This is my take on Knuckles the Echidna in a more realistic form.
People who know me well, are probably aware that I am a hopeless Knuckles fanatic and that he's my favourite game and cartoon character of all time for many reasons.
I've been trying to make a realistic version of him for over a year now and failed at so many attempts, it's not even funny any more. This is the first time I am truly satisfied with how it came out. It may not be perfect, but the picture that you see now actually reflects perfectly what I had in mind.
I considered to depict him naked (since, after all, he doesn't wear clothes in the original character design) and the first sketch actually depicted him like this. But, even though his ass was sexy (), I thought that I could do more for the motion of the picture with trousers. As for the other major change: I just liked the sketch of his bare knuckles too much to cover them up with gloves...

Now, every person has their own version in their head of their favourite character, especially with a character so ambiguously portrayed as Knuckles.
"My" Knuckles is both sexy and trained, but at the same time a loner and very devoted to his task. He is also a scholar of the old lore and the legends of his home, the Floating Island and since his late father couldn't tell him everything he is pretty much self taught and knows most things from the old underground libraries beneath Crystal Palace. He's independent and can take good care of himself. His weakness, however, is his skill with other people. Even though he is generally rather polite he is easily taken off guard and sometimes tries to hide his insecurity with coldness or even anger (the later mostly triggered by Sonic's heedless provocations). He's gullible to a point as well, but this mostly stems from the little experience he has with the intricately plotting and manipulating minds of other people.
Oh yeah: and his eyes are blue!

So there. I know, this is another long comment. I hope you enjoy the picture nonetheless.