Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Shaan - Legend of Zelda's Ganon + 30's kid poses



Here's a link to the original character. http://firsthour.net/images/legend-of-zelda-animated-series/legend-of-zelda-animated-series-ganon-triforce.jpg

The original character is very pig-like, and he has sort of an "evil mage" quality to him. But he was also kind of an idiot. Not that the show tried to play him off as one, he was always treated with a level of cheesy seriousness. But he was still pretty lame. So in redesigning him, I thought about the Shredder from the old Ninja Turtles cartoon and how he is now. You have an old villain that's supposed to be all smart and menacing, but is badly handled and just kind of comes off as goofy. However in the newer show, he's actually pretty menacing. I mean to a kid, he's actually kinda scary in a way.

So I gave him an overhaul. I ditched the pig aspect for a more dragon/lizard-like form. I gave him a stronger body type, and really played up the 'mage' aspect. In the cartoon, he also always had the Triforce of Power on a pedastal. I could understand that Link and Zelda wouldn't want to abuse the power of the Triforce of Wisdom, and keep it hidden in a chamber. But why would Ganon care about protecting his piece? Wouldn't he tout it as sort of a trophy? That if anyone were to go after it, they would have to go through him? Sauron wouldn't put the One Ring in a glass case, he'd wear it and start messing s*** up! So I gave Ganon the Triforce of Power to wear around his neck.

The Legend of Zelda videogames have certainly updated Ganon to be something very different. They've made him a human, an evil king with his own design direction. But I tried to keep away from the mentality of the games, and update the cartoon character himself. I wanted to ignore those other influences and just focus on this show. Take him in a different direction. As far as why I chose him at all, I know the Legend of Zelda cartoon isn't exactly a classic (although it is pretty infamous among Zelda fans). And Ganon in this show wasn't really a fully memorable cartoon villain. But I felt that there was potential to really do something cool with him. He COULD be an awesome villain. Hell, he's a completley menacing BADASS in the games. Why not give the cartoon the same respect?....... oh right, because it was god awful.....

2 comments:

  1. Nice Ganon and nice threat. I do recall Ganon turning pig like because of his greed. I think.

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  2. Thanks!

    But I mean... at the point in time when they made the cartoon, and how deep the fiction of the games had gotten, Ganon was really just arbitrarily a pig. And that fiction.... not tooooo deep. lol

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