About two months ago I stumbled upon an amazing find:

The 10-doh figure by squidkidsink

This ABS figure is about 7“ tall and looks like a classic Nintendo cartridge. The blank figure [$30.00] comes supplied with PVC arms and legs and blank stickers for the graphics.

When I found this figure I was immediately drawn to the idea of creating an old classic Legends of Zelda theme out of it, the 10-Doh site had many other really cool custom 10-Doh creations, but I couldn’t find any Zelda related models so it seems like a perfect choice!

Before I started the project I wanted to be sure it would be possible, I had never attempted anything like this before so I was not really sure where to start, but I knew that the first thing I would need for a decent Link is a Master sword and shield. There was no way this was going to work without it, so to Amazon, E-bay and Google I went.

It took some time, but I was able to find a sword and shield that was a good size, the reviews had said that the paint job was terrible, but it didn’t really matter much because it was getting stripped of the paint so I could repaint it myself anyways.

After the armaments were out of the way, I needed was a hat, a quick E-bay search for some Link toys that I could turned up a stuffed Link that I could destroy. Yes, many objects were harmed in the making of this model!

The next step was to make his belt, the local Salvation Army solved that problem, they had the perfect belt that could be hacked up, then the belt buckles were made by cutting up some Lego flags. Things were starting to come together now, but the ideas kept flowing so I just went with it. I found some pretty cool fairy’s in a bottle idea on Etsy which inspired me to check a few stores (Joann Fabrics) for glass bottles and a pewter fairy, unfortunately I couldn’t find any tiny fairies, but I did find an angel charm that would fit in the bottle, sorry to say the poor cherub required a sex change operation before being banished to carry out it’s day in my little glass bottle, but it served its purpose. The Heath potion was simply filled with melted down gel candle.

Everything used for the quiver and arrows was found at the local thrift store, one of my recent posts explained the story of being asked if I was MacGyver, in which I alluded to this project, this quiver is the result. The quiver was made by cutting down a plastic tube, a leather elbow patch and bits from a green belt were wrapped around the quiver, the arrows were made out of some loose pieces of wood and bird feathers. BTW, creating arrows with real feathers is extremely frustrating! striping and trimming down feathers is a painstakingly slow process.

The absolute most difficult part of the project was coming up with the art for the label. I spent a sleepless night of about 8 hours on the label last night. Originally I was just going to print out the classic label right from the game, but I wanted something a little more original that would also work in with a set of eyes. I also did not want to directly call out Legends of Zelda so I tried to come up with something similar that made sense to me. Zelda Classic is the Epic Adventure that started it all, so the title seemed fitting.

So that’s it, the entire project took me about 30 hours give or take a few. The painting took most of the time; research took a bit of time as well and of course playing with the label ideas. This was an exciting project; it was a first attempt at creating something unique completely myself. I’m very happy of the way it turned out, may try another sometime. I hope you like it.