something i find really interesting about silksong is that. well, in hollow knight, ghost's personality is shown to us in these little glimpses of environmental storytelling, right: you can sit and listen to marissa and quirrel, you can ring the bells on the stag stations over and over again, your only choice is to take the dream nail because ghost won't allow itself to be sealed away forever in a dream. they use the little interact prompts quite often to show personality and character like this, and others have gone over this in much more depth than i will here, because what i really want to point out is the names of the prompts. in hollow knight, when you find an item on the ground that you can take, it always says "inspect". ghost is curious and wants to know what it's taking before it takes it, usually. when you approach an npc, the prompt you're given is "listen", because ghost can't talk back. whereas in silksong, not only are the npc prompts "talk", because, well, hornet can talk, but what i find much more interesting is the item prompts: "take". and, most interestingly to me, when hornet finds a crest that she can bind it's always called "claim". this didn't really strike me until i bound shaman, and got that dialogue she has with the snails after she does it: it's claiming something for herself, making it hers, almost by force. she says it herself: dominance is in her blood. she will take things if she feels they'll help her on her quest, like the craws' money and shards from their nest, and even their forgiveness later on, or the living, beating hearts of powerful bugs. i really like how the game portrays her as ruthless, not unnecessarily mean, but rather someone who is extremely motivated to do certain things and so she'll do anything she has to to accomplish them. ruthlessness isn't killing people for fun, it's exactly this: doing whatever it takes. god she's so interesting to me. she's really her father's daughter.
I’ve had so many thoughts about the interaction prompts for Ghost, too! The bench prompts ALONE are fascinating.
The bench prompt in HK and SS is “rest,” which has very specific connotations that don’t speak to mindlessness very much. “Rest” means you feel safe. It means you can replenish your energy for as long as you need to.
Ghost really takes that prompt to heart! It falls asleep on the benches, which is adorable. That also means that it can feel tired, and also it feels safe enough to let its guard down entirely. Hornet, however, does not, and she’s always looking around. The only time she doesn’t look around while resting is in her house, where she knows for a fact that she’s alone.
However, the most interesting part of HK’s bench prompts is when it ISN’T “rest.” There are multiple points in the game where you sit, but you don’t actually rest. The ones I can remember off the top of my head are sitting by Quirrel at the lake, and sitting on the king’s throne in the white palace. In both cases, the prompt is “sit.”
This speaks to a kind of situational awareness. Ghost is not resting with Quirrel, as it knows why Quirrel is sitting there. It’s a last moment of respect and enjoying each other’s company, not a casual rest where Ghost can just go about its business after.
In the palace, the throne is not actually a place of rest, despite it being the king’s final resting place. Ghost, in my opinion, is aware of this, and thus will not go about its business normally. No charm changes, no map checking, no journal entries. Just sitting.
Curious little thing with a surprising amount of empathy vs no nonsense hunter who is the fakest idgaf-er ever
The entire throne sequence conveys so much without a single word, you arguably see the poor little creature going through a whole sequence of complicated emotions there.
The Knight knocks the King's remains off his throne with enough force to crack what's left of his face and send some bits flying (by this point they've probably seen seen the heaps of corpses in abyss or even put together that he 'made' it...)
It plops itself on his chair (perhaps defiantly ('My chair now!'), or trying to 'fill his shoes') - faint glow coming off of it seems emphasized when it sits there, like it's maybe trying to "glow up the room" like he might have.
....but after a while, a sad little stripped-back melody starts playing that blends both their leitmotifs (like maybe after it got the anger out of its system, some longing for what might have been sets in - this is the closest it'll ever come to interacting with him.)
this is the one chair it never slouches on (as if the heavy weight of responsibility is settling upon its wee shoulders - they must now attempt to do what the poor old fool couldn't.)
Latest Silksong miniature. It's about 8cm tall, and fully poseable, with a variety of other features. Full photo-essay below the cut, as this one's rather long.
This one marks some deviation from how I've done figures of this sort in the past. It's made with the same basic design of epoxy putty body pieces and wire skeleton, but I also embedded metal beads into the joints, so the wire doesn't chew away at the body when I position the figure. I left said beads sticking out in some places to add to the Automaton feel (you can see one in the neck joint above the collar). This means that, besides being stronger, it's not quite as scary to pose the figure.
It also has a few things I hadn't done before- namely, a cloak that's actually supposed to look relatively nice, and puffy sleeves. I did those by inverting a cloth tube over the arms, stuffing them with wool, and tucking them into the shoulder joints. I made the plumes out of the same material as the cloak- namely, a bit of an old shirt, which I painted.
Here are the iconic scissor blades, which some of you may remember from another post. I carved the base blades out of bamboo kitchen skewers, then added many little elements out of twisted wire and thread before painting them. Made sure to have them be asymmetrical, as in the sprites. I did add a little embellishment, though, partly to make sure they had enough wire in them, partly to make them look more Pharloom-ian.
I wanted them to be easily attachable to the Sentinel's back, so I actually took inspiration from this post by @spotsupstuff and made it such that you can slip a tiny magnet under the back of the cloak and simply stick the blades on- the wire I used in them is magnet-sensitive, so it works out well. Easy as that. Will probably do this whenever I remake my Hornet figure.
But that's not all- the best part is yet invisible. Remember that one post I made of a cogwork heart some time ago? Well:
It has a hatch on the torso, and when opened, that's where the heart goes. I built the heart around a tiny fragment of magnet, so it sticks to the wire support structures I put inside, and it pulls the doors shut behind it.
(You have to use tweezers to put it in and take it out.)
It had a post for itself but here's the heart again. It's only a few millimeters across.
But enough about that. Time to go on sentry duty in the Core.
A lot more effort went into this one than went into all the others; doing that whole chest cavity + heart assembly took A While, but it was worth it. I'm pleased with this one. I hope Tumblr will be as well.
I'm not sure what other Silksong/Hollow Knight characters to do, so if you have ideas, please let me know. The main deciding factor (aside from how much I like them) is if their body is segmented enough and has no thicker elements that would have to be bendable (like, for instance, Green Prince's neck or Lace's pantaloons). But I may end up doing more environmental things anyway, so this may be a moot question. Still haven't made that bellhome, and I've been considering a Choral Chambers diorama for a while...
Last one got flagged as Mature, so I've decided to make another post of my new Sentinel figure in hopes that this one doesn't. (So nice, you see them twice.)
So, here it is. I'll put fewer images in so as to risk less. Full post is here (with its scary, scary Mature filter).
Here are its twin scissor-blades-
-Which can be stuck on the back for easy carrying via magnets.
And the most intricate part, the removable cogwork heart (which I may be risking an erroneous Mature filter with, but whatever):
(You need tweezers to take it out and put it back in. The heart is about five millimeters across.)
Point being: f-functional, is this Sentinel. Poseable, is it-ts shell.
A lot more effort went into this one than went into all the others; doing that whole chest cavity + heart assembly took A While, but it was worth it. I'm pleased with this one. I hope Tumblr will be as well.
I'm not sure what other Silksong/Hollow Knight characters to do, so if you have ideas, please let me know. The main deciding factor (aside from how much I like them) is if their body is segmented enough and has no thicker elements that would have to be bendable (like, for instance, Green Prince's neck or Lace's pantaloons). But I may end up doing more environmental things anyway, so this may be a moot question. Still haven't made that bellhome, and I've been considering a Choral Chambers diorama for a while...
(Once again, full post is here- more pictures, more process explanation.)
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