Alton Island - Spinball Whizzer

"Whilst on a family holiday to the forest of Ekwood on Alton Island, a young boy walked along the pavement pouting. Having been rather disinterested with the sights and sounds of the area that he’d been brought to year after year, the young boy named Keith Drummond had gone wandering by himself. It was during his time away from the family that Keith spotted a very large open trailer on a plot of previously empty land. It was full of brightly coloured lights, and seemed noisy from a distance, but regardless decided to make his way over to see what the commotion was about. It turned out to be a travelling amusement arcade, and inside it a couple of somewhat beaten up pinball machines from the 60s. Keith normally rolled his eyes at such things having heard stories from his father. “Those things are rigged. Too many magnets to make you lose.”

It was as Keith was walking past that he noticed one machine in particular – A Gottlieb Fun Land upon which a game had been started, but the previous player had walked away to do other things. The ball was resting in the shooter lane, ready and waiting to be launched into the mechanical maze of targets, spinners and switches. Having never really given pinball much thought before, Keith stepped up to the machine, pulled the plunger and the rest as they say was history. Unlike Keith’s preconceived notions about pinball that he’d heard, the game was responsive, and reacted to how he moved the game. No magnets, no trickery, just skill. Time passed, and he found more and more oh his pocket money being sunk into the game until eventually, the loud crack of the replay knocker rang in his ears. He was hooked.

Keith spent the rest of his holiday in front of that machine, and was eventually pained at being told he had to leave when the fair was to move on again, but not before grabbing a flier of where it was heading next…
Whenever he could, the young Keith would follow the trailer wherever it went, pumping coin after coin into the machine to keep trying to top his personal best scores. The owner and manager, who had since noticed Keith’s repeat patronage to his arcade (and the only one generating any sorts of profits on the pinball machines) decided to generously let his two machines go, gifting them to Keith upon his 16th birthday in 2003. Not so interested in the second game, Keith used it for parts, and sold other parts of it to help restore the original Fun Land machine to its former glory. It now stands proudly in his games room, where to this day the enthusiastic pinball player now plays it daily."

The benefits of my girlfriend being an artist are clear, she motivates me to keep drawing and improve my output...
Keith's design is almost a cross between Cobra-Roll and myself, the character's interests being pretty much our own. All of the items (bar one trophy) in the display cabinet are items that we own and display in our own cabinets - the ride was given a Sonic the Hedgehog rebrand for several years which explains it.
Currently, this is the last character based on a ride still in the park that I have a design for. The only other designs I currently have are for rides that have all been removed. It'll soon be time to design another batch...

Alton Island © Matt Lindsay 2018
Credit to Cobra-Roll for writing the bio and his knowledge of pinball.