I really want to try to hone in on what kind of style he would like and gravitate towards in art (it's hard), and also what kind of direction his sona's design might go. It's honestly REALLY HARD because i have 15 years of experience in drawing characters and he would not, so i already feel like this looks way too intentionally designed and clean (and i feel like that about the first one too!)i feel like he would also just draw cute characters being exploded into viscera or something. I would prefer to evoke 2000's deviantart style chibi emo styles with his direction but obviously done by someone who hasn't been drawing very long. That's hard to simulate I'm finding...

The first version of this had huge sparkly eyes initially and i feel like they really work for him, but i want his art to look between cutesy and uncanny and i think the small pupil approach works better for that outcome...