Wow, I know this looks totally abnormal. I've actually been working on this new coloring technique recently because it's always bothered me that I have this horrible, flat, cartoony lineart in all of my drawings (plus I just seriously hate having to ink in my artwork anyway; it's such a pain in the ass >_< ). So I've decided to completely omit the inking process and use a much more abbreviated brushstroke with my markers to give my art a hopefully more naturalistic and painterly feel. This picture was initially just a little practice I was doing to work with my new coloring style, but it somehow kept evolving until I had completely finished with a full background (although I must say I'm fairly proud of that background, no matter how lame, cheap, or tacky it might look to everyone else. [It's supposed to be a forest, btw]).

And obviously, probably the #1 thing you're all wondering right now is: "that's supposed to be Sheik?" Well yeah, just my fun and crazy conception of her, I guess; I wasn't really aiming for this to be an honest portrayal of her, anyway. (And in truth, you're all basically staring at a very unsettling self-portrait of myself in Sheik's clothes, because those are all my facial characteristics. And the stupid open mouth expression is totally mine. Now this should explain why Sheik looks so ugly and deformed to you...sorry everyone). I know the perspective is wacky, particularly around her chest region, but I didn't have any ref below the collarbone so I just had to improvise everything else (which also explains why that whole lower area really sucks, coloring and all). Also, to call attention to the obvious: Sheik has boobs now, if you couldn't tell...lol. My apologies to all the hardcore Sheik fans out there who adamantly believe Sheik is a guy. Plus, I screwed around with her eye color because mismatched irises are awesome and I just thought she would look cooler that way. And to top it all off, she has brown hair because I'm a huge advocate for Zelda as a brunette, as some of you may already know.

*Phew* So pretty much the only indicator here that this character is actually Sheik is the clothing, and even that looks a bit off-model thanks to my shoddy coloring. ...So yeah, sorry for drawing Sheik all girly and anti-ninja and unorthodox here. But how many girly, red and blue-eyed, brown-haired Sheiks do you see anyway?

I'm shutting up now, I swear. XD;

Made with Prismacolor and Copic markers (with a bit of chalk and colored pencil here and there).

Sheik (c) Nintendo