Jan 22
Small ceramic hand-built masks of Shakra, her master, and Master Hu from Hollow Knight and Silksong (I'm a fan of the idea that they're either all related or at least from the same culture).
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Small ceramic hand-built masks of Shakra, her master, and Master Hu from Hollow Knight and Silksong (I'm a fan of the idea that they're either all related or at least from the same culture).
This probably has a target audience of only like 3 other people, but I’ve been playing Peggle since I was like 4, and I realized recently that ever since, I’ve unconsciously headcanoned all but one of the Peggle masters as not-straight. I wasn’t even aware of it, I never actually thought to myself “that character is gay”, that’s just how they were in my head, and I never had to think it specifically, it was practically subconscious.
Sorry if this doesn’t matter to anyone but I needed to talk about it and my friends don’t know the game and my brother doesn’t care
Anyway here’s what I headcanon each of them as now that I’ve been able to think about it for real. Pt 1:
Apparently literally NOBODY on the internet has any kind of documentation on the extra features in Peggle Dual Shot; not even SPRITER'S RESOURCE, of all places!
Therefore, I took it upon myself to download a ROM (it was NOT hard to find) and screengrab all 10 of the Bonus Underground areas.
It's actually pretty interesting how seamless they look on emulator (barring the literal seam in Hu's hourglass); usually DS games put in some kind of invisible gap in two-part images to accommodate the gap between screens in the actual hardware, which looks awkward on an emulator.
Design Notes: The Original Ten Peggle Masters
If you follow my main, you might know that Peggle Dual Shot for the DS has a mechanic known as the Bonus Underground. Each playable Master that made it in (Marina got axed, presumably due to hardware limitations) has a unique background and layout, and most notably for this project, different colored Gems to collect.
Why is this notable? Because I made sure that all ten of them got that color somewhere on their design for OoD. If playing Magic Pengel has taught me anything, it's that colors bring meaning to life, and also that I'm drawn to bright things like a toddler.
And I figured that while I'm explaining that, I might as well explain the rest of the choices I made. Note that I'll be using avatars from Recolor as "concept art", so some details may be off.
This'll be a long post, so bear with me here.
Bjorn's Gems are Orange, as reflected in his hat, jacket, and shorts. His glasses being orange are a complete coincidence, though; that element was actually taken from his appearance in Blast!
(Funnily enough, earlier drafts from before Blast's release had Bjorn getting his eyesight damaged in a fight with Fnord; in the current lore, he's always had nearsightedness that he actively hid with his magic for...Fnord's-eyepatch-related reasons)
His outfit is a little out-there, but it's definitely grown on me. I wanted to go for more RPG Hero than Superhero, specifically an agile spear-wielder. Horses are pretty fragile animals, and a having a jabbing weapon rather than a traditional heroic sword serves as a nod to his horn.
The biggest change I made from the concept when drawing is probably his hat, which loses its brim and gets a horseshoe instead of a star. My goal with all the Institute Masters is to hide a horseshoe somewhere in their design to tie them all together; it's gonna be harder for some Masters than for others.
(The Academy has its own insignia: a flipped horseshoe resembling an omega, as seen on Fnord's eyepatch in canon.)
Jimmy's Gems are Blue, as seen on his jeans and elbow pads. Not many places I can hide a theme color on an already-clothed Master, but thankfully our favorite gopher (who I thought was a guinea pig for years cause science) is consistently pantsless.
While there was no getting rid of his iconic hat, I did give him some protection from impacts in his elbow pads. I gave him jeans to look more like a Rad Cool Kid(tm), but apparently it's recommended skaters wear them due to being wear-and-tear resistant.
While I'm pretty sure it's just weird artifacting from cranking up the saturation slider in Recolor, it kind of looks like he's got green patches or leggings, the latter of which I would definitely wear if I was forced to wear jeans for whatever reason.
If I had to add a horseshoe, it'd probably be some kind of charm on his hat.
Kat Tut's Gems are Cyan, which can be seen, uh...everywhere.
I'm not gonna lie I had ZERO ideas on what to do for KT. I knew Recolor had an "Egyptian Headdress" item (which I'm not sure were actually a thing in Ancient Egypt) and went from there. I do like the silhouette of the headpiece, though.
I wanted something light and show-offy, since Kat Tut is an acrobat and a performer, and well...something definitely happened.
This is probably the most likely to be subject to change, even if I do like the flowy shapes.
Splork's Gems are Yellow, as seen in his overshirt and shoes.
I originally wasn't the biggest fan of Splork, but I think designing this look made me warm up to him a little. It's fairly basic by gijinka standards, just with an added bowling shirt and shoes in his theme color.
Splork only has one eye, so I deliberately gave him the Other Eye Syndrome bangs as a nod. The particular hair part I use for said bangs have an annoying layering shortcut that puts a pile of disembodied hair at your avatars' feet, so I have to make a bald version of every Splork I make and photoshop the two together.
If I ever draw him, I very much intend to give this guy his bulk back. We have enough twinks in this project already.
Claude's Gems are Magenta, which I misremembered as a more coral-y shade of pink. At least it stands out more from Warren's purple?
My main inspiration for Claude was essentially just "guy who tries to pick up chicks at the beach". Unfortunately, in my folly it completely slipped my mind that the guy who gives you Flippers might have a reason to be wearing, well...flippers.
At least I gave him some Big Meaty Claws.
Renfield's Gems are an eerie Lime Green.
My idea for Renfield was to somehow combine a suit with a wizard's robe, and I think the execution went REALLY well.
The suit portion was actually lifted from Eyegor; while it hasn't been stated, Renfield is available as a hat/head item for Xbox Live Avatars if you own Peggle, heavily implying Eyegor is a headless body that Renfield normally perches upon.
Despite having left the Institute prior to the New Frontier's formation, Renfield is one of the few characters that actually DOES have a confirmed horseshoe placement: a subtle shape made with the detailing on the back of his jacket.
Tula's Gems are more of a minty Green, which I misremembered as being more vibrant like her stem.
Tula's design was...supposed to be derived from her Blast Design, but when I went back to look it turned out it was COMPLETELY different.
For starters, her hat. I initially gave her a sunhat, but I recently started wondering if it was actually meant to be a bucket hat. Looking at the art, I legitimately cannot tell what kind of hat that is supposed to be. And apparently it's supposed to have a gaudy fake flower charm on it??? Not only that, but it completely clashes with her color scheme??? That is NOT the same yellow as her petals, and that orange is nowhere else in her outfit!!!
Also, her raincoat??? Apparently it's not actually cerulean, but a bright aqua that makes the green of her stem look muddy and the rest of her design look plastic and fake, which is especially egregious since she's an environmentalist!!!
And good GOD, I think Blast!Tula's face is somehow giving me DOUBLE Uncanny Valley vibes. Like, Classic Tula and her flower friends are kinda disturbing since they have detailed human faces on flower bodies, but Blast Tula STILL looks disturbing because of how Not-Tula she looks.
...Anyways, this is "Design Notes", not "Getting Really Mad At Fashion". Let's move on.
Warren's Gems are Purple, which is convenient since his regular outfit is already almost completely purple.
In this concept, I made his suit fit better since he's larger than he is in-game as a humanoid, but I think I wanna walk that back. He's a gambling addict on a teacher's salary, this man CANNOT afford a tailored suit. If the art department had ever seen a rabbit before in their lives then he would've already been peak design.
Also, just for fun, Warren's form is short as hell. Possibly the shortest New Frontier member besides Gnorman and Luna. I'm thinking 5'1" (~155cm), possibly even shorter.
Cinderbottom's Gems are Red.
Not gonna lie, I think I might be less happy with Cindy's concept than Kat Tut's solely because of how I put in the red. I REALLY should've gone for something less bright. Probably need to do something about that hair, too; maybe some kind of gradient.
Among the Institute, Cinderbottom is the most at-odds with Bjorn, even (not-so) accidentally making him violently ill with his smoke in one of the old Blog posts -- now what was that about 'flames only serving the virtuous'?
Anyways, my point is that Cindy is also based on an RPG hero, this time an armor-clad knight with a sword, befitting his noble stature. (I also thought it'd be a neat reversal if The Hero had a lance while The Lancer had a sword.) His green mail is derived from his green scales.
Master Hu's Gems are White.
This one was pretty much as simple as just giving him a white robe. Recolor didn't have any good turbans, so I left it off.
Master Hu is cooking. Master Wu is edging me (I am about to Splork!!)
So in my free time, I've been assigning the Jobs from Alchemist Code to the Dreamatia crew, despite Square Enix's attempts to ruin my day specifically.
After assembling the document, I realized that the cast contains an incredibly disproportionate amount of Bards, even AFTER cutting some back.
The worst part is this still isn't all of them; I still have yet to design the entire cast in Recolor.
I've been replaying Peggle on the PC since my cat is too enamored with the game to let me continue All-Clearing on Xbox, and I've had a thought.
Hu's Zen Ball works by communing with the game of Peggle itself in order to divine the best possible shot.
In the Order of Dreamatians timeline, Blast ends in a hypothetical "Bad Ending", where Fnord successfully steals the Heart of Peggle.
How would that affect Hu? Hu isn't in Blast, and even if he was, I highly doubt EA would give us an answer. (With how insulting Peggle 2 was, I'm surprised they even remembered Fnord in the first place.)
