Early origins of adult Link’s design art

It’s probably safe to assume Link is one of our favourite video game characters. Ocarina of Time was the first Zelda game I ever played and since then Link has certainly been one of my favourites, especially adult Link. Sure, Young Link was cool but when there was an adult Link in Twilight Princess I was really pleased. Katsuya Terada has done a lot of artwork for various franchises, including The Legend of Zelda and, in a book published in 2002, there were old pictures of what appears to be original concept art for Adult Link.

Take a look for yourself after the jump!

The book has been out of print for a while and even second hand copies are a bit on the expensive side but some of the artwork is really interesting. Although the pictures aren’t specifically labelled as Zelda artwork, the similarities to The Hero of Time  are pretty obvious.

This is one of the pictures from the book and the first thing I noticed is how much older Link looks in this picture. After Link is sealed away in the Sacred Realm, he comes out being 16 years old but, in the picture, he looks to be nearer 30. It may be that Link was going to be locked away for much longer or maybe adult Link was going to be the only version in the game.

I’m assuming he’s holding the Master Sword and, if that’s the case, the sword seems to be much smaller than it was in Ocarina of Time. Even so, he looks much more like a warrior than he did in the game. He may still be wearing a tunic but with the extra buckles and longer hair, he seems to be taking after Conan the Barbarian.

Between this version and the way he looks in the game, I much prefer the version in the game. He fits much better with the tone of the game. The version we have here seems like he’d belong in a medieval war game (and that I’d really like to see!). Which do you prefer, the way he looks here or the way he looks in the game? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below.

Source: Kotaku