Saskia de Klerk

Category: Art

  • Ganon Comic Process Part 1

    As promised!

    When I finished Ocarina of Time I immediately started working on it, which was in June 2015. I wanted to get all the drawing done for September, but I only managed to finish the couplet, which caused me to drag on the refrain in-between school assignments until January or so. I’m almost ashamed to admit it took me almost two years to finish it, as it is in no way a really big project of some sort… I just wanted it to be perfect, haha.

    I started by drawing a storyboard. I already had a lot of ideas what to show at which words, so I drew what I thought could work on separate papers and played around until I had the best combination story-wise.

    Pretty messy, as you can see. This won’t land me a position as Pixar’s lead storyboard artist, haha! 😀

    As soon as I got the storyboard ready, I started to drawing out the panels. I wanted to do this with black fineliners to practice my inking skills. I’m saying panels instead of illustrations because I saw this thing as a comic, later to be published in a booklet, rather than just sitting on the internet. The lyrics would be under or next to the panels.

    The text needed to be hand drawn, too. I didn’t want to create a real font, that would be too much hassle. People work on fonts for months, if not years to create something great. I just wanted some hand drawn looking text. And it would be cool if it resembles Hylian writing, so I tried blocky shapes with a lot vertical and horizontal lines. The first sketches were a bit too blocky, as they started to look like early computer fonts. So I put in more curves. And then, the tedious act of writing all the text by hand. You bet I know the lyrics now by heart! lol

    In retrospect creating a font wouldn’t be hassle at all: I discovered www.myscriptfont.com that quickly converts your handwriting into a fully usable font. Oh well. I might create a font anyway. 

    Stay tuned for part two! 😉

  • Why This Comic

    Only one week left of these black and white panels, and then it’s done already! I didn’t notice until a few days ago that November is actually Zelda Month (for YouTuber PeanutButterGamer at least), a perfect coincidence! If I noticed before I would have planned this comic so that it would also start November 1st, but with Inktober I just always forget about November being Zelda Month. Oh well.

    Anyway, only one week left, today we’re gonna start with the refrain of Vida La Vida. I thought it would be nice if I share my motivation for this project, along with some process which I will post in the following days. 🙂

    I got the idea for this when I had been playing Ocarina of Time for a few months or so. I suddenly realized that the lyrics of Coldplay’s Vida la Vida fitted Ganondorf’s situation very well.

    If you’re not familiar with the lyrics, the couplets go like this:

    I used to rule the world
    Seas would rise when I gave the word
    Now in the morning I sleep alone
    Sweep the streets I used to own

    I used to roll the dice
    Feel the fear in my enemies eyes
    Listen as the crowd would sing
    Now the old king is dead, long live the king

    At that point I was obsessed enough to hear storyline clues and character motivations in every song, but this one fitted perfectly if you asked me. ^^ For me, the lyrics tell Ganon’s part of the story of Ocarina of Time. This was December 2014 if I remember correctly. I forbade myself to start working with this idea before I finished the game, so I would know exactly what happened to Ganon, what is shown and what is implied, what is told and what is not told.

    When I finally finished the game (June 2015), I was fascinated how it all came together in the end. And also how Ocarina of Time as a game fits as a keystone into the whole timeline. It might not be the greatest of stories but I loved it and I still do. What hit me when I heard Vida la Vida was how tragic Ganondorf’s obsession with power actually is.

    Even though I haven’t grown up to this game (I was three when it came out), it feels special to me. Heck, I didn’t even know it existed before 2011 till the 3DS version came out! I’ve played the original version from 1998, and of course are the graphics horribly outdated, it still has a very nostalgic feeling to me. I would even say it has some timeless appeal. The graphics might be dated, the polygons might be countable, the music might sound tinny, and I’m probably biased as hell, but no, it’s true this game is something special. And I just had to express that. 🙂