Weas has been the wrong color for 4 years

Yep. When Geoweasel began as a comic in 2002, Weas was orange, and even in 2004 when he was redesigned for the animated series, he still wore an orange suit. This was Weas' first appearance in the updated design, and he still had the orange suit and black 'stache. Here is one of many subsequent traditionally done drawings with the same colors (more or less). He soon appeared in animated form on October 6, 2004 with the same general design, and a brown mustache, because I thought it would go better with the orange than the black did. Then, finally, I redid the designs because the ones in the previous picture were horrid, Nar's in particular, but even in this lineup that was released only a week later, Weas still appeared in the same orange suit, now with the red-orange mustache he has today. And then I disappeared for a while, only to come back in late December of the same year with the Geoweasel pilot and...a brown Weas. It was a sudden change, but why did I make it exactly? I wanted to distinguish Weas from his counterpart in the old pixel comics, as he was just a sprite of Mario in his Tanooki suit from Super Mario Bros. 3. But what I didn't realize until much later was that Tanooki Mario was brown; not orange like I used in the comics. I had confused the colors with the characters and ended up making Weas look even more like that Mario. Now it's not as if Weas hasn't occasionally appeared in his orange duds between then and now, but those were always either for jokes or experimental purposes.

And yet, for some reason, this concept of Weas being the "wrong" color this whole time only really hit me like a ton of bricks...just last night. As I was straightening the sheets on my bed to go to sleep, I found myself staring at the big Geoweasel 5 Year Anniversary poster on my wall. I just looked at the stupid thing for damn near two minutes, my eyes fixed on the large Weas in the center. I was thinking about his similarities to Mario (even though all the characters have some). I always think that when people see Weas, the first thing that comes to their mind is Mario. But while looking at this picture, I didn't see Mario. Well...okay, I did see Mario, but not in the poster; just everywhere else in my room. You can't look somewhere and not see Mario. But that's beyond the point. I finally looked away from the poster and was thinking to myself, "I don't know why I worry about him looking like Mario. Even with the similarities, he's still pretty different." And right then, a rusty, cobweb-covered gear inside my head started turning again, and I said to myself the most obvious statement ever: "Holy crap, Weas isn't orange!" The way I said it was as if I had given someone else total control over Geoweasel in 2004 and never saw anything of it until just then.

I keep finding myself wanting to make major changes to characters, but especially with Weas. Between this and the hatted Weas idea, I don't know what to do. It's too far into the series to make either change, much less do both. Many people have said Weas is fine as he is, regardless of any similarities to other characters. Yet for some reason, no matter what Weas looks like and no matter what people say, I actually lose sleep over the matter.

It's kind of pathetic, really.