic.
another easy one. I just drew Shadow looking into the mirror like he did in chapter 6. Iโm bad with mirrors and I actually reference a shot from Tadc episode 6 for this cuz I didnโt know what exactly to do lol. Not my best work, but the best of the attempts I made.
Difference & same - another easy one. Split down the middle, Shadow on one side and Infinite on the other. For โdifferenceโ you have Shadow during his early capture, glaring at Infinite and not backing down. For โsameโ, heโs given up. He wears the mask from chapter one (heโs the same as Infinite now). The colors in the background on his side have also dulled/faded. I also tried to make it look like his quills were bent backwards and inwards like it was described (?) but idk how well of a job I did with that.
Try to give me meaning - When I read chapter 7 and saw you described Shadowโs hands the same way I do I was like โyesss letโs goโ cuz I already messed up and gave this Shadow the ear fluff I normally give him, so Iโm glad I didnโt mess up the hands too lol. I had the numbers that Shadow counted at the end of chapter 4 here because earlier in that same chapter Infinite says โIf you canโt focusโฆ then donโt fight it.โ & โFind something realโฆ and count.โ This is something Shadow tries to do to make sense of the things going on, to give meaning to it, but it doesnโt help bro has been drugged up.
Heaven & Hell - another easy one. A mirror was done with this one. Sonic and Shadow all happy with each other with warm colors in the back vs Infinite restraining a drugged Shadow with that harsh yellow in the background again. Although in the fic Sonic and Shadow did have a big fight before his capture, whatever the hell happened wouldโve probably felt like heaven in comparison to what Infinite did to him when he was captured. Also just a little parallel/contrast between the two ships tagged in the fic.
Does it matter/can never tell - this one also came to me easily. Itโs a comparison of the potted rose Sonic accidentally brought with him when he went to see Shadow in chapter 6, and when Infinite gave Shadow a bouquet of roses in the flashback in the same chapter. The โI can never tellโ part has shadow looking terrified, because Shadow screams when he sees the rose Sonic is carrying (and itโs safe to say that thereโs a thing with roses & Shadow and/or Infinite). Despite the difference in who was holding the flower and the way it looked/was presented, Shadowโs broken mind canโt tell the difference.
Nothing/all - another contrast thing. For โnothingโ you have a perfectly healthy Shadow delicately holding a rose and for the โallโ part Shadow has turned to be his disheveled post torture/capture and the rose heโs holding has wilted and is held in a crushing grip that causes him to bleed. Also I think I remember it mentioning in chapter one that his back quills were cut off. Idk if Iโm remembering that correctly so my bad if not. Also please ignore how bad the โmaybe I am allโ part is please I know it sucks, but I was too far along to fix it.
nothing too deep about the last two. Itโs just another fucked up & tortured Shadow laying on the ground surrounded by roses. (โITS THE ROSES THERES SOMETHING WITH THE ROSESโ I yell as they drag me kicking and screaming back to the padded room lmao.)
OH ALSO the colors I used for recently rescued/late capture/late torture Shadow are from the drawing the author made of Shadow in that field of yellow carnations(?). The colors for healthy/pre capture Shadow are just the colors I regularly use to draw Shadow. The early/mid capture Shadow colors are just a mix of those two.
Wow just the yapping about the animatic ended up being a LOT longer than I thought Wowie sorry for that. Anyways hope you enjoyed the animatic and this nonsense if you actually ended up reading my yapping. Okay Iโm gonna go explode now












