Original date of completion: March 18, 2007
Comments then: Yaaay, it's story time.

Once upon a time, there was a girl who was horrendously photosensitive whenever she had a headache (which was regrettably often). During one particularly bad episode, she noticed that the light from her ancient CRT seemed to be exacerbating said ailment. "I've got an idea," she thought to herself. "I'll turn the brightness way down, instead of getting off the computer and lying in a dark room for awhile, as would be the intelligent thing to do!"

The headache passed, and all was well. Some time later, the girl played a really awesome game on her new Wii, which made her want to draw pictures inspired by it. So for hours a day for a whole week, the girl worked tirelessly , articulating each precious detail with loving care, suffering a surprisingly merciful number of Photoshop crashes. Guess those two gigs of 2700 finally paid off.

Upon completion, she posted the picture on her SheezyArt, went along her merry way, and lived happily ever after.

... Or so she thought. Later, upon looking at the image on her fiancé, Matt's normal monitor, she had a tizzy fit, and succumbed to her itch for perfectionism, and dug out the freshly buried file. Now, she worked on it another few days, fixing not only the colors but every other little thing that bothered her about the original, until at last she could say she'd done the very best she knew how to do.

The moral of the story is either not to mess with your damn monitor settings, or to mess with them a lot, because it's the only way you'll do the best you can. I can't say which, I've got a headache right now...

THE END

Epilogue: I did a cheap, Photoshop spamming, filter-mongering lamer BG, and stuff, and there's words now, too. Amoung other changes from the old file are...
- Heightened contrast, and richer colors
- Longer right (our left) leg
- Thinner, less disruptive Twili markings, with no glow
- Redone brass and leather fixtures, since the old ones made me want to barf
- Repainted the loin cloth thing
- Adjusted proportion to at least vaguely resemble the same species as Midna

I think that's it...

... Man, this monitor sure is hurting my eyes...

MAGICAL EDIT OF RETROSPECT
After submitting this yesterday, Matt suggested I explain some of my choices in the markings, so here goes: WARNING! THIS PART MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS










Firstly, I've already had a couple of friends ask me why I chose to put the wolf markings on his forehead instead of the Triforce, for example. Well, given that this is a Twili-esque form, there, he is the Sacred Beast, and not the Legendary Hero, so I felt the wolfish marking was both more appropriate and was more aesthetically pleasing.

Moving down, we then have the markings on his neck. Well, upon seeing that some of the patterns on Midna represented some of the clothing she normally wore, I implemented the concept into Link's design. The neck obviously represents the mandarin-style collar of his white undershirt.

The chain patterns around both biceps represent the chain mail tunic that pokes out from beneath his green one. In one of the preliminary designs, it was on his legs, too, but that looked bad, so it got nuked. Matt actually came up with that idea.

There's really no rhyme or reason to the ear markings, but the design from the bracer is present on the left arm, though you can't see it that well in this pose.

The last thing worth mentioning is the marking around his left ankle. I realize that this really should have been around his left wrist, but after the bracer there wasn't a whole lot of real estate left on the arm market, and to be honest, I think it looks better around his ankle. If you look closely, you'll see an abstract chain and lock pattern -- Yup, wolf-Link's "paw cuff."

Comments now: You know, I really feel like I just finished this thing not too long ago, so I don't have much to say about it in retro-retrospect, save for the fact that there's really not a whole lot I like about it anymore. I can't stand the brass fittings or the leather, don't like the loin cloth paint, and just plain don't like the design of the face all the much anymore. But at the same time, I do still possess a certain fondness for it. It's hard to explain how you can dislike something, but still feel attached to it. There's a companion piece that went with this which I never finished -- Maybe I'll put it up in scraps.

Link and the LoZ series are © Nintendo
This design (which is totally my own creation, does not appear in the game EVER, and is not a spoiler) and art © Mie Shipe, for use in her galleries on deviantART, Sonic Stadium, SheezyArt, and all sub-domains of Spindash.net. Not to be copied, recolored, altered or redistributed in part or in whole without prior written consent.

... Sorry 'bout the novel.