#still figuring out how to draw peppino

[atlaslovesedm]

the vigilante did not try to kill an italian man while wearing thigh high leather boots just for pizza tower “fans” to say that no one is gay in pizza tower. don’t worry, mr. lante. i saw your chanel boots.

[rascal-rose]

2023: year of old man yaoi

[klownkoster]

Silly self indulgent comfort doodles bc i feel terrible rn 👍

[the-awful-falafel]

pizza tower doodles because I'm obsessed with this game

(and by pizza tower doodles I mean 80% peppino)

[flowersnax]

pizza guys

[a-heartshaped-object]

pizza dudes

[sylflare]

Hello Peppinoise nation. I’m gonna start posting about them here since my posts on Twitter about them don’t get much attention + there’s more shippers here iguduvkgyc

[pepteezer]

some peppino doodles i did during work that i took home ✏️

[strawberryarcana]

Gonna go crawl back into my cringe hole now

[jellazticious]

bing bong bootleg SS au

very long ramble under the C

stuff are subjected to change

The working title isn't solidified but I'm leaning on either Candy Castle or Pastry Castle

Tho I think I'm gonna go for pastry cuz it has the same amount of letters as castle much like pizza and tower have the same number too

The tower is a gingerbread castle. According to a friend of mine (It's Beefy, it's always Beefy go follow him) that Hispanics love their bakeries and yeah, I guess that makes sense. Not only do I have a theme based on the protag's culture but also the theme gets narrowed down to just baked sweets. Candy in general is too broad, I would die figuring out how to put every kind of sweet in it, and if I did it's gonna be really cluttered hooboy

Noise is called Theo because that's Peppino's name formula. Peppino is a nickname for Giuseppe so I thought I'd give Noise's swap a nickname to Theodore as the main name

Hazel Nutt is pretty self explanatory cuz Noisette means hazelnut in French

Their outfits are pretty simple to mirror Peppino and Gustavo's with just coloured shirts and aprons

Hazel doesn't get a mount because she would have Theo's prototype rocket skates. Just like Gus, she would have different stages of getting used to the skates per floor. First she gets blasted from end to end cuz she can't control the thrust. Second, she manages to turn it off but she's trying to keep balance on it. Third, she catches her breath now that she could stand still without moving or slipping. Next she would make a card castle, in reference to the very castle they're inside. and lastly she'd be holding a box of sweets without giving a shit about the scary floor.

To parallel the og Noisette, Hazel would smile bigger when Theo faces her direction.

Hazel is also Theo's delivery gal to match and switch with how Peppino WAS Gustavo's delivery guy

The "kick the rat" function would be Hazel swinging one of the skates and the cops grabbing Brick would instead hold a weapon detector that also functions as a magnet

Unlike Peppino, Theo is more aggressive than anxious. Imagine an injured cat defending itself from what it thinks is a threat

the name of Pizzaface's swap is Pieface for obvious reasons 😭

but HEAR ME OUT

both pizzaface and pieface are used as insults. pizza face is used for people with so much acne and pie face is used for someone with a flat face or dull expression. It isn't just a pun on what food the characters are made of. Pieface is also a reference to the trope where people headshot other people with pies. With the mech floating towards the protag, it would look like a pie is being thrown and targeted at Theo

Honestly drawing what food makes his face is so fun. Did you know that before the croissant smile it was supposed to be syrup shaped to a smile? The nose was a long whip of cream before turning into a cut strawberry for the mustache effect

Pizzahead's candy version would be called Gingerhead because of how ridiculous it sounds.

Gingerhead is based on Willy Wonka much like how Pizzahead is based on Ronald McDonald which is why he has more of a showman look than a clown look

okay side note, it just occured to me how ironic PH being based on Ronald is considering McDo's isn't a pizza place

actually Wonka doesn't even sell cakes and shit so, I guess it's fair game

Theo has the nickname Muffinman to reference the rhyme. but this time, it's the gingerbreadman chasing the baker

Next up is Mr S, who would be Peppino but he becomes rich. Mr S is the stage name he uses. He is a known celebrity much as Noise is but he is more of a boxer than a host. Like Dwayne Johnson or something. His name is partially a reference to ResEvil's Mr X, another absolute unit of a guy

also the reason why he doesn't wear a shirt. He's committing to the bit. If he needs to cover himself when he isn't playing a role, then there's his robe. He doesn't take out his mask most of the time tho

Mr S's mask is based on the Chef Raider design but also part of the scrapped superhero design much like Pizzano. Actually speaking of Pizzano, S is characterized so similarly to him cuz Pizzano is the only SS character who was actually written well to my standards. To be fair we've seen too much of Peppino to flunk characterizing him sksksk

Since this is Peppino that Mr S is based on, he's not as tech savvy or as self centered as Noise so he doesn't have robots that look like himself. Instead he has ants for a crew

the ants swap the place of rats. the rats in PT reference the new york pizza rat while ants just generally eat your food especially if it's sweet when left alone for five minutes

the ants come from Mr G, who would be Gustavo's swap with Noisette. He's Mr S's lawyer. at the end of S's bossfight, G would snatch him away with Click (the ant) because S would make a foul and embarrassing move on live camera

I can't seperate Gustavo and Brick so Click stays with Mr G instead of assisting Hazel

inside what would be Noisette cafe, instead of Mr G and Click being behind the counter, they would be sitting as customers next to Caraman. the barista isn't seen anywhere

Honestly when I'm writing everyone, my logic of swapping them isn't "make them switch places AND personalities" but more of "write every single one of them with the og personality because giving them a different lifestyle/role would drastically change their motives and how they behave"

I'm practically just swapping each character's place of birth

I mentioned this because it's kinda funny with Noisette and Gus since they play the exact same role of assisting Peppino/Noise so swapping them won't change much in how they act. They also have the same cheery and welcoming personality by default so Hazel and Mr G would act REALLY similar to their og

The only difference is that Gustavo can be threatening whenever Peppino fucks up. It fits right in with being a lawyer for the same goon

Now we got Mel Caraman who would become this au's Vigi. Lemme just say off the bat that Caraman is just as delusional as Vigi. He gets hired as a guard for floor 2 and took it way too seriously that he thinks he's some sort of sentinel. Hired as a guard but thinks he's an ancient guardian or something

his name vaguely references James Bond because you also VAGUELY get "caramel" out of "Caraman, Mel Caraman"

Caraman is a caramel apple but he's half glazed to form an eyemask. he's also got a stick poking out his head that stretches his chorro hat. the big hat makes him look cooler anyways. Bro I was so ready to settle for a shitty wild west mayor hat and I owe Beefy one for suggesting a new hat. I was gonna make him look like Doug Dimmadome with the short brimmed tall hat😭😭😭

but yeah Caraman doesn't have the same dignity as Vigi does. He can fight crime decently on normal circumstances and badass when he's full serious. But like day in day out he's so obnoxious about looking for crime that people get tired of him nor would they take him seriously

he would also be mistaken for a pepper

Next to last, Cam M. Bert or just Bert who would take place of Pepperman. he's an artist who appreciates the world instead of himself, a freelancer also. There was only a bossfight because he was coincidentally commissioned to make a mural for the castle the same time Theo busts in. He didn't like how Theo ruined some of his works with his rush to open the door

Bert is a cream cheese instead of a cheese slime. his beret is actually a little cherry to distinguish him from the other creams.

Bert is really chill and humble, He's like Bob Ross, whenever he can, he'd try to talk about how every beauty in the world should be immortalized through a canvas

In parallel to Vigi's delusion of thinking he's a human, Bert thinks he's actually a living painting (which is completely possible for someone to be in the PT world since Pepperman was able to do it with his own art)

instead of a :{ face that Vigilante has, Bert has a :3 face

the naming formula is taken directly from Vigi

Vig E. Lantte

Cam M. Bert

There is a type of sweet cheese that's really creamy called camembert which his name is a direct reference from. Here is a picture of a camembert since it's hella cute

Camembert cheese was also suggested by Beefy, brother thank you for not allowing me to name this cunt Creamlad

Mr Lardo would be in place of Mr Stick but his motive is that he's collecting Theo's money on BEHALF of Mr Stick. They're probably the only ones who completely stay intact because there's not much canon info of Stick WITHIN the game itself I also feel he's a crossover character from his own "series" with how long McPig has him prior to PT so I just swap the character who makes the "cameo"

The toppins are still called toppins because they'd be used to decorate a cake or pie. They would be

Strawberry - Mushroom

Cream - Cheese

Cookie - Tomato

Icing (in a piping bag) - Sausage

actually I dont know yet for the pineapple but I'll get to it. I've only been figuring out this au since four days ago....

Lastly (of the characters), the Faker in this would be mechanical to match the original Noise's familiarity in robots

Fake Theo (temp name) would be engineered to be "Theo but way better" while actually being succesful with it. Faker would also sort of look like a mini figure of a ballerina. Referencing The Nutcracker

Opposite to Fake Peppino, Fake Theo is more graceful than terrifying but it's so uncanny how unnaturally pretty it is

and now some misc stuff

Title of the final level is When The Cookie Crumbles

the pepper pizza will be replaced with an extremely sweet pie and the immunity is caused by the sugar rush from it

Pizza Time is called Crunch Time

Pillar John would be a giant graham cracker since the walls are made of cookies instead of bricks. Gerome however, is a solidified bar of brownies. like a shittily made brownie that it just turned into a construction brick

Snotty is a pure white cream cheese and that's cuz he's actually made of glue. His name is Sticky

Pigs would either be bears or rabbits with how many times those two animals represented sweets

I'm gonna be clear with everyone here. I literally made this au cuz I'm going insane trying to make swap stuff with Pascal/Stefano when the au itself is so empty. sure it's colourful but it's so empty like I can't draw SS characters outside of poses

I tried like doing fanon modifications as I always do then there's so much I "modified" that at this point it's not Sugary Spire anymore. Just straight up a completely different au. The only similarity is that it's a swap au with sweets

it is what it is yknow. this is my life now. I said fuck it and went with the flow and boom, new personal au that I poured too much into

basically I blame Pascal for this

[beatcroc]

a year!!! as of today i have now been drawing these funny little pizza freaks, to the exclusion of almost everything else, for!!! an entire year!!! i wanted to do a nice group shot/lineup of everybody to compare to when i first started trying to draw them because oh boy were they bad. i never even posted most of them anywhere because they were so bad. but im posting them here, now, to see how everything's changed/evolved.

this is probably the hardest time i've ever had trying to figure out how to work with a style, but we got there eventually; i'm pretty happy with the handle i've got on everybody now...dont let ur memes be dreams. lots of unimportant journaling and idle thoughts abt it below.

older pics

the first one is the VERY first time i drew them, before i thought i was going to actually have any interest in drawing them [lmao]; it was just the one isolated image, for my friendserver, to illustrate the funney message, so there was no attempt to make it Good or actually understand anything going on w/ the designs or style.

second is the original run of practices sketches to start trying to figure them out for real; done after i started having ideas for the comics and such and realized oh god maybe i am actually gonna draw fanart for this. [again, lol, and lmao.]

third one is the first pt art thing i posted on here. there were a couple weeks of sprite studies between this one and the previous image. the one on the top right wasn't part of that post i just threw it on as space filler; i'd intended to shift to doing Sprite Redraws But Stylized to explore tings more, but that was the only one i did. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

individual characters

peppino: by far the hardest dear god. bro what ARE your shapes how DOES your face work. jesus christ. everything i have trouble with this style for, peppino has it in excess. i draw in polygons! i need consistency! and that is the last thing this kind of style is concerned with. they are made of squarshy clay and i do not understand how to mold them. i was really hoping trying to learn this game's style would GIVE me that kind of flexibility for fun exaggerated facial expression but i don't think much came of it in the end 😔. anyway on the bright side all this means once i got peppino figured out a little bit everybody else clicked way easier.

fake peppino: honestly i never did anything with him on purpose except for how his eyes work + the perma-smile thing. i figured ok hes supposed to look weird and off model so whatever happens with him happens. and it did. and it kept happening. it is still, in fact, happening.

noise/ette: somehow, for every bit that peppino was the least natural thing i've ever tried, these two worked pretty much right off the bat. i still don't understand it, seeing as pretty much all the things at play for peppino are also at work for them. i think the new sketches are actually a little worse than older ones but not enough that i care.

gustavo: really funny bc i drew him on model twice and just went 'okay, cool nice, easy, um. he doesn't have any fucking legs?' fortunately he was the only one i had a strong idea for how to stylize him [square] and it worked exactly as i was hoping so wahoo.

brick: is an animal and therefore 5000x easier and more natural for me to draw/stylize than anything else in the cast. that is Just a rat bro. i can draw a rat.

gerome: i think the funniest one here. the most drastic and least necessary change imo. i was gonna have him be really small at first, like smaller than the noises, but then i just... didn't. he's just peppino-sized now. also i gave him like. actual human facial structure, which is funny bc in most cases i'd do anything to avoid, but it works well for his being A Rock to give him some angles and definition like that+ to differentiate his vibe from the rest of the cast who are all very squishy. also since he is essentially Just A Head it's good to emphasize that too ig.

john: i only drew john a couple times but he gets to be here because i like him. and because most of the stuff i applied to gerome was readily applicable to john, though i did try to keep him a little more uncanny because he is a Huge And Lanky Freak. i hate that he is barefoot btw but idk how to make his color balance look right with shoes.

pizzahead: i did not want to put him on here honestly but i Have drawn him a handful of times and more importantly i didn't know what i was gonna do with john's pose if i didn't have him there to be glared at. the only thing that's different with him is giving him wider-bottomed pants, which i got from when i tried to draw these guys in clone high style [i never posted that one either][i will eventually]

snick: he gets to be here because 1. he's like 6 lines 2. i like him and 3. ive scribbled him a few times offhand and it went pretty well

misc

there are some guys missing because those are guys i didn't draw enough [or at all] to have gotten comfortable with them. sorry

i would have Liked to shade these but for the time being i have accepted that my grasp of light/shadow has decayed to the point im not going to be happy with anything i try there, so For Now i am working on my presentation with flats i guess. gerome has a shadow only because he's shaded like that ingame and looks naked without it

anyway if you are still reading [hi?] i get to shamelessly plug now. i'm over the hill of my pizza run now, and while i still have plenty of things i want to make here, most of the bigger more in-depth ones have passed. pizza tower was the first thing in THREE YEARS to get me out of my oc groove to doing fanart, and once i am done with my ideas here i will be going right back to it. if you like my art or how i write characters/interactions you should check out my oc/webcomic blog @jamverse . i can't promise people who like pizza stuff will be terribly into my designs, but i can guarantee i treat my guys with the exact same sort of tone i handle the pt guys with. and hell, i've mentioned it a few times before, but like 70% of my characterization for fake pep is just copied off one of my characters, so if u are going to miss him... he will still be there in spirit >;p

and if you dont care about any of that and are still reading thank you anyway. actually making these comics + seeing how shockingly well-received they've been has done a lot for my confidence, and for seeing that my kind of stuff IS something people enjoy :')

[solarusofsun]

Fake Peppino Friday but I'm still trying to figure out how to draw him

but idk, I think I'm doing a progress

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TW: Body Horror

creature

[marclef]

OKAY HELL YEAH THE POWER'S BACK ON HERE SO, VERY IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT TO MAKE!!

SOME-FUCKING-HOW I'VE GOTTEN TO ✨300✨ FOLLOWERS!!!!!

I DO NOT KNOW HOW THIS IS POSSIBLE BUT, I AM BEYOND AMAZED BY THE SUPPORT AND LOVE YOU'VE ALL GIVEN ME SO THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!! ❤❤❤ YOU'RE ALL TOO SWEET AND KIND AND I LOVE EVERY ONE OF YOU /PLAT 🤗

this came a lot sooner than i expected, so i didn't have the best of plans to celebrate... but i do have a good Babysitter Fakey to offer. i hope you like him 😊

and... some ramblings under the cut, if anyone cares about hearing me yell for a moment...

but.... let me just say that, moving my art onto Tumblr has been one of the best decisions i've ever made. the love and support from here compared to Instagram is unreal, and, something i never saw coming, i've actually made some real close friends here. and me being the socially-awkward weirdo i am, it really means a lot to me. you guys have been helping me feel not just better about myself, but helping me reach out and talk to others like me, it's just insane. i genuinely mean it, thank you guys so much. you're the best ❤😭❤

and another thing..... i've been a bit busy with stuff lately, but i promise i'm trying to work on stuff! i've got a few drawing asks i really need to work on, and as for my writing..... okay i still haven't started it. but i AM trying to figure out how best to write it, because i plan on doing both split parts AND drawings for it. i want to make sure it comes out the best it possibly can. but stay tuned, there's a lot i've got to finish up!

..... oh alright. one more bonus if you've made it this far. lo and behold: the very first art piece i ever posted to Tumblr, not thinking i'd be moving fully onto here hehe 😅 enjoy Peppino's old design in all its full glory ✨✨✨

ain't he a beaut'.

[toastedjeans]

Dungeon of Pizza characters part 2!

Part 1 -> here

AU Summary -> here

Continuing with Mr. Stick and Burton! Stick originally should have had a propeller hat, but i thought the mechanical wings made more sense for the setting. Also he's an inventor, so i thought he could have built these himself. His glasses and hat had to stay of course. Also, fun fact, i based Burton's clothes a bit on earth bender clothes in ATLA, but his silly tiny hat still had to stay cause i love it too much lol

Fake Peppino and Maurice are only next to each other cause they were the only ones who didn't really belong to anyone i guess? Anyway, for Faker i wanted to show off how he looks when shape shifting. He will always be a little paler and taller than the original, with way longer arms, and wonky eyes. He isn't as drippy as usual since here he isn't really a clone. Maurice is just there to fill the roster tbh. The mace is supposed to reference his sack of nickels, although he probably has that here as well. He doesn't use the mace tho, it's only for intimidation purposes. He mostly uses the knife on his belt.

Would you believe me if i told you this was my first time drawing both Gerome and John? Cause it was. For John i wanted him to get a big scar on his head after being freed from Pizzahead. Not sure if i want him to become blind on that eye where the scar is going through... Would probably be too dramatic. Not much to say about Gerome tbh but i like how he came out.

And finally, Pizzahead and Pizzaface. The color choice for PF was a bit hard to figure out, but all i knew was that i wanted him to be robotic. Obviously he doesn't look too robotic here cause he's got clothes on, but at least his hands were supposed to look metallic with wiring. Idk how much that comes across but honestly he looks fine to me. Does he have wings? Idk, probably. Or he just flies cause he can. I haven't figured that out yet. Oh and PH is here too. I don't have much to say about him. He has different gauntlets cause he's a special little boy idk

ANYWAY, that's all the characters! Some designs gave me a bit of trouble but all in all I'm satisfied with them!

[manicplank]

How’s everyone’s family relationships/background? I hc Pizzahead & Pizza Granny are related, and Vigi has some canon family members but the others are mysteries

This one should be interesting

Family headcanons!

Peppino: His mama lives in Italy and loves him VERY much. His father unfortunately passed before Peppino could open his pizzeria. Grew up with good, loving parents. I believe Peppina is his canonical sister (if you haven't seen McPig's drawing, I think it's somewhere on tumblr). He and her are probably a bit estranged. Fluent 100% in Italian and English.

Gustavo: Has a mom and a dad that just adore him! He's an only child, so he got their love unconditionally! Grew up with incredible parents. One parent was probably Italian. (I've stated before, but I headcanon he has a son that he only gets to see every other weekend. Regardless, he loves his son to death.) About 80% fluent in Italian. Hilarious to hear he and Peppino bicker.

Mr. Stick: I would like to think he has a relatively big family with a LOT of cousins. Mom is good to him, but dad is a bit distant (but still loves him). Probably has a brother that he argues with.

Pepperman: Has grandpa pepper (I'm not sure if they're canonically related, though). Momma pepper loved him very much and loved his art. She had every drawing he's made from preschool to current. His dad is a mystery... He was born and raised in the tower by his grand pepper after his mom passed away.

The Vigilante: (Sad.) He was orphaned at a young age due to rogue criminals, so his peepaw, John E. Cheese, ended up raising him on his own. His meemaw passed before he was born. With his peepaw passing, he doesn't have anybody but the farm.

The Noise: (Mr. Orange is not confirmed as of yet, so I don't consider him part of Noise's family.) I feel like he would have an absent father. His mama loves him very much and spoiled him through his childhood. However, they didn't always get along. Having an AuDHD child as a single parent was probably HELL, especially with it being The Noise. He was born in America with both parents migrating from Mexico. Has a big family despite being an only child. Can mostly speak Spanish, pretty fluent but not 100%. Probably about 80%.

Noisette: Stated before, her parents migrated from France, and she was born in America. She's fluent in French and English. Probably forgets that she can speak French. She is an only child and was raised very well. She was a bit of a shit head as a child, though. Her parents adore her. They don't know about her criminal record, and they don't need to know. She has a couple cousins.

Fake Peppino: On technicality, he and The other clones are related as they all share a smidge of Peppino's DNA. With that being said, Fakey is probably somewhat related to Peppino. Fakey sees Peppino as a father figure, much to Peppino's dismay. Pizzahead is sort of like a mother figure, but only sort of.

Pizzahead: He was definitely adopted. The picture of the pizza couple in the tower lobby shows his parents. Unfortunately, they both passed, and Pizzahead inherited the tower. He has an estranged brother that ceased contact once their parents passed. Granny Pizza loves Pizzahead dearly, and he loves Granny just as much. He sees Fakey as a child rather than just a clone. That's his "baby".

Pillar John: He and Gerome are obviously related. Surprisingly, he is the younger of the two despite his large size. His father was actually different from Gerome's, which explains the significant difference in appearance. Their mother is somewhere out there worried sick about them. She hasn't heard from them since they entered the tower...

Gerome: Like I said, his father was different than John's. He's the older brother of the two and is very protective of John, which is why the tower situation hurts him so much. Gerome has tried to contact his mother only to be stopped by Pizzahead. Probably a bit estranged from his father, but gets along with John's father.

Now... Pizzaface... There's a lot of headcanons out there which he's a robot copy of Pizzahead's father. I personally like this headcanon as there are portraits of Pizzaface all over the tower, even one of him as a child. I feel that once Pizzaface passed away, Pizzahead resurrected him as a robot. I'm still a bit iffy on what I headcanon, but that's mainly what I think so far. (This is also based on other's as well as my own theories.)

This one was fun :)

Also meemaw = grandma and peepaw = grandpa

[stardestroyer81]

My first post of 2024 may have been cited to be the first look at Star Tower, my arcade-centric Pizza Tower AU, though consider this post to be your first real look at both the AU! This is a post I've been wanting to make for quite some time, and I am simply overjoyed to finally reveal the first set of characters for Star Tower!!! ⭐👾✨

This is a long post packed to the brim with art— some of which aren't featured in the above image— so if you're interested, I highly suggest you read on underneath the cut! 💙✨

As an AU, Star Tower dates back to March 3rd of 2023, which is when I first drew the logo for it. A sprite of myself drawn in the Pizza Tower artstyle predates Star Tower as an AU by about a month, so I think it goes without question that the stand-in for Peppino is Star Tower is a representation of myself!

It's just another day for Star Splitscreen at the local arcade, when all of a sudden, the multicade cabinet bugs out and sucks her inside! It's within the cabinet's confines where she meets the omnipotent Sinistar, who claims it'll set her free if she can best its '20-in-1 Supercade Challenge'.

What follows is an arduous adventure that sees Star venturing through arcade games familiar and obscure, and learning Sinistar's secret identity as well as escaping back into the real world all depends on her success... it's a good thing a seasoned arcade expert like her has what it takes!

I knew going into designing for Star Tower that I wanted each floor boss (I.E. Pepperman, The Noise, etc.) to be represented with an actual character from an established arcade game (With one exception...) and trust me when I say that I spent a fair amount of time carefully going through every arcade game I knew of and selecting a character appropriate for each boss's role.

Ultimately, I'm quite proud of the selection of characters I settled with, so let's jump right in and discuss Pepperman's stand-in...

Goro from 1983's Mappy! I find that, in terms of appearance, Goro was a perfect fit to replace Pepperman. Both are predominantly large red characters who are often depicted with wide, toothy grins— it was the perfect match!

Unlike both his canon personality and his personality in the animated ShiftyLook series, Goro in Star Tower is a lot more nefarious and self-centered, and sends out the Meowkies to do his dirty work when his own efforts don't cut it. I wanted to include sprites of the three Meowkies for this post originally, but I decided to save them for a future post (That's tech talk for 'I'm still trying to figure out how to stylize them').

I think of the four main bosses, Goro was the hardest to sprite in the Pizza Tower artstyle solely for the way his head is drawn. There's something about his face that was extremely difficult to draw at such a small scale, but after drawing pretty much every other sprite featured in this post, he was the final character in this lineup that I drew a sprite for, and I'm quite happy with it!

While Goro is certainly an iconic character, the same can't be said for The Vigilante's stand-in who, in spite of starring in one of the earliest known arcade games, is all the more obscure. Enter...

Mr. Jack from 1979's Sheriff! The Vigilante is the only boss of the main four who originally was going to be represented by an entirely different character, that being Kinzo from 1996's Pac-Man Arrangement.

It was when I remembered about Sheriff that I realized that Mr. Jack was the perfect candidate to replace The Vigilante. I mean, both are represented as mostly yellow cowboys armed with guns and a fashionable cowboy hat. How much closer could you get than that?

The real challenge was finding a good image of Mr. Jack to base his appearance in Star Tower off of. For those who don't know, Mr. Jack only has three known images of him that exist despite the fact that the game he hails from is over forty years old, so it wasn't exactly the easiest task.

I decided to base his appearance off of how he looks on Sheriff's bezel as that's the only full-body look we've ever gotten of him. The guy already looks like a Pizza Tower character as it is (A long lost cousin of Burton, perhaps?), and I find that his sprite looks the most like something you would actually see in Pizza Tower!

On the topic of arcade characters that are perfect fits for stand-ins of certain Pizza Tower characters...

Charley Chuck from 1983's Food Fight was, without question, the ideal choice to replace The Noise. One look at this flyer for Food Fight should perfectly encapsulate as to why. He's a little brat who's primary objective is to make the lives of the local chefs miserable. Sound familiar? It should!

Charley has had numerous different designs drawn for him around the time his game debuted, and it was pretty difficult settling on just the right one. I decided to give him a white and red striped shirt which he wears on the Food Fight arcade cabinet, and draw him as similar to the Noise as I could— I even sized him so that he stands smaller than Star, which took a lot more time than I'm willing to admit.

What's particularly interesting is that, fairly recently, Atari announced a Splatoon-like game for their VCS console, and you'll never believe who's the poster boy and what the game is a sequel to. I'm fairly certain that just before the announcement of Food Fight: Culinary Combat, I was the only person who was doing anything with Charley Chuck, and here he is starring in a brand new game some forty years after his initial debut. Not bad, kid!

One must wonder if I was the one who manifested Charley's return into existence...

With Charley Chuck properly introduced, I can move onto who may just be my favorite of this post's lineup...

Crazy Star.

With the success of 1981's Donkey Kong, an officially licensed clone was created for use in Japan only, though found its way outside of the country without the license to do so from Nintendo. This clone's name is Crazy Kong, and to say it's uncanny wouldn't be doing it justice.

Originally, I was a bit hesitant on just designing a 'fake Star' and calling it a day. I wanted there to be some arcade theming to it, and when the idea of a 'bootleg Star' came to mind, I quickly turned to Crazy Kong as a point of reference and Crazy Star is what came out of it (I should also mention that Crazy Kong released in 1981... now that's what I call meant to be)!

Out of everyone featured in this post, I've definitely drawn Crazy Star the absolute most because, as I mentioned before, it's just about my favorite of the Star Tower bunch! My favorite detail about it is that its color palette is made up of colors hand-picked from Crazy Kong itself!

Originally, I had screen-picked its colors from a YouTube video of the clone, resulting in a slightly different color scheme, but once I found a sprite sheet for Crazy Kong, it resulted in the Crazy Star you see in this post! Crazy Star may look unsettling, but in reality it's just as welcoming as Star, and all it wants is to be just like her.

Just like her... just like her... just like her...

Beware... Sinistar from the 1983 arcade game of the same name lives! Yet another instance of the perfect replacement, both Pizzaface and Sinistar are giant evil floating circles, and it was clear to me from the get-go that Sinistar would make a perfect stand-in for the former, especially since half of its name is 'Star'!

Drawing a sprite for Sinistar was both a cakewalk and a challenge. For one, seeing as its sprite is on the larger side, that meant I had a lot more detail to work with. On the other hand, however, I struggled for a while to get a good design drawn for Sinistar. Eventually, my good friend @panurei-derogatory suggested that it would be funny if Sinistar was hyper-realistically detailed compared to the other sprites, and that was something I had a lot of fun with when drawing its sprite!

Anyone who's played Pizza Tower knows that Pizzaface himself is merely a facade, as the true mastermind behind Peppino's misery has been hidden in plain sight since the very start— the comically villainous Pizzahead! I think out of every 'arcade stand-in' I chose for Star Tower, coming up with one for Pizzahead was the absolute hardest, because none of my ideas really seemed to stick the landing.

But then, I thought "What if it was a completely original character?"

And that's where Richard Benito Townsend (More commonly known by his alias 'Richie T.'), the self-proclaimed 'king of video games', enters the scene!

Richie T., who is absolutely not based off of any notorious cheaters in the arcade world record scene, is a washed-up video game master has-been, once highly regarded in his heyday for being an icon in the world of video games before his supposed 'unbeatable world records' were discovered to be fraudulent.

Shunned to a life of seclusion, the ever boisterous Richie T. now pilots Sinistar within a multicade cabinet where he's free to call the shots, daring to go toe-to-toe with Star once she proves herself worthy of being a Supercade Superstar. After all, she's just some girl— she can't possibly trounce the Richie T., can she?

Spoilers: He has no idea.

And with that out of the way, that's just about everything I wanted to touch base on in pertains to this first set of Star Tower characters! As I said before, this post has been a long time coming, and it's ever so wonderful to finally get this out onto tumblr!

You can expect a part two of sorts to this post sometime in the coming months, as there are still more stand-ins I've yet to post... this time, replacements of the supporting characters, such as Gustavo, Mr. Stick, and a couple of others! For now, I hope that you've enjoyed your first real look at the world of Star Tower! 💙✨