Introducing the Princess from the Clouds!

On this blog, I've only talked about Hell City, as that's the only location that's actually in the game, unless you count the Fourth Dimension, better known as the Special Stages. However, I still have plans in my head about other parts of the game, the most recent ideas being for the levels that take place in the clouds. Yeah, the clouds, y'know, that place that I composed a song for a long time ago but still haven't gotten around to adding to the game proper?

Anyways, getting to the point, I didn't have ideas for the sky levels, just planning to make them open areas where you have to do precise platforming, jumping from cloud to cloud. Not even the boss was planned out, just the music that would play in these levels, Atmospheric Glide (formerly "The Skies"). However, recently, an idea started coming to mind, the urge to create a new third little girl who'd be found in these levels, with her being a part of the overall story with her own unique things about her. Everyone, meet Peppermint!

Yes, I know, she has that skin tone...

This is Princess Peppermint, the first dark-skinned character I've created! In my game's universe, the darker-skinned humans originate in the sky, where their skin tone makes it naturally easier to see them on top of white clouds. Lighter skin tones originate down on the ground, respectively. Unlike American TV shows that just shoehorn in dark skin tones to indicate their racial diversity, Peppermint was created just due to my personal want to design a girl with this skin tone.

She has strange green hair with curly bangs and two oversized peppermint circles attached to it with two long bangs going down the sides of her face. This, along with her skin tone, was done to make her look foreign compared to Mary and Jane, coming from a different part of the world than them. Her normal outfit is a light-yellow dress with red stripes that go down the front then spread out similar to the lines on a peppermint.

Her dress is different than Mary and Jane's outfits, as it has short sleeves! These and the dress itself end in soft, cotton-like white stuff, which makes the dress more comfy. Her shoes don't have as much detail, but they are the same light-yellow color, with green gems on top of each, which match her hair color.

Princess Peppermint lives in Cumulus Peaks, located in the clouds. She is the current princess there, though during the story she isn't found at the big place the royal people would be found at, but rather guarding a path that leads to there. She doesn't have weapons in the traditional sense, unlike Mary or Xane, but she has another way to protect herself...

Peppermint has a magical melodica, given to her as part of being the princess, handed to her on the day she was declared one. With it, she can play small "melodies" that cast spells on her target, whether that is an object or another person. Though these spells are nothing major compared to the Origin Master's powers, things such as stunning her enemies and forcing them to move in a certain direction are possible thanks to her instrument.

At the moment, the melodica is basically the real Yamaha Pianica P-32D/E, a light-blue rectangular instrument with 32 piano keys on its front side and a black handle on its backside. A small mouthpiece is attached to the left side, which Peppermint uses for more reliable airflow when playing melodies. To the left of the keyboard Cumulus Peaks's insignia, a light blue circle with a round, yellow sun placed near its center. A long, white cloud overlaps the sun, placed at an angle, hanging off the edges of the overall insignia.

As stated before, this is based on Yamaha's 32-key Pianicas, melodicas that use piano keys rather than small buttons. I was inspired to bring this melodica into my game when I saw an anime girl named Kaori playing it in Your Lie in April. I didn't watch it, but seeing that odd but neat instrument gave me the urge to replace the magical recorder that was planned for Princess Peppermint to use previously. That will still appear in the game on display in one of the buildings in Cumulus Peaks, but it won't be used by her.

After I made this 3D model, I got a light blue Yamaha Pianica P-32E myself! Why would I be after this harmonica-piano hybrid? Well, four reasons:

• It's a neat instrument I haven't heard of much. Sure, I saw it in WarioWare DIY, where it looked like a light-blue Pianica (and sounded like a harmonica), but I didn't see it in high-quality until Your Lie in April included it.
• It looks kinda cute, like a little light-blue piano with a mouthpiece on the side. It's probably the "toy-like" color that gives the Pianica its cuteness, but unlike others, I like its color, even if a pink one would've fit Kaori's pink dress a bit better.
• Just like how I like owning the weapons magical girls like the cute Pretty Cures use, I wanted to own "Kaori's melodica" myself. (Unfortunately, since I got the P-32E, the back of my Pianica doesn't match Kaori's melodica. That melodica has two markings on the back near the mouthpiece, which are positioned exactly the same on the P-32D. I guess I didn't think those indented parts would be moved in the latest P-32-series melodica...)
• Of course, the biggest reason for getting this melodica is because I plan to have Princess Peppermint's instrument-playing to be recordings of me playing the real instrument. As they are only short series of notes, I won't have to play much. With the way Kaori, Peppermint, and I hold the melodica, you can't see the piano keys, so I won't know what keys I'm pressing!

Yes, I know how to play the piano, so that knowledge can transfer to the melodica, but I have no clue how Kaori seemingly knows exactly what she wants to press with her limited vision...unless it's because she's an anime girl that doesn't exist.

...I bet I just made someone start crying about her, so I'll end this blog post here!