Link And Zelda

[Paladin]

[Koh]

Compared to Zelda, Link's head seems a bit small for his body. Maybe the body itself is a tad too wide. Otherwise, everything else looks good.

[cuedaninja]

Yea, I was thinking the same thing...your Link looks a little too 'buff/stocky' by his normal standards.

Zelda is fine. Do you plan on animating them?

[desgardes]

[Vipershark]

Use your words, man. Explain the changes you made.

[Jermungandr]

Maybe he wanted to create a more "Jock"-y Link?

At any rate I just wanted to say that the coloring style really reminds me of Pokemon trainer sprites.

[Gors]

I'll be honest, I prefer the left Link.

Because he looks bulkier and more plausible to endure all the fighting for Hyrule. Isn't it weird to think that you control a teenager boy fighting against all sorts of shit, and not a more mature young man instead? Why's that it needs to be an invariably young teen boy to risk his own life alone?

Not to say that it's boring to see the same link over and over. The bulky look is interesting for a character like him and I just feel more with him.

Basically, the left Link looks like a normal person and I love it.

[desgardes]

I do too, i guess what i was trying to show was just how to approach shading in certain areas. I wouldn't even crit the zelda, i actually like how it turned out.

[Garamonde]

For Zelda's arm to our left: the forearm is too short, the shoulder is too broad, the glove is a little too long compared to the other, and the elbow also looks a bit pointy.

As for Link: the arm to our left isn't quite long enough compared to the other. His boots also seem kinda artificially attached, like a pirate's peg leg; you can fix that by not separating them with pure black lines. Finally, the leg to our right looks as if the knee is a little too pointy/bulgy considering the angle of the foot.

That's all I see right now. Good job on these! Also I agree with Gors. Staying true to the design is important, but it's also important to express creativity.

[Koh]

Perhaps that's the reason why it looked so odd. We're so accustomed to seeing a more normal-sized Link, rather than a more buff guy. But hey, if Nintendo took this direction, I wouldn't complain, but it'd definitely take some getting used to.

[StarSock64]

Given that link takes on the "fairy boy" Peter Pan look, I don't really think making a stockier version does much for him but make him look strange. The body might seem okay (that "might" is in the for a reason, because I still don't really think so), but the head looks really awkward and it's hard to correlate him with the character he's supposed to be. I dunno, the change just looks too artificial and distracting for me to like it. It looks like a mistake, not an intention.

Uh, I'm not saying you couldn't make a stockier Link, but I think some design tweaks would have to be in order to pull it off.

For example, his large body on a shirt of that size and cut, and lack of detail, plus those small and worthless-looking gloves, make him look like he's wearing oversized boys' clothing. Link's boyish haircut and goofy floppy hat are both giving me some dissonance, too. I'm not sure how you'd fix that but you might have to play with proportions or just straight up take some creative liberties or something.

Also part of the reason the clothes look so boyish and strangely sized is probably because the proportions on this sprite are all weird. The end of his hands are closer to what I would have made his wrists. Go in the bathroom and put your arms straight down and look at how your wrists line up with your crotch (yes I just told you to look at your crotch) (deal with it)

And also note that legs should be longer than torsos unless you really know how to play with your proportions. To me, it looks like you don't know enough about real proportions to be playing with fake ones like that, because Link here just looks off-balance and strange. Imagining him walking gives me the feeling that the weight of his upper body would put him at permanent risk of falling forward.

[Paladin]

I'll just dump some of what I've done here. As for Link's design, I intentionally made him bulky because I wanted to make him recognizable while still changing his design a bit.
His new body type was also chosen to mimic action game heroes.

But anyway, I don't really feel like working on these anymore. And judging from what StarSock wrote, the design was probably a bad idea, so I might as well discontinue this.

[Medevenx]

The legs need to be longer, that's it. But I LOVE the idea of that kind of Link. Like the MegaMAN in the bad NES game cover. Your take on the design is very new and fresh.

[cuedaninja]

I'll just dump some of what I've done here. As for Link's design, I intentionally made him bulky because I wanted to make him recognizable while still changing his design a bit.
His new body type was also chosen to mimic action game heroes.

But anyway, I don't really feel like working on these anymore. And judging from what StarSock wrote, the design was probably a bad idea, so I might as well discontinue this.

Hey, don't let some random guy on a 'Net forum discourage you from being creative.  They all look fine to me; it's just that I personally don't envision Link as buff/stocky dude.  But hey, it's cool you took him in a different direction than we use to seeing him as.

[StarSock64]

I'm not discouraging anyone from doing anything. I'm criticizing design decisions. I even gave some advice on how I think you could make that direction work, so I don't really get how my post is being interpreted as a reason to discontinue or as discouraging him from being creative. Please.