The Minish Cap: Outlaw’s Cap

Outlaw’s Cap

Outlaw’s cap: This item card doesn’t represent anything specifically in The Minish Cap. I just didn’t know if I wanted to draw Robin Hood’s bow or his hat for the bow item, so I drew both.

The outlaw had only meant to stop the local tax collector who was embezzling from their collections and reporting that locals were underpaying their taxes. The assault on the tax collector’s office was successful, but the cowardly thief fled, spreading news of an outlaw who steals from the rich and gives to the poor. The mere idea of giving money away so infuriated the Plutarch that they declared the outlaw chief enemy of the state, instantly enshrining them as a hero to the people.

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Spencer Crittenden, of Harmonquest fame, wore a shirt on a Commander at Home episode that said, “Everything would be fine if rich people had slightly less money.” I like that shirt. If you know where to get it, let me know.

Since you’re here, please consider donating:

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Thank you for your support.

Be excellent to everyone.

-Ceph

The Minish Cap: Outlaw’s Bow

 Outlaw’s Bow

Bow: Link earns this Minish bow by defeating a group of monsters hiding in a Minish-sized cave in the Castor Wilds. The bow changes sizes when Link does so; he can use it shrunk or normal-sized. Like most Legend of Zelda bows, Link can use it to attack enemies from afar, flip switches, and strike distant, often eye-shaped, targets.

This outlaw never intended to be a famous hero fighting for the people against a tyrannical plutocracy. For many years, they lived a simple life deep in the woods where the plutarch’s laws couldn’t reach. Eventually, regular folk fleeing the endless squeeze of the wealth-obsessed monarch brought word of the small folks’ plight to the hooded outlaw, and they could not sit and do nothing while the powerless suffered.

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I’m currently reading The Once and Future King by T.H. White, which tells the story of King Arthur. I did not at all expect Robin Hood to show up. There are no more spoilers than that, but I’m excited to see what other oddities will be woven into the familiar tale. 

Since you’re here, please consider donating:

Make a one-time donation with Ko-Fi:  https://ko-fi.com/theeasyspeaker

Become a sustaining supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ItemCardswithTheSpeakingSquid 

Thank you for your support.

Be excellent to everyone.

-Ceph

Drewly: Ursine Crossbow

 Ursine Crossbow

Crossbow: A strict traditionalist would never employ a contraption that could just as likely jame as shoot in a hunt. Thankfully we are not strict traditionalists so we can use this crossbow and keep our throwing knives for more desperate times.

The 19th of Drewly already. Crossbows are complicated to draw in perspective and they aren’t necessarily that interesting from a visual standpoint, but they do show up in a lot of fantasy adventures so I try to draw them every once in a while to see how well I can draw a crossbow at that exact time point. I usually end up a bit disappointed and accept that I have plenty of room left to grow.

What is Drewly?

Drewly is a month-long art challenge for July where you post art you have already made. No new art just for Drewly.

There are three rules:

Only post art you have already made.

Post as much or as little as you are comfortable with.

Tag your posts with #drewly and #drewly2024

If you enjoy my work, please consider donating:

Make a one-time donation with Ko-Fi:  https://ko-fi.com/theeasyspeaker

Become a sustaining supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ItemCardswithTheSpeakingSquid 

Thank you for your support.

Be excellent to everyone.

-Ceph

Four Swords Adventures: A magical multishot bow.

 A magical multishot bow.

Bow: Like most items in the Four Swords games, the bow is a pedestal item that can only be used in the stage a Link picks it up. Link can use the bow to attack enemies from a safe distance or solve specific puzzles.

In lands where magical talent is as common as the breath in your chest, most learn to weave into their chosen trade. This bow was crafted for an arcane archer known for diving into the fray and fighting their way out. When charged with power the bow fires a wide volley of arrows, hopefully cutting a swathe of safety to retreat through.

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Drawing interesting but reasonable bows is quite tricky. All the fantasy game bows I looked at for reference are wildly over the top, I’m looking at you Blizzard. I tried to toe the line between a reasonable bow and an interesting bow. 

If you enjoy my work, please consider donating:

Make a one-time donation with Ko-Fi:  https://ko-fi.com/theeasyspeaker

Become a sustaining supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ItemCardswithTheSpeakingSquid 

Thank you for your support.

Be excellent to everyone.

-Ceph

Amphora: Five items from my home game.

Five items from my home game.

Rod of Bouncing: Channeling your spell through this focus allows a spell that would otherwise strike a single target to ricochet between multiple targets.

Helm of Telepathy: This strange metal helmet amplifies its wearer's mental abilities and allows them to communicate psychically with nearby intelligent life. It also protects the wearer from unwelcome psychic intrusions.

Mighty Amulet of Icy Fists: This stone amulet is far heavier than it looks and is always cold. Communing with the amulet allows the wearer to wreath their hands and feet in bitter cold and strike with the strength of an ice giant.

Arctic Bow: This bow belonged to a ranger of the Ice Wastes. The supernatural cold of that wasteland permeated the bow, imparting arrows it fires with the draining chill of its frigid homeland.

Vambraces of the Effreti: These metal bracers were once used to bind an efreet in service. They were given as a gift to the person who freed the proud genie and were imbued with a mote of the efreet’s supernatural command of flame.

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Here are five items I drew specifically for my home game. Since they weren’t drawn with a large audience in mind, they could be a bit silly or a bit obvious in their reference to other universes.

If you enjoy my work, please consider donating:

Make a one-time donation with Ko-Fi:  https://ko-fi.com/theeasyspeaker

Become a sustaining supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ItemCardswithTheSpeakingSquid 

Thank you for your support.

Next week we will start looking at the items from The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventure.

Be excellent to everyone.

-Ceph

#Drewly: Loot from a Storm Samurai

Loot from a Storm Samurai

Oda’s Hat: The samurai rarely needed to keep the sun out of their eyes since they were always being chased by stormy skies.

Lightning Blade: Oda could change the steel of their blade into a bolt of lightning when facing foes worthy of their skill.

Squall: Mighty winds chase the arrows shot from this bow. They are strong enough to knock over even heavily armored foes.

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Here are three items dropped by a storm-themed samurai my players defeated at great personal cost.

I will be posting a lot of work from my backlog that I haven’t gotten around to posting for the new art “challenge” Drewly. Drewly rhymes with July, if you say it JOO-lye,  and is for posting art you already have sitting around. It can be unfinished, finished, new, reposts, whatever. Just don’t make anything new for Drewly. Don’t forget to tag your drewly posts with #drewly.

I’m hoping to get a bunch of work out from my unpublished folder this month so look for a new post every single day.

Happy Drewly. See you tomorrow.

If you appreciate my effort, consider a donation at my ko-fi.

Be excellent to everyone.

-Ceph

Wind Waker: A heart-seeking bow from Wind Waker.

 A heart-seeking bow from Wind Waker.

Hero's Bow: In Wind Waker, Link earns the Hero’s Bow by proving himself a true hero in the Tower of the Gods. As the dungeon item for the Tower, Link gets to practice using the box to shoot targets that hold doors shut and distance switches that need flipping. In the hands of the hero, the bow is both a weapon for slaying evil and a tool for solving puzzles.

When you get offered a bow that is guaranteed to shoot an arrow through a heart when drawn, you should stop and think about the implications of such an enchantment. The careless and bloodthirsty among you would think it a boon, surely it will slay all my enemies unerringly. A more suspicious person might wonder what happens when you draw the bow with no other living being around for miles, who does the bow slay then?

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I can still improve a lot in drawing compelling bows. Bows in fantasy media are usually depicted as wildly interesting and hyper complicated curved statues that wouldn’t really work. Pre-modern bows are simple but effective things that inspired fear and awe not because they looked particularly fearsome, but because they could slay a person from hundreds of yards away. Modern pulley bows and Olympic shooting bows do look pretty wild, so I guess I should start looking to them for inspiration.

Be excellent to everyone.

-Ceph

Four Swords: An infamous bow from Four Swords.

An infamous bow from Four Swords.

Bow and Arrows: Like most items in Four Swords, the bow and arrows are only found on a pedestal in various levels and can only be used in the level they were found. The bow and arrow are mostly used for shooting otherwise inaccessible switches and attacking enemies from a safe distance.

Depending on who you ask, this bow is either the last best hope of a hopeless people or the tool of a heartless terrorist hell bent on destroying all that is good. No matter what you think of the bow’s mission, no one can deny its effectiveness. In the hands of an expert, the bow can shoot farther and straighter than any bow on the continent.

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Welcome to any of the new visitors to my humble blog. It has been exciting seeing new visitors and I hope you have found something that inspires you throughout my backlog. If you have an item you would like to see get my treatment, let me know and I will try to accommodate your request.

I also want to shamelessly plug myself for a moment. I opened up a Ko-fi where you can donate directly to me. If you have founds $1 or $3 or $5 or some value from all my images, please consider sending me a tip. I spend a lot of time creating these images and posts because I love to do it, but it doesn’t hurt when other people show their appreciation in tangible ways. 

For full disclosure, I have never really played The Witcher, but I did play through all of Witcher 2 and am currently working through Witcher 3. That means my experience and knowledge of Iorveth is somewhat limited. His bow is cool though, so I drew it. 

With crazy heat waves being punctuated with freak storms and fires, it is a great time to remind everyone that climate change is a real problem. One that will take every human working together to solve. Unfortunately, every human includes billionaires who would rather push the tourist industry into space than figure out how to make the planet habitable for all people forever.

Be excellent to everyone.

-Ceph

 

Holiday: Cupid’s bow firing a heart-seeking arrow of love.

Cupid’s bow firing a heart-seeking arrow of love.

Cupid’s Bow and Arrow: Anyone struck with an arrow shot from this bow will be overcome with uncontrollable desire. I guess this has been toned down into falling into warm romantic love in the modern retellings of the myths.

This bow is based on the bow in a statue that pops up with you use google image to search Eros’, Cupid’s Greek counterpart, bow. Turns out the statue is actually of Anteros, a sibling of Eros in Greek mythology. Turns out googling for all of five seconds to find reference images isn’t the most effective way to find accurate images. 

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Today is Valentine’s Day. I know I said I’d come back soon with normal posts from the Zelda inspired cards, but the alignment of the holiday and my update day was too much to pass up.

See you next week with some more item cards I drew, probably based on items from The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons.

Keep wearing masks, stay socially distant, and be excellent to everyone.

-Ceph

I'm not an artist: New season of She-Ra, new post of fan art.

To celebrate the new season of She-Ra, here are four weapons from the Princess Alliance.

Sword of Protection: The sword wielded by She-Ra, Eternia’s greatest protector.

I'm not an artist: The first six items from Majora’s Mask you could find in the Great Spell War.

The first six items from Majora’s Mask you could find in the Great Spell War.

Ocarina of Time: Link is given the Ocarina of Time by Zelda as he is leaving Hyrule in the prologue of Majora’s Mask. She also teaches him the Song of Time, warning him to play it in times of need. Link's ability to travel in time by playing the Song of Time is the only thing that allows the entire story of Majora’s Mask to take place. Without it, Skullkid would have succeeded in their apocalyptic plan of pulling the moon down from the sky. For continuity purposes, Majora's Mask takes place in the child Link timeline after he is successful in defeating Ganondorf.

Legends tell of a vast store of ancient arcano-technology held in a hidden vault behind a sealed gate that can only be opened after the fabled Horn of Doom is blown. A thousand years of peace were shattered when foolish adventurers sounded the ancient horn without knowing it would warn all the world that the vault would soon open. After the warning, the great powers of the world quickly mobilized their vast forces to ensure they would be the first to find and secure the vault.

I'm not an artist: Six items from Ocarina of Time you could find in a pulp hero story.

Six items from Ocarina of Time you could find in a pulp hero story. 

Bomb: Bombs only become available to Link once he obtains the bomb bag. After that, Link can blow open cracked walls, destroy weak stones, and give giant lizards heartburn as he sees fit. 

During the gala celebrating the newly unveiled Park City hazardous waste containment and neutralization center, a clockwork automaton crashes through the glass ceiling bringing the party to a standstill. The machine announces that the infamous Doc Clock has directed their minions to place bundles of dynamite all over the containment facility. If the waste stores at the plant were to be released, it would quickly wash down river and render the entirety of Park City unlivable for a generation. With the facility on the outskirts of town, no one is sure the bomb squad will make it in time.

I'm not an artist: Five items from Link’s Awakening an aristocratic child might have on a grand adventure

Five items from Link’s Awakening a children might have on a planar adventure.

Face Key: The dungeon keys in Link’s Awakening are matched to the theme of each dungeon. The Face Key fits in a face shaped lock that opens the Face Shrine.

With the suspicious deaths of each of their parents, three orphans were sent to stay with Lady Vitalia Soriano, the guardian named in all three wills. Lady Soriano graciously welcomed the children into her home. They were permitted to enjoy the entirety of her modest estate save the family mausoleum on the fringe of the property. The children resisted their curiosity for many weeks until the pull of the forbidden tomb was too great to resist. The children were disappointed when they entered the mausoleum only to discover a simple resting place for the Soriano family honored dead. As the three were about to leave the tomb, one noticed an errant mandible lying atop a coffin. As the child placed the jawbone back into the casket, the mausoleum left their world and appeared in a lifeless expanse populated only by other mausoleums, tombs, and graves. 

i'm not an artist: Items from A Link to the Past a Ranger Scout would have.

Five items from A Link to the Past any Ranger Scout would be proud to own.

Boomerang: A basic boomerang that stuns enemies, grabs items, and flips switches from afar.

The wide open plains seem to open up infinitely in all directions. Many areas are devoid of anything that could provide meaningful cover or act as a landmark for reference. Ranger Scouts earning their plains patches can take advantage of the open air to master the boomerang. The returning nature of the boomerang also helps Ranger Scouts not lose their tools in the long grasses.

Stories of the hero in green have been passed from one generation to the next since the hero first appeared to save the world from the forces of darkness. When children hear that the hero often employed a boomerang in their adventures, many inevitably wish to learn to use the weapon. It is not uncommon for children to embellish their first boomerang with images of creatures and symbols from the stories that inspired them to learn the boomerang in the first place.

I'm not an artist: Five items from A Link to the Past once owned by a monster hunter

Here are five items from A Link to the Past, each with an adventure seed connecting to a monster hunter.

Magic Cape: An invisibility cloak found buried in a grave. 

Vicentix De Leon was a famously successful monster hunter that disappeared suddenly after a very public disagreement with the Cagliostro family. Vicentix often said much of their success was due to their cloak of disappearance. Rumors said the cloak was cut from death’s own robes and it has been passed down the De Leon family for generations. With the disappearance of Vicentix, most assume the cloak will never be passed to a future generation.

For their safety, robes are provided to apprentice necromancers that hide their presence from mindless undead. These robes are woven with silken strands infused with necrotic energy that masks the apprentice’s vital life force. Without these robes, many apprentice necromancers would not survive the initial training.

I'm not an artist: Another month, another five items from The Legend of Zelda

Happy Easter Fools Day. Another five items from The Legend of Zelda drawn by me.

Magical Boomerang: The dot on the gem at the center was supposed to be a highlight. Now that I look at it after some time away, I sort of get a Cylon eye vibe. This boomerang could be intelligent or be controlled mentally like a RC drone. You could even use this as a sort of surveillance device that allows the user to look out from the perspective of the gem as it flies.