Have you ever drawn Sans?
Have you ever drawn him accurately?
Because I have tried and
(Note: That is not Sans.)
Perhaps you’ve drawn his skeletal hands, or his skeletal legs, pink slippers? WRONG WRONG, MAYBE CORRECT.
DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA OF THE SHIT YOU GOTTA GO THROUGH TO DRAW AN ACCURATE SANS?
Look at this, what do you make of this? He has a hoodie, seems to have a white shirt underneath that shows some of his neck? Likely? But what are the details of this hoodie if you want to draw a more detailed version of it? Something that isn’t the Undertale battle sprite style? Does the hoodie have pockets? Are those horizontal lines in the center part of the pockets? Are they just there for random detail? Does the zipper have the uh. The thingy to zip it. Logically you might assume so, but is it present in any official material?
What about the shorts? What are those white stripes? Are they a messed up pair of Adidas shorts? Or is it just detail, lighting, something.
‘Cus the Line stickers seem to think it’s part of the design.
Notice how there’s no zipper thingy.
Oops another Line sticker and now the zipper is different and this one has the battle sprite details. But it’s just a stylistic choice maybe? Maaaaaaaaybe?
But it’s OK, those are from different sets of stickers, let’s look at another one from the same set as before.
Shorts white lines are there (the only visible one from this angle) the zipper is the same the uh, there’s hood strings now? And they’re black? Ok I’ll keep that in mind, this is the first type so far they show up in this research, and now the shirt is… A turtleneck!?!?!? AND HE HAS FINGERS?
But maybe Line stickers aren’t the best point of reference (They are pretty high up there though) so what else is there to reference from?
In game overworld sprite? When paired with his in-battle appearance what can we conclude from this? He wears slippers and those slippers are white? But his slippers in Line are PINK!!! At least the hoodie seems consistent with the battle sprite but what’s that on the shorts? NOTHING, there’s NO WHITE LINES. And what are those dots on what we can assume is the shirt? Are they there just to add detail? To throw off artists a decade later? Probably just detail lol. But above you can see his bones, further hinting at the shirt-that-shows-some-neck theory.
Also for whatever reason his feet don’t hang like the others’ when he’s being held up, maybe he doesn’t want the slippers to fall off.
Are those his feet or is that part of the tricycle? Are they gray? Or is it a shadow? No it’s not a shadow nothing is shaded in these sprites normally. Those are gray feet, whether it’s his actual feet or something else he’s wearing.
So if the sprites in-game don’t give us an answer what’s the next best thing? An official Steam asset? After all that’s the only reference we have for the Real Knife, so let’s see.
YEAH OKAY SHOES, WHAT THE HELL SURE. ADIDAS STRIPES?? BLUE HOOD, WHITE HOODIE STRINGS?
Hoodie has pockets and the hoodie details that some other material has had seem to be represented as those pockets here, also the shirt has some detail, and it shows neck.
Surely other official material can save us.
BLUE. MOTHERFUCKING. SLIPPERS.
No stripes on the shorts, unless it has the Adidas stripes to the side, shirt shows neck, has a little detail, not as much as the Steam card, zipper resembles Line’s and HAS A ZIPPER HEAD THINGY!!! NO POCKETS EITHER. At least the hood is gray.
The fingers are back, but notice how they don’t have bone details unlike his neck.
Notice how it seems like the trend is to turn those hoodie details from the battle sprite into pockets, do the random hoodie lines in the battle sprite look like pockets to you? Detailed shirt, and still different from Steam card but more similar to the tarot card. Oh and the fucking strings are white, his slippers are pink as seems to be the most consistent feet for him, hood is gray too. No lines on the shorts to be seen.
Why are his legs not skeletal IS HE WEARING SOCKS???
Another piece of merch from Fangamer, seems to have just about the exact same details if not a little different to account for being a plushie. Makes sense as it’s the same guys making it, but it also seems like this white strings + hoodie pockets + gray zipper + white shirt with neck details + shows neck + gray hood + mittens + white socks + black shorts with no white stripes + pink slippers is the most consistent design.
His Nendoroid follows the exact same des- WHITE STRIPES TO THE SIDES????????
OH THE INACTION FIGURE ALSO HAS THEM.
AND SO DOES THE PLUSHIE!!! Well add the side stripes to the list.
Surely if this is the officially sold merch this has to be the design that takes priority as they want something official and set in stone and unchangeable and consistent right?
Yeah pretty much, that’s what his Smash Bros appearance looks like, his shirt doesn’t normally show a neck but that can be attributed to the design of the Mii costumes, otherwise all the details are here, black shorts with white stripes to the sides, white socks, pink slippers, white mittens, gray hood, white strings, white shirt with the details at the bottom
Visible neck albeit not very skeletal.
Whole hood is gray.
Sleeves have details on them, hoodie also has details and pockets
Zipper doesn’t have the zipper head thingy, details mostly resemble the inaction figure.
Another view at the hoodie details. I bet I could get better shots if I had the tools but neither I or the average person who wants to draw Sans has them.
So the original sprites are kind of inconsistent and perhaps misleading of his design, but if you’re considering what’s actually in the game to be the top priority when it comes to his design you’d draw him with white slippers, the white stripes are dubious as they only show up in battle, none of his overworld sprites show even a hint of them and future material puts them on each side rather than the front, not a single sprite depicts him not wearing mittens so he has mittens too, his battle sprite is too simplistic to make out if he has socks or not, but clues make it obvious he has to wear socks, his dirty socks are gray as you can see in his house, and while this is not being taken into consideration for the sake of sticking to game material his socks in all future media depicts his socks as white, so obviously his socks are normally PINK!!!
Stylistic decision as all white objects are depicted in light yellow and pink or are his socks canonically pink? The only thing not following that rule is the Annoying Dog which is not native to this room, so both are possible.
Otherwise if you’re not an in-game appearance purist, the ultimate reference you have for his proper design is his appearance in Super Smash Bros Ultimate, backed up by the inaction figure and Nendoroid.
There’s my Sans as accurate as I needed him to be.
That wasn’t so hard, was it?