So there’s now a mobile game for Neopets called Legends and Letters, which has a gacha element using Neopets characters to build a team. For the most part, it uses existing art for established characters that we’ve seen before, like Battledome poses and TCG art. Some previously unused characters have also shown up, like that Lutari Island Ogrin (now called Thogrin):
https://bookofages.jellyneo.net/characters/7814/
However, a couple of other characters have shown up with art we’ve either not seen before, or entirely new characters. I assume most are from canned/cut down features, and I was wondering if you had any insight on them? The first is the Pirate Supporter:
https://bookofages.jellyneo.net/characters/7816/
He appears with other pirates from the Curse of Maraqua plot, but he was never a challenger. I assume he was a cut challenger? Does that mean there were entire waves cut from Curse of Maraqua? (And, I guess, given CoM’s mechanics that would mean another 5 cut challengers exist?)
They’ve also released a character that appears to be a coloured version of Gladstone from the Seekers:
https://bookofages.jellyneo.net/characters/6001/
Does that mean all of the characters that appeared in the Obelisk trailers had full art drawn? Or was Gladstone also a cut challenger? Were there others?
Finally, there’s new art for Captain Bloodhook, the Eyrie that was thought blown up by Hannah in the Neopedia (new art shown far right here):
https://bookofages.jellyneo.net/assets/imgs/events/pages/legends-and-letters_pirates.png
He was thought dead after that, but does this art mean there were plans for him in some cancelled feature as well? Or was he another of the possible cut CoM challengers?
Thanks for any answers you can give!
Heyo! Interesting question. The broad answer is that I don’t know for sure about any of these. There are a BAJILLION art files with art in various stages so it could be anything from concept to off-model/unapproved to incomplete-but-touched-up to final-but-unused, etc… and since I don’t remember these pieces specifically, it’s hard to say for sure. Especially since we never reused art for different features, so unless a piece was super prolific throughout a feature or marketing, it’s easy to forget it.
But for each one specifically…
I don’t really remember specific CoM challengers very well since it was a LONG time ago but I do remember there were cut/extra waves… I’m fairly certain. Though I can’t say for sure where any of that art is from, it does makes sense to me that Pirate Supporter would have been a cut one or a concept and not chosen as a final, which is also common, especially for more generic BD challengers. (We’d request a handful and use the ones we liked.) You mentioned Pirate Supporter appears with other challengers in other final art… if you have an image of two that I can look at, it might jog my memory more. But I would bet it’s cut or concept, yup. /nod
Can’t really say about Bloodhook because he’s a “hero” character that was used in a few different things, so there could be lots of art files that come up when you search for “bloodhook” that have nothing to do with CoM. Heh. (I have a very vague notion that we used him in something external/licensed at some point… though I couldn’t tell you what or why I think that. ?) That could also be pulled from a comic… I’ve seen JS do that before when other people have sent me stuff. Although I’m inclined to believe you guys already checked for that heh.
The Gladstone one is pretty weird! Firstly because there were no cut challengers (I’m like 99% sure) and we never drew extra full-body art of the trailer characters who weren’t BD. Secondly because I could swear I know who drew that image and that artist left WAY before Obelisk… so that’s super odd. I could be wrong, of course, but I would bet NP on it. So it’s either a huge coincidence that Gladstone looks like old art, or I’ve gone mad. Is that coloured version only in the game or does it exist anywhere on images.neo that I can look at (for upload date and filename and such)?
Sorry this is all very vague! Like I said, it’s easy to forget specifics on these. But there are a lot of reasons why there’d be “unreleased” art of a character other than they were cut from something so I wouldn’t default to the cut challenger explanation on most stuff. It does make sense for features that had generic BD challenger waves like the CoM pirates, though!
As always, feel free to share more or ask anything else if needed!