My theory ia that the mohawk was kind of a harmless error, basing the boxart off the title screen art (read alt text)
Then it just kinda stuck whether it be lack of good reference material, stubborness, wanting the art to look consistent between games, what have you.
Yeah, I wanna give the benefit of the doubt and say it's this, but the fact that the full picture implies his legs are doing the inward bend they do in the JP Sonic 1 key art tells me they had more reference material than just game assets. So it makes me feel like it was a deliberate doubling down.
Direct comparison between the edit and the original. Even as a kid, mohawk Sonic bothered me. I never understood why they changed the character designs in the American art, especially because they didn't look like that in-game! Thankfully this one I didn't have to change too much on.
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Then it just kinda stuck whether it be lack of good reference material, stubborness, wanting the art to look consistent between games, what have you.
not complaining mind you