How to draw Shadow

If you want a step-by-step tutorial on drawing hedgehogs, go over to the Sonic section. Sonic and Shadow are a lot alike. When you're done over there, come back here for Shadow's detail work.
 
 

There are two ways to draw Shadow's spines. If you follow the official art, you'll see that his top spine curves down, while the bottom two bend upwards. This is the easiest version to draw.
However, if you are drawing him from the games, you'll notice his spines are a little more 3D than that. The top spine curves down, but the middle one curves out, while the bottom one curves sideways.
Here you can see how the middle spines curve out, while the bottom one goes more back. A good thing to remember about Shadow is that his design is merely Super Sonic painted black. If you get stuck, consult Super Sonic's hair.
Shadow's ears are just a bit longer and pointier than Sonic's. Also, when seen at 2/3rds view, shown here, Shadow's spines are visible on both sides of his face. Sonic's aren't.
This serves to make Shadow's face wider and more burly-looking.
Shadow's eyes are taller and more slanted than Sonic's. Notice the red corner. If you remove this red corner, Shadow's eyes become round, like Sonic's. It serves to give him an angry, crazed look.
About the patch on Shadow's chest. Some people notice that it's an emerald shape, and some don't. When you draw it, keep in mind the emerald shape.
Shadow's body is a soft triangle, with the large end at the top. Note the red circle--its similar to this shape. If you'll notice, all superheros (and supervillains) have a wide chest and slim hips.

Also note his legs (blue lines). They are wider at the bottom than at the top. No, he doesn't have diabetes--this is the anime way of emphasizing length/speed. In SA2, all the characters' arms and legs are rendered this way, with the narrow end at the trunk, instead of the other way around.
Shadow wears these wristlets on his arms and ankles. The band closest to his glove is a gold color. There is a second band behind it, black or silver. And on top of the black band is a red tag. I can understand why it's on his shoes, because it looks like a shoe tongue, but on his gloves? Anyway, this is how the offical art does it, so I can only assume it's connected to his gloves.

Shadow also has red highlights on his arms and legs like he does his hairdo.
Shadow's hoverskates, head on. The toes are slanted up, and you can see the first hoverjet inside it. You can also see how the bands connect to his ankles. The gold band goes around the front of the shoe's tongue.
If the bands were taken apart, here is how they would fit on over Shadow's ankle and shoe tongue.
From the side, you can see how the hoverskate's toe curled back in front, like Shadow kicked a wall really hard. The grey  part covers the shoe between the red heel and the white main section. You also have a pronounced arch where Shadow can grind on rails. 
Here's the underpart of the shoe, taken from the official art. Messy but accurate. If you want to draw Shads in mid-stride, here's what the bottoms of his shoes look like.

This art tutorial created for NetRaptor.org by NetRaptor and copyrighted by NetRaptor.