Title: Breath of the Wild & Tears of the Kingdom Collage
Medium: Prismacolor Premier Colored Pencils on coldpress illustration board
Size: 18″x24″
After a big move in fall of 2024, I finally gained access to an inherited steel-frame drafting table. This has allowed me to start drawing again in a way I haven’t done in over a decade. Combined with my small Zelda Obsession since I started playing Tears of the Kingdom and I was inspired to do a large scale colored pencil work. Something I have not done in about 20 years. I started planning out what I wanted to do, the layout, and the different components as well as finding reference images from official sources or screenshots.
The Rough Draft was initially plotted out on 18×24 drawing paper, but I soon decided I wanted to take it up a notch and ordered a large piece of coldpress illustration board and some graphite transfer paper. I soon had the rough draft transferred and learned I had to keep it covered/protected lest a cat land on it and damage the board.
I had to put it away for the Holiday season before I could begin putting color to paper. However once the holidays had passed, I started work in earnest.
The outside borders of the drawing are 18 inches wide by 24 inches tall.
Here is a sampling of work in progress pictures I took. I have learned more in the last few months about working with colored pencils then I ever did in my high school art classes. How to properly blend and layer the medium. The difference in quality of colored pencils makes in those processes. These are elements I was ‘aware’ of but had never fully developed.
Over 100 hours later, a lot of pencil shavings, and a few additional tool and material purchases (a good mechanical compass set, white china markers, blending pencils and colorless blending markers) and I reached the finish. I then did some research in framing options and finally found a good quality frame with an acrylic glass panel that would add UV protection. The piece is now finished, framed, and hung and I’m super happy with how it came out.
(Please don’t mind the slight skewing from the angle the pictures were taken at)
Since finishing this piece I have continued to do more smaller pencil works (8×10 – 11×14 size ranges) of both fanart and original work and am quite pleased with this increase in creativity (even if my writing is still at a bit of a standstill). Of course, since Koroks managed to not make it into the full collage, I had to do a piece just for them.
