This is a doodle I started for myself a few weeks ago, as an experiment and a stress relief to pick at in-between commissions and homework. Ever since I discovered the Marker tool in SAI, it's become my go-to for doodles~ I love the thick, soft quality of my lines when I use it, compared to the harsh chicken scratch that my art becomes when I use the Pen tool.

Here, two best friends, Tonta (right) and Rustu (left), share a bit of conversation as they take a stroll through the tunnels of the Cauldron.

People familiar with my personal characters on other galleries will immediately recognize Tonta, though will likely notice something different about him... The changes in his design are synonymous with a very important change in one of my oldest personal projects: my Zelda fanfiction, Bridges of Light.

In the last couple of years, it has occurred to me that while I called my characters Gorons, their physical and cultural resemblance to the Zelda species was arguably... minimal. I've never drawn Gorons in a style that really looked like Gorons, as they always had features and proportions that were far too human, yet I've always called them Gorons despite. Not only that, but I found that the culture that I had attached to them and developed for years had transformed into something far greater than I had ever intended for something as limited as a fanfiction. It felt wrong to merely leave it attached to an existing property, and possibly restrict plot and character growth for the sake of retaining what little Zelda canon I had within my story. So, I've decided that Bridges of Light is no longer a fanfiction. I'm currently in the process of taking the core plot and characters, and transferring them over to my original world of Ahnurth. A lot of plot revision is required, of course, but I feel like my story already has a lot more room to become something truly mine this way, and I hope that others will find these changes as favourable as I have! I'll be drawing actual Gorons in a more traditional Zelda style from now on, like those seen in Skyward Sword and Twilight Princess.

TL;DR: My Gorons never really looked or felt like Gorons, therefore they're no longer Gorons!

Tonta and Rustu here are of an Ahnurthian race called the Ounten, a golemic people that consume gems and ores not only to sustain themselves and regenerate their stony skeletons, but also to recycle the used, settled magic within these materials to exhale as energy back into the atmosphere, much like how trees recycle carbon dioxide into oxygen! Their most distinct features are their stony forearm shields, intricate chiselled tattoos, and segmented backrock, which somewhat resembles the scales of a pangolin.

Programs used: PaintTool SAI and Photoshop CS4.

Watercolour Texture by AuroraWienhold on DeviantART: CLICK for source!