Link`s Blacklist – a Tribute to the Dark Side of Hyrule
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Welcome to Link`s Blacklist, an Art Collaboration tribute to all the Enemies and Bosses from the Legend of Zelda games! Over 160 artists from around the world drew Ganondorf, Skullkid, Octoroks, and many more of the colorful characters we’ve battled since The Legend of Zelda’s debut in 1986. Have fun wandering through the Dark Side of Hyrule! |
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There are hundreds of bosses and enemies from across the Legend of Zelda series with the 1986 debut title featuring over 30 by itself. Our goal here is to illustrate each of them through drawings, 3D models, sculptures, dolls, plushies and even…cakes.
It is our goal to get them all drawn and will take years to accomplish. We started this art collaboration in June 2012 and continued it via multiple “Rounds” with the last update being the Legend of Zelda I in 2016 which added 19 more artworks and completed our gallery for the first game.
Currently, 230 different Zelda enemies are covered in Link’s Blacklist. It is already big, but still a long ways yet from being a complete Legend of Zelda Bestiary.
Enjoy one of the biggest video game art projects and see the Legend of Zelda enemies of past and present illustrated by awesome fans that helped to make Link’s Blacklist happen:
The Legend of Zelda (1986,NES)
The Legend of Link, Princess Zelda and Ganon started back in 1986 on the Nintendo Entertainment System.
Many of the enemies such as Moblins, Darknuts and the annoying Wallmasters became recurring monsters. Dodongo, Gohma, and of course, Ganon, became recurring Bosses in the series. In some cases, it was difficult to create detailed illustrations of the enemies since there was nothing but small 2D sprites to reference.
The classic Legend of Zelda Bestiary was the first one we completed for this project.
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (1987,NES)
The second Legend of Zelda is a direct sequel set after the defeat of Ganon. It is the only game in the series that has Link gaining experience points instead of getting stronger through Heart Containers and other items. It also included platforming elements and side-scrolling dungeons instead of the overhead perspective from the first game.
The majority of new enemies and bosses in Zelda II do not appear in later games. Prepare to meet some very unfamiliar enemies like Arudora, Guma, and bosses like Thunderbird in our Zelda II Gallery.
Did you know the last boss in the game is Link himself?
The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past (1991, SNES)
The 3rd Legend of Zelda was a return to the gameplay of the first game. Due to new hardware advances (the Super Nintendo), the developers could realize a much more detailed Hyrule and give the game a more fleshed out story and many new gameplay elements.
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past was also the first game in the series set in a different time line and saw the return of Ganon as the main antagonist.
The game featured returning enemies like the Keese and Stalfos, but introduced mostly new enemies like Hyrulian Soldiers under Agahnim‘s spell, the weird Buzzblob, and the even weirder Snapdragon among many more. Zelda III was also known for its big bosses like the Helmasaur King and the Trinexx.
Currently, 24 different enemies and bosses from Zelda III were illustrated for Link’s Blacklist
The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening (1993, Game Boy)
Link’s Awakening was the first Zelda game for a handheld and proved that gameplay is still just as fun on a smaller screen. It used some of the sidescrolling stage ideas from Zelda II in a different form. There is some platforming elements and even a few enemies from another well-known Nintendo game made guest appearances.
The game featured many enemies from LoZ:ALTTP in their same designs, but also introduced new monsters that fit into the scenario on an island like the Pincer. The bosses in Link’s Awakening were some of the weirdest of their time. Just have a look at the Facade and the giant Angler Fish. The final boss is a true Nightmare this time!
Currently 9 different enemies and bosses from Link’s Awakening were illustrated for Link’s Blacklist.
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998, Nintendo 64)
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was the first Zelda with 3D graphics, which changed the perspective and how environments, enemies, and bosses were handled. Ocarina of Time remains one of, if not the, best game in the series today. For the longest time during the progress of Link’s Blacklist it got the most attention by artists.
Be it the scary Dead Hand, the difficult Dark Link, the sometimes beautiful Gerudo Tribe members or Ganondorf himself, we had more Ocarina of Time art submissions than for any other game in the series. This alone speaks for the game’s continuing popularity.
P.S: Don’t visit the Dead Hand and Skulltula artworks if you fear spiders or can’t see blood!
Currently 27 different enemies and bosses from Zelda: OoT were illustrated for Link’s Blacklist.
The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask (2000, Nintendo 64)
After the long pause between A Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time, we got the next big Zelda game two years later on Nintendo 64 and what a ride it was!
The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask was more difficult than any Zelda game before and changed a lot of elements in the series. The story was not about Hyrule for the first time in the main games, there was a time limit to care about, and the whole world was extraordinarily dark and doomed for most of the time.
While a lot of the enemies from Ocarina of Time were simply recycled for Majora’s Mask, it also got a noteworthy amount of new foes. The Garo are unforgotten and the Skullkid became one of the most wanted characters in games like Smash Bros and Hyrule Warriors. Among the artists, this game was almost as requested as OoT.
Currently 26 different enemies and bosses from Zelda Majora’s Mask were illustrated for Link’s Blacklist.
The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages & Oracle of Seasons (2001, Game Boy Color)
For the second time after the CD-I Zelda games by Philips, Nintendo gave the IP to a different developer. This time we got two amazing, some might say underrated, games by Flagship, an independent developer studio that produced a lot of later hits.
These two games focus on the possible resurrection of Ganon by a couple of new antagonists, Veran and Onox. Most enemies were taken from earlier Zelda games, but almost all of the bosses were new.
There are almost no official illustrations, which makes it difficult to draw detailed artworks of these characters that only exist in small Game Boy sprite form. It will be a real challenge to get a complete bestiary for these two masterpieces of their time together.
Currently 6 different enemies and bosses from the Oracle of Seasons / Ages games were illustrated for Link’s Blacklist
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (2002, Gamecube)
While Majora’s Mask was one of the darkest Zelda games, the next big part of the series used a completely different style with its cell-shaded graphics and a young “cartoon” Link as the main protagonist, set in a very colorful Hyrule that was filled with many old enemies that returned in new designs like the Moblins and the Wizzrobes.
Queen Gohma from the classic Zelda and OoT returned again with a big visual change as well as Ganondorf, who was again the main antagonist in The Wind Waker. A real puppet was created for an illustration of Puppet Ganon in Link’s Blacklist.
Currently 21 different enemies and bosses from the Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker were illustrated for Link’s Blacklist
The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords (2002/3, Game Boy Advance) & Four Swords Adventures (2004 GameCube)
Four Swords is the first multiplayer Zelda game and was released together with the GBA remake of Zelda: A Link to the Past. It introduced new antagonist Vaati to the series. Four Swords Adventures uses a similar control scheme and perspective seen before in the classic Zelda games and expanded the story about Vaati, Shadow Link and the returning main antagonist Ganon, also called the King of Darkness here.
Currently only 4 different enemies and bosses from the Legend of Zelda: Four Swords & Adventures were illustrated for Link’s Blacklist
The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap (2004, Game Boy Advance)
Currently 11 different enemies and bosses from the Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap were illustrated for Link’s Blacklist
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (2006, Wii & Gamecube)
Currently 25 different enemies and bosses from the Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess were illustrated for Link’s Blacklist
The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (2007, Nintendo DS)
Currently 7 different enemies and bosses from the Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass were illustrated for Link’s Blacklist
The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks (2009, Nintendo DS)
Currently 7 different enemies and bosses from the Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks were illustrated for Link’s Blacklist
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (2011, Wii)
Currently 20 different enemies and bosses from the Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword were illustrated for Link’s Blacklist
The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds (2013)
Currently 8 different enemies and bosses from the Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds were illustrated for Link’s Blacklist
Others & Special Characters 🙂
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The Background of Link`s Blacklist…
Link`s Blacklist came to life when we asked the community of our Game Art HQ group on deviantART about a handful of possible choices for art tribute projects on the website in 2012.
We asked about 16-bit era Heroes, ActRaiser and, well, I had the idea about doing something for the Legend of Zelda series, but wanted to get people to draw something besides series mainstays Link and Princess Zelda (you see fan art for those everyday). Thus, Link`s Blacklist was born as it got massive positive feedback by our community. 🙂
Stats & Facts of Link`s Blacklist
The Project was born in June 2012 when I had the idea for it and got a lot positive feedback from Artists of the Game Art HQ Community.
The 1st Round of Link’s Blacklist started on June 3rd, 2012, and ended on the November 17th. The 2nd Round was started on November 21st and ended on May 1, 2013. The 3rd Round started on June 1, 2013, and ended on September 1. Round IV started in March 2014 and ended on the June 25th. Round V started in May 2015 and ended on October 1st.
Over 170 Artists have participated so far in Link’s Blacklist across the last three years.
So far, 211 different enemies and bosses from the Zelda games are part of Link`s Blacklist (as of September 2015).
If you are an artist and want to be a part of Link’s Blacklist with similar submissions as seen above, either comment here or on our deviantART Group.
You are welcome to spread the word about Link’s Blacklist!
Credit where credit is due:
Nintendo & Shigeru Miyamoto
All other creators and designers of the Legend of Zelda games
All participating artists
All Legend of Zelda players and Fans
All websites which are writing about our Project and sharing the word about Link’s Blacklist and other Video Game Art Collaborations.
Comment here if you want to say something about Link’s Blacklist, be it compliments, feedback, critizism etc.
This is my MOMA.
This is actually pretty cool. I love the art to most of them. I can’twait to see every single monster/boss
It will take 2-3 years i bet till Link’s Blacklist has art of just all enemies and bosses but sooner or later it will happen 🙂 We just finished a second round for it, the third one for 50 artists will start in June and end in August. After that we should have 140-160 different enemies covered which..should be around the half of all enemies and bosses already ..i think
This is actually pretty cool. I love the art to most of them. I can’twait to see every single monster/boss
That will take us (The Game Art HQ Community) years but it will happen for sure 🙂
Come back at the 20th September when the next around 50 artworks are added to Link’s Blacklist
I book marked you guys just for that date. It took me 2 nights to go through all the images and read everything. What you guys are doing is amazing. You guys should definitely promote yourself out there when close to the date so you can get more submissions.
Heh, hope you had fun browsing through the whole gallery (its all written by me alone btw..this whole website is a one guy project more or less)
Link’s Blacklist is mainly organized via the GA-HQ group on deviantart and 50 spots were made available for 50 artists..all 50 spots were claimed in less than 4 days, this project is quite popular already, and while i contact webmasters and moderators of sites like Kotaku not all of them are interested to write about Link’s Blacklist and i don’t have a budget to promote GA-HQ sadly.
From October on till next January, Link’s Blacklist makes a pause btw..because “Link’s Friendlist” the 2nd Zelda Art Collaboration on GA-HQ will start with artworks about the good guys for a change 🙂 The plan is to get 20 or 25 Zelda characters drawn by up to three artists which means a lot of variation for Zelda, Midna ..etc 🙂
If you like Final Fantasy too..visit Game Art HQ on the 15th August!
Thanks, I’ll definitely check those two out. You have great and talented contributors. I’m impatiently waiting to see what you guys deliver. Is there a link to the hq on the page?
http://www.game-art-hq.com/art-tributes-for-video-games-by-game-art-hq/ all art tributes
The daily new art features http://www.game-art-hq.com
I’m not sure who the artist is for this but it popped up on my Facebook a while back and think it might go well to the ocarina collection
Hi, the artists of each artwork in our Link’s Blacklist art project can be found on the specific galleries, thats a great illustration there of Dark Link from OoT but Link’s Blacklist is not a collection of “found” images, they were all made for this project and shown here with the knowledge of the artists, so we can’t and won’t add any images, no matter how great they are to this gallery. Thanks for the support still!
Amazing art! I don’t see a single bad drawing on here! 😀
Yeah, the efforts by the artists are truly amazing and our Link’s Blacklist is only halfway done yet. Expect the next big update in March next year!
Wow I just came for ideas for my movie but wow this is not what I execeted
Cool, massive tribute.
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