BogusRed's Sketchblog

A new hand made Hylian shield for my Twilight Princess Link costume.

When I first made my Link costume 4 years ago, I thought that making a shield by myself would be impossible, so I ordered a replica online (pictured on the left below). 

However, as good as this shield looks, it has some problems. It weighs over 8 pounds and it gets tiring to carry around all day. The handle is made with really cheap materials and kept breaking. If it breaks during a day at a convention, I don't have a drill around to redrill the holes to repair it. The shape is also inaccurate to the Twilight Princess shield design. In addition, every other part of my costume I made myself and when people ask, "Wow your costume is great. Did you make all of that yourself?" I proudly say "Yes I did!" and then they say "Wow the shield is the BEST PART." and then I have to embarrassingly reply with that's the one thing I DIDN'T make.

Since I've been so successful with making craft foam props for my Zelda wedding, it didn't seem impossible anymore to make my own shield. This shield (pictured right below) is made totally from craft foam, hot glue gun glue, and acrylic paints. It weighs almost nothing, looks more accurate, and I can finally say "I made my whole costume myself." It still needs a few minor details and refinement on the paint. But it was good enough to show off on Halloween day.

From Link Costume, the making of

Here's an inprogress shot of what it looked lilke before the paint:

From Link Costume, the making of

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Just as the Master Sword in Zelda laid sleeping in the forest, I've been sleeping on the blog posts.

I haven't posted for a while because I've been waiting for the professional photos to be ready. Just saw them yesterday and I'll be getting the high res files soon and making more blog posts.

In the meantime, here's a quick taste. I love this shot because it reminds me so much of Zelda and some of the official art that has been created. Amazing. And I didn't even instruct them to do it either.

Photo by JLPhotografia

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It seemed fitting for our sweet heart table to have the Zelda Piece-of-heart as a centerpiece. To dress it up more, I created a foliage arrangement inside a treasure chest with rupees and jewels.

The chest is a ready made chest found at a craft store. The foliage is made from preserved moss, plastic jewels, fake ferns and ivy, moss rocks, mini pine cone filler. The heart piece is made from plastic custom cut at Tap Plastics and craft foam for the red heart, painted with liquitex acrylic paints and glitter glue. The rupees are paper craft.

My new husband will always have a piece of my heart ^.^

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This centerpiece is the Spirit Flute from Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks. Link looks so adorable playing it.

Believe it or not, it's made from Playtex gentle glide tampon holders. No I'm not joking. I got the idea from TamponCrafts.com.

Other materials include craft foam for the front plate, beads, cross stitch floss, and liquitex paint.

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So I learned that there's a technique called bunting where you take triangles of fabric and sew them inbetween a thin strip of fabric to create banners. I thought this would be suitable for the wedding because its a quick and easy way to add color to various areas of the venue and it also has a medieval look to it.

I also painted a water pattern and a few triforces to make it more Zelda-ish.

I created three signs; table assignments, bathroom, and spirits (for the bar!). Pictured below are a couple of the signs as well as the favors as they were displayed on the favors table.

The favors doubled as table assignments and contained the guest's name and a picture of the centerpiece of their table, so they would know visually what table they were to go to.

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Making its debut in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, the Lens of Truth aids Link in seeing invisible objects, enemies, and hidden passageways. 

Something about the Lens of Truth's design has seemed creepy to me. But I chose to include it as a wedding centerpiece because it's so unique and wasn't too hard to create.

This was made using a plastic circle from Tap Plastics, craft foam, creative paperclay (thanks for the tip Jennifer Hom!), glitter glue, and acrylic paints. 

The fabric I found to use for the Lens of Truth's pillow is especially neat because it changes from purple to red depending on the lighting and angle you view it at. A perfect match for the red and purple design of the Lens of Truth.

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Today's prop played a special role in the wedding. The Book of Mudora was used by Link in Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past to translate Hylian text and allow him to enter the Desert Palace.  Our officiant used the Book of Mudora to hold the reading material for the ceremony. It also doubled as a centerpiece.

I created it by finding an old book and painting the outside cover with acrylic paints.

A special note about our officiant; my brother who is an officer in the US Navy officiated the ceremony. I thought it was weird to hire a stranger to handle the most special part of the wedding day so having a family member help with this made it more special. You can also blame my brother for my love of Zelda games. He traded my beloved Turtles in Time game for A Link to the Past (without my permission!), but it was worth it.

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Today I have another Zelda wedding centerpiece; the slingshot. Originally I was going to base this off of the slingshot from Ocarina of Time. But when I saw the Skyward Sword slingshot design, I knew that would be a better fit. But I did at least include the deku nuts amunition from Ocarina of Time.

The artistic style and colors of Skyward Sword and Wind Waker are much brighter and more colorful. So this is why I chose for both the bow & arrow and the slingshot to be based on the Skyward Sword designs.

Made from craft foam, acrylic paint, and lanyard cord. The deku nuts are just small Styrofoam balls painted with acrylic paint.

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Another centerpiece from my Zelda themed wedding, the boomerang. A classic weapon used by Link to stun enemies and grab hard to reach items. I wish I had better quality photos of this one. I'm sure the professional photos will look much better but they wont be ready until another 8 weeks or so.

The design for this was modeled after the Wind Waker boomerang. Except I changed the center portion from gray to purple. Purple is complementary to yellow so it works well. I also added a wind swirl element to make it more interesting and wind waker-like.

Made from craft foam, modeling paste, acrylic gel, acrylic paint.

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Our venue is in a remote area of the Santa Cruz mountains down some windy roads. The venue owner suggested we make some signs to guide guests once they exit the freeway.

My Dad's house had a wooden fence that was getting torn down last year so I asked the neighbor to save a few slats of the fence for me. The aged wood I thought would come in handy for some signage, which also reminds me a lot of Zelda.

Mike sawed the slats in half and nailed them to wooden garden stakes (~$0.60 each) that we got at the hardware store. Then I painted them with acrylic paints to say "Mike & Susie." I painted on a boomerang to be used as an arrow to indicate which way to go. The boomerang is also used in the invitation so I hoped it would be another cue to guests that it's the right sign to follow.

The nails did not work out well. Once Mike’s Dad used the mallet to get them to stick in the ground, the signs fell off. Learning lesson, use screws and a drill instead of nails.

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