A gorgeous piece of Legend of Zelda fan art captures the darker tone of Twilight Princess.The artwork, created by digital artist icezimy, depicts a somber Link surrounded by darkness with glimmers of blue/white light in the background. All aspects of the image are heavily-detailed, including the stitching and folds of the Hero of Hyrule's tunic and iconic green hat, the blue-gray coloring of his eyes and the aging and weathering on the Master Sword. One can even see hints of diamond-shaped earrings peeking out through his hair.
The artist uploaded a video to YouTube that features a time-lapse of the artwork's creation. Alongside the concept art and screenshots from Twilight Princess icezimy used as references, it shows the entire creation process, from the rough sketching to the line work to the immense amount of color detailing. According to the video, the image was made using the Artstudio Pro app on an iPad Pro.
Link isn't the only character from The Legend of Zelda franchise icezimy has created stunning works of fan art for. On their Twitter account, icezimy also posted images of Princess Zelda from Twilight Princess and Princess Hilda from A Link Between Worlds. They've also completed pieces depicting characters from other popular franchises like Dungeons & Dragons and Star Wars and offer commissions on personalized work, such as player character portraits for D&D.
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess was launched for the GameCube and original Wii gaming system in 2006. Set over a century after the events of Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, the game follows Link as he attempts to prevent Hyrule from being overtaken by the Twilight Realm, a corrupted alternate dimension. Upon release, the game received near-universal acclaim from critics, with many describing Twilight Princess as one of the best gaming experiences of all time. It became the highest-rated game on Metacritic for 2006 and received awards for artistic design and musical score from IGN. Twilight Princess remained the best-selling Zelda game until 2017's The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild surpassed it.
A sequel to Breath of the Wild is expected to release next year. Some have posited that, like Twilight Princess, the new game will have a darker, somber tone than other titles in the series after a decaying Master Sword featured prominently in a few released clips. It's also speculated that Zelda may be a playable character for the first time in a mainline title since Spirit Tracks.
A high-definition remastered version of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess can be played on Wii U.