rynling | The Legend of the Princess, Chapter Two Illustration (Reply)

I spent a week in Paris this summer, and while I was there I had a crazy idea to have Lightsintheskye do a series of five illustrations for The Legend of the Princess as I gradually continued to write it. This is partially because she's a lot of fun and I enjoy working with her, and it's partially because I want to support her, but it's mostly because I am greedy and have a powerful creative hunger to see visual illustrations of my ideas.

This is an illustration from Chapter 2 of the story, which Lightsintheskye finished at the beginning of June. You can find the full piece (here)!

The basic gist of the story is that Zelda doesn't know what Ganondorf is up to in her castle, and it's her job to solve the mystery of what his damage is. She has Mighty Detective Skills Of Justice, and she's also able to get glimpses into her past incarnations.

In this scene, Zelda has just seen Ganondorf coming out of the castle library. Because she's suspicious of him, she's gone inside the library, and she's managed to track down the book he was reading, which is a small and well-worn collection of legends for children. She sees his fingerprint on a page with a picture of the Ocarina of Time, and she sits down on the floor next to the shelf to read it herself. It's early in the morning, and the library windows face south, but in between the bookshelves the lighting is a bit dimmer.

This scene is important because it demonstrates two things: first, that the ocarina will be crucial to the mechanics of the story; and second, that Zelda is the sort of person who both feels comfortable in a library and is interested in investigating the world around her.

What I love about this illustration is that, while we're seeing the same outfit that Zelda was wearing in the cover illustration, here we're seeing it from a different angle. It's also cool to see the character's face and hairstyle from a different perspective.

Zelda's expression is especially interesting to me. I get the feeling that "wisdom" is a difficult attribute to capture visually, especially with such a young character, but Lightsintheskye conveys so much intelligence and curiosity with her facial features.

I also appreciate the design of her clothing, which feels late Victorian with some subtle but appropriate touches of fantasy. Even a quick glance at this outfit gives the viewer the impression that Zelda is a princess, but a princess who means business. She is beautiful but stately, symbolically pure but psychologically complicated.

The light effects are gorgeous and emphasize the complexity of Zelda's character – not just in how the rays of light shining from outside frame the image, but also the way that Zelda is half in light and half in shadow. This suggests a complexity of character as well as an upcoming transition from the light of innocence to the shadow of knowledge.

There are tons of small details that stand out in the illustration, from the writing on the book in Zelda's hands to the spines of the books on the shelves, but I'm very intrigued by the globe on the right-hand shelf. I love that this object is there, and I love how it signifies that there is an entire world outside of Hyrule. Even though Zelda knows better, she can't help but think that her kingdom is the entire world, but the arrival of Ganondorf is most definitely going to disabuse her of this notion. In a lot of ways, this story is about Zelda growing up and coming into her own as a woman, and what this process entails is her gradually coming to understand that she has to take responsibility for things that are much larger than herself.

Like the statue of Hylia in the cover illustration, adding the globe was entirely Lightsintheskye's idea. One of the many reasons why I love working with her is that she always manages to show me something about the story that I didn't realize myself, and I am so grateful for that.

This illustration is so full of rich and gorgeous artistic elements that it contains entire stories within itself, and it makes me want to read and write things... preferably while sitting in that deep and lovely chair in the foreground!