To say that Lillyxandra is a fan of The Legend of Zelda games, and Princess Zelda herself, would be a vast understatement. She has put together what has got to be, without a doubt, the most authentic looking Princess Zelda Cosplay outfit I have even seen. And before you ask; Yes, being the uber geek that I am, I have seen quite a few (most of them very unflattering) attempts at recreating Princess Zelda’s classic ceremonial gown.
I can’t even being to imagine the time and care that must have gone into recreating this. This couldn’t have been just a weekend hobby project, this must have been painstakingly created over time. But Lullyxandra herself makes this sound like something she’s always wanted to do and was more than happy to put the time into do it. In her own words:
I knew I wanted to be Princess Zelda when I played the original Legend of Zelda game back on Nintendo in 1987…it took me 18 years but i finally got around to it. The illustrator Yusuke Nakano didn’t hold back when drawing the new designs for Princess Zelda. The designs are saturated in details for these grown up classic characters. I was feeling ambitious and decided to try and replicate the design.
As a side thought I think that Lillyxandra herself, and the fact that she created this, says something about the direction that gaming industry and culture is moving. The stereotype used to be that gamers were overweight, oily skinned, nerdy boys who wanted to sit brain-dead idle in front of a screen all day. Here we have an instance of an absolutely beautiful girl utilizing a legitimate trade to produce an item, and the subsequent artistic photo shoot, with no further inspiration than fictitious, albeit brilliant, video game plot.
As I’ve often advocated, this is a prefect example of videos games being a new form of story telling and not just a mindless activity.
You can see even more of Lillyxandra and these photos over at Firefly-Path.net. Click on any image to view it’s full size.
November 9, 2009
Media, Thoughts