The “tried to kill you” to “found family” Pipeline

Row 1:

Sky (SS) from @tethered-in-myth

Picori (the Hero of Men) from @flm-linkedfissures

Minish (TMC) from @minas-linkverse

Four (Four Swords trilogy) from @linkeduniverse

Four Swords Link from @cokoakeostuff's Hero's Paradox

Row 2

Leaf (pre-OoT) from @marenwithanm's Little Links

Time (OoT/MM) from @linkeduniverse

Reaper (TP) from @chained-spirits

Wind (WW) from @heroesspirit

Tracks (ST) from @the-phantom-peach's Rift in Time

Row 3

Mage (ALttP) from @bonus-links (my followers might have seen this one already)

Totem (ALBW/TFH) from @linkbetweenlinksau

Ravio (ALBW) from @minas-linkverse

Silent and Echo (EoW) from @linderosse's Wisdomverse (my followers might have seen them, too)

Row 4

Hope (The NES games and the cartoon) from @linkedspirit-fanartfunart

War (HW) from @bonus-links

Aspect (the Ancient Hero) from @chained-spirits

Tears of the Kingdom Link and Zelda from @proxycrit's Familiar Familiar (Not a Links Meet like the others, but it was a big request from my sis, and I'm a huge fan of the always messy hair. Great series.)

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I told myself I wouldn't do this but here are some design notes:

Pixel art this small can only handle so many details, but I tried to fit whatever I could.

If you look closely, you'll see a tiny reference to Sky's feathers on his hip.

I went back and forth on whether to include the red ties Picori has. In the end, they looked too much like hoodie strings, and the strap wanted to blend in with his face, so I had to chop the strings off and swap out the leather strap for his undershirt.

With Minish: I tried really hard to nail that stare of his. I'm a big fan. There was a ton of trial and error - and I almost gave up several times - but I'm satisfied with the result. His pockets are represented by a single light-green dot. :)

JoJo doesn't color eyes, so I had to decide if I would go with the blue of his games or the grey that fans tend to use. I went with grey. It was a fun challenge to incorporate that eye color into his deadpan expression. I drew his before Minish, which helped me figure out some tricks that made Minish's eyes more achievable. I also had to figure out how to give the bottom of Four's tunic the right shape. Every other tunic I had drawn up to that point was straight across in the center. The GBA sprite doesn't even include legs (those are my own additions wherever you see them), so it took some messing around to find something that worked. I think the result added to his accidental tall appearance. That, and his hair kept getting taller so it wouldn't look like a frying pan hit him. Hm... I wonder if I...? But then his arms would be too long...

I had a really hard time placing Hero's Paradox Four's earring. It kept wanting to blend in. Unacceptable! I ended up saturating the color quite a bit compared to the original to make sure the colors stood out. With a few exceptions like this, try to stick with the artist's art style as far as palette choices go. It also killed me to leave out the design on his tabard. It looked like a checkerboard.

I just realized I didn't put any greenery in Leaf's braids! For shame! Maybe I'll do a separate post with the fix. The tiny braids were fun to figure out how to draw with the little pixels. I wonder if it would have been easier or harder to figure out if I remembered the plants. I guess I'll find out when I fix it.

Time is the most obvious example of how GBA sprites don't have a center. They use an even number of pixels on both sides, so any center parts or markings had to choose a side (like in this case) or become two pixels wide (like in Reaper's case). I wanted to challenge myself with a heavily armored character. I didn't think about how many details his armor had before I made that decision. ( ; >_<) I'm sure someone with more experience could have done better, but I'm satisfied.

If you look closely, you'll see that Reaper has his nose scar.

I thought about including Wind's sword and Wind Waker, but I didn't want to complicate such a cute sprite.

I tried to give Tracks all four of his buttons. I don't think I succeeded, but I tried. It was fun to figure out his poncho-style coat.

Mage: Glasses are hard. I don't want to do it again. I had fun fitting as many details in as I could. He has a lot of details in his design, so almost all of them are dropped for clarity, but I enjoyed playing around with it.

Totem: I adore his hair. It's my favorite thing about him. But boy was it an experience to make sure the green section of his hair didn't look like it was meant to be the bottom of his cap. I ended up having to make it a lot lighter than the original.

I was excited for Hope because I have zero experience with tight curls. It wasn't as hard as I imagined in pixel form, though that might have been due to the great highlights and lowlights I could pull from the original art. Trying to make sure all the browns didn't blend together was another story.

Aspect's main difficulty was finding a good curl on his tail that didn't interfere with his long hair. And his arm jewelry. And his shirt. For some reason I really struggled with his shirt. It's such a simple shirt, too. I also struggled with the placement of his teardrop makeup. I'm still not satisfied with that.

Familiar Familiar Link also has his nose scar. It looks like stylistic shading if you don't know the original design, but I think it's cute with either interpretation. ^_^

Some of these AUs are probably going to see some more sprites from me. It was hard to choose which Links to prioritize for this set. Everyone had such fun designs! If there's a character or au you were hoping to see, please shoot me a request. I love making these little guys. OCs are welcome, too!

Artists, feel free to request a separate version of your character. Tumblr wouldn't have liked so many individual pictures in one post, so I grouped them together, but I can definitely send you singles if you feel like causing mayhem with a little transparent pixel guy.