Zelda Fanart Spotlight- Forsaken Voyage

Hello and welcome to another fanart spotlight! This week, we are treated to a fantastic piece based off of The Wind Waker called Forsaken Voyage by Luke Joseph Gonet. The artist used the 3D modeling program Maya along with some Photoshop magic to recreate this imaginative version of the Forsaken Fortress. When I first stumbled across this piece on Tumblr, I almost mistook it for a screenshot of the new HD version of the game and was very impressed with the quality and attention to detail. Upon closer inspection, the style is more textured than The Wind Waker’s Cel Shading. The light sources are all meticulously planned out and blend together very well. The search lights glimmer off the surface of the Great Sea. Link and the King of Red Lions, however, are lit by the glow of the full moon above them.

The perspective is slightly skewed, which creates an interesting composition. The Forsaken Fortress and clouds towering over Link and his ship add a sense of grandness in the scale.

This image already has received a lot of attention from Nintendo themselves, as well as the art community in general. This picture was actually one of the top 50 submissions in the recent art contest by Nintendo that concluded on Labor Day for the chance to win a Wii U Zelda console. This picture also was chosen on as a Daily Deviation on DeviantART yesterday. It’s great to see the Zelda series and community being so well represented by fan artists who are going above and beyond in quality and scale. Make sure to check out the rest of Luke Joseph Gonet’s gallery on DeviantART as well as his personal art site which you can find by clicking here.