Deltarune Card Kingdom Design Inspiration

[game4brains]

Throughout the first chapter of Deltarune, the party encounters a variety of characters themed after playing card suits, including Ruddins and Ruddin Rangers (diamonds), Hathys and Head Hathys (hearts), Clover (clubs), and both Lancer and King (spades). Images of these characters can be seen below:

(Couldn't find suitable images of Rudin Ranger or Head Hathy, no pun intended, but their designs are respectively variations on Ruddin and Hathy's.)

According to a tweet posted by Toby Fox shortly after Chapter 1's release, the designs for much of these characters were directly lifted from a series of illustrations on Tumblr by Kanotynes, originally posted in 2012 (the year Deltarune first began development). In the same tweet, Fox also credited Kantonytes' work as a key source of inspiration for Deltarune as a whole. Select images from this set are shown below:

Chapter 1 spoilers below this point!

The only suit-based Card Kingdom denizen who doesn't appear to be based on Kantonytes' illustrations is Jevil, who instead uses an original design.