Sunday, April 15, 2018

I'm not an artist: Six items to close out The Legend of Zelda.

We made it! This is the final set of images from The Legend of Zelda. To celebrate the occasion I have included six images instead of the five I usually post. 

Magical Rod: This is about as true to the original 8 (?) bit image as it could be. This is a great entry-level magic rod that any caster or gifted dilettante earns as a reward for completing their first adventure. The basic design allows for this to be tied to any school of magic or specialty. 


Raft: There isn't much to this raft. A handful of roughly hewn logs lashed together with some straps. It could be an improvised means of escaping an uninhabited island or it maybe it is the creation of some inadequately supervised children. This unassuming raft could also be the only way to cross a volcanically tainted river while escorting sacred animals that can't seem to get along on their own.

Book of Magic: The book of magic was called the bible in the Japanese release and had a cross on the cover. I wanted to make this book generic enough to fill many roles so I changed the cover slightly. Even if this book is just a mundane work, it could hold the secret of stopping a great calamity or lead the reader to a long lost treasure. This would also work great as a mage's spell tome or a collection of scripture for a neophyte.

Bomb: The classic basic explosive. If bombs aren't your style, consider this a stand-in for alchemist's fire, an oil candle, a weight at the end of a rope, or a very ineffective balloon.

Boomerang: I don't know how much play boomerangs get outside of the Zelda franchise. They most likely can't fly after hitting the target, pick up items, or shoot unerringly back to you with little to no regard for obstacles along the way. That being said, boomerangs are very much a regular part of Zelda games so you will no doubt be seeing many more of them as I work my way through the series. 

Sword: My love for wooden swords is born from never having one in my youth. I was not allowed to have any sort of wooden pseudo-weapons as a child after an incident involving a rubber band gun and my brother's face. I'm very pleased with how this turned out. It is by no means perfect but it sort of captures what I think a wooden sword should be. I wanted the wooden sword to appear a little unimpressive while still having character. This could be the first weapon of a young adventurer, the last connection a grizzled veteran has to their youth, or a powerful artifact hiding in plain sight
For a great wooden sword in fiction, I recommend checking out Daniel Lieske's Wormworld Saga. As a disclaimer, I will say that reading that comic is an exercise in patience similar to being a fan of Hardcore History

Game Over.
Insert credits here.
.
.
Art - Ceph, the Speaking Squid
.
.
Concepts - The Legend of Zelda
.
.
Would you like to continue?
.
.
Yes!

I am really happy to say that I made it through every item in the first game. This project is about setting attainable goals and meeting them. I had the goal of drawing and posting every item from The Legend of Zelda and I completed that goal. For full disclosure, the items from the first three Zelda games were fully done by the time I started posting and I was roughly halfway through the fourth game as well. I wanted to give myself a cushion to ensure that I had images to post even if I wasn't always able to make my five finished images per week goal. I have been meeting my goal of at least five images finished per week and I am happy to say that, as of today, I just hit the halfway mark for the items in Ocarina of Time. 
To celebrate this first milestone, I won't be posting the first five images from Zelda II: The Adventure of Link next week. Instead, I will be posting two images to be used as the backs for these cards. I will also be posting a link to where you can download the full first set as a single file.

During this process, I have relearned the love of sitting down and drawing. I gave up on drawing because I felt inadequate compared to my peers. I still feel woefully inadequate but I don't care. I am me and I am where I am. 

There is always going to be a bigger fish, so you should just keep on swimming. 
-Ceph

No comments:

Post a Comment