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Description
FULL VIEW PLZ! It looks awful if you don't!

Back from vacation, and here are the results! Some of them, anyway. It's Link in his Twilight Princess style! I've been avoiding making a genuine attempt at drawing Link for ages, because he's got a much more refined facial structure now - he's not as ambiguous as he used to be. I still strayed away from it, of course, but it's more approachable now.

I drew this completely in Photoshop with my tablet - I started with a sketch for Link's face, but everything is completely created through the tablet. It took about an hour, I'd say. I'm really happy with the shading effects - I know it may not be the most professional thing, but I happen to like how I can imitate real dry media effects (charcoal, graphite, wax, etc), but with superior control.

One thing I learned through this, though, is that I'll never really beat pencil-and-paper. I was only able to do this through the help of having a scanned sketch to work with. It may come to be that I can draw stuff completely without the help of any traditional media, but I think I'll always prefer it - simply for the sake of being an analogue guy in a digital world (+10 awesomepoints if you know where that quote's from.)

I'm liking how some of the last few canon Zelda games have been shaping up as far as symbolism - for one thing, they address the creation of Hyrule in Ocarina of Time, and the truly epic symbolism and plot depth of the Triforce. But the thing that really gets me, starting with OoT, is the lineage they've been building of Links. In OoT, you've got the Hero of Time. In Wind Waker (not quite canon, but a fully acknowledge part of the Zelda franchise, and it served as canon at the time), you've got the Hero of Winds. And in Twilight Princess, though they never come out and say it, I think it's a pretty easy jump to call Link the Hero of Light. I'm hoping they have another dominant theme like that in the next canon game.

Link / The Legend of Zelda is © Nintendo.
Artwork is © ArcZero 2008.

Description
FULL VIEW PLZ! It looks awful if you don't!

Back from vacation, and here are the results! Some of them, anyway. It's Link in his Twilight Princess style! I've been avoiding making a genuine attempt at drawing Link for ages, because he's got a much more refined facial structure now - he's not as ambiguous as he used to be. I still strayed away from it, of course, but it's more approachable now.

I drew this completely in Photoshop with my tablet - I started with a sketch for Link's face, but everything is completely created through the tablet. It took about an hour, I'd say. I'm really happy with the shading effects - I know it may not be the most professional thing, but I happen to like how I can imitate real dry media effects (charcoal, graphite, wax, etc), but with superior control.

One thing I learned through this, though, is that I'll never really beat pencil-and-paper. I was only able to do this through the help of having a scanned sketch to work with. It may come to be that I can draw stuff completely without the help of any traditional media, but I think I'll always prefer it - simply for the sake of being an analogue guy in a digital world (+10 awesomepoints if you know where that quote's from.)

I'm liking how some of the last few canon Zelda games have been shaping up as far as symbolism - for one thing, they address the creation of Hyrule in Ocarina of Time, and the truly epic symbolism and plot depth of the Triforce. But the thing that really gets me, starting with OoT, is the lineage they've been building of Links. In OoT, you've got the Hero of Time. In Wind Waker (not quite canon, but a fully acknowledge part of the Zelda franchise, and it served as canon at the time), you've got the Hero of Winds. And in Twilight Princess, though they never come out and say it, I think it's a pretty easy jump to call Link the Hero of Light. I'm hoping they have another dominant theme like that in the next canon game.

Link / The Legend of Zelda is © Nintendo.
Artwork is © ArcZero 2008.