#flau first

[aus-by-fwoosh]

The Flau design of Beedle. I figured it would be fun if it's the exakt same guy that's in all games he appears in, and the explanation I eventually landed on was that he used to be a Demon and he was cursed with immortality by Demise after having turned into a human.

[aus-by-fwoosh]

Hylia's First Hero. The one who didn't follow her people into the sky, but chose to stay behind to fight Demise (text-wall below the cut!)

I have not read that pre-Skyward Sword manga (yet), so this is only loosely based on what little I know of it.

So my version of this Link was (along with others) falsely accused of being a spy for Demise, and for reasons not yet decided (but possibly made worse by Hylia being at the front lines) it took a long time for her to learn a number of her loyal followers had been jailed and more or less tortured by actual turncoats. When he got out he was in a bad shape, but with a lot of work and support he recovers, though more physically than mentally.

Link returns to the battlefield with his bronze sword (in my version the technology is roughly on the bronze age level, so steel is not yet invented) and when Hylia retorts to sending her people into the sky, he is among the few who elect to stay behind. Some time after that Hylia witnesses him slay waves of corrupted monsters, and she knows he will be her Chosen Champion. She forges the Goddess Sword and bestows it upon him, and him being the only one with a steel blade (which also glows) makes him really stand out and mark him as blessed by divinity. And together they manage to eventually seal Demise away...

So a fun fact I learned years ago was that they managed to extract some dna from the first humans who set foot on what's today Sweden when the land ice were starting to melt away, and according to what they managed to extract they had dark skin and blue eyes. So I thought it would be fun if the first hero also had those traits. It was also a good opportunity for me to practice drawing darker skin-tones, because I have mostly used myself as a reference and I am pale af. I probably should've picked an easier lighting situation though instead of all around fires, but this wouldn't have been nearly as dramatic with a normal sky. Oh well, there's always next time.

Also I am not sure how I want to design my version of Fi, so for this piece she's hidden in the sword.

...I also realized just now that I forgot to give Hylia those hair decorations Zelda had in sksw, which was why I even bothered to gave her straight hair at all, but oh well. I'll just compensate it by figuring out how it would look on locs or curls or something and give Zelda that, and then we can pretend that's what Hylia's hair should look like here. G'night!

[aus-by-fwoosh]

I think I'm going to add my LoZ AU stuff to Artfight next year, grouped by where in the Timeline they appear, and first up is First with Hylia and Fi.

That colorful, barely visible guy behind First is the "average hylian size guy" and will feature in every reference. I know a lot of people like to use feet or cm, but that's not something I particularly enjoy doing. But if that's your jam, the average Hylian in mu AU is about 165cm/5'5".

I'm also gonna include what shape they would take if they ended up in the Dark World, which in First's case is a Red Lion. His hair would probably have the same color as the mane once he turned back.

Now when I think about it, First is probably contemporary to the robots in Skyward Sword, considering Scrapper followed the Hylians into the sky. And a quick duckduck image search shows that there are quite a few aesthetic design similarities between the robots and bronze age art which is really positive for me, considering I want First's era to be largely inspired by the bronze age and earlier. I don't think I'm gonna make a personal redesign of the robots anytime soon, but I might do something with it in the future :)

(Edit: I realized I've given several of my au Links locs, so to get a bigger variety I'm gonna change some of them (incl. First) to have more different hair styles. Like, why limit oneself you know? Anyway, after going through the links in this post I have settled on giving First a 4B hair type which he is wearing loose/free, and I realized the the twisted braids I imagined Hylia having are the Nubian twisted braids so I added that little clarification too.)

[aus-by-fwoosh]

Last minute mermay-doodle of First and Fi. I imagine he would've looked like this if Hylia had sent her people into the depths of the sea instead of the skies. Or maybe First was the first owner of the Mermaid Tail item that can be found in Oracle of Ages, and Fi being a spear was because she was "connected" to the item blessed by Hylia and spears are easier than swords to use under water.