Link - The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past



Cost: $45
Time to Make: 20 hours
Timeline of Construction: July - August 2004
Award: Best Artisan - CNAnime 2004


Pictures




Information
Ever since I was a child, I've always loved The Legend of Zelda games. I never really played them much myself, but I had a lot of fun watching my older brother pass the games (including the original Nintendo one). I knew eventually I would have to Cosplay as Link to show my love for the video game series. One day I randomly came across a site where I could download a copy of an old Japanese Legend of Zelda commercial for the Link to the Past game. Curious, I downloaded it and I really enjoyed the bad Japanese rap music, the concept of the ad and most of all, Link's outfit. From that point on, I knew I would have to Cosplay as Dance Link. (^^) Finally, during the summer of 2004, I found out some of my other friends were planning to make Link costumes and I knew it would be the perfect time to get started on one of my own.

I stayed over at my friend Amanda's house and worked on the green tunic. The pattern was made by tracing out an old t-shirt. It was rather simple to make, as it has no sleeves and really only required big seams to hold it together. I later bought some green string which I used on the bottom of the collar for decoration. My mother and I worked on the grey shirt which was to be worn under the tunic. It was much more difficult to make because we ended up combining two patterns to get the proper collar. One of the big problems we came across was the fact we ended up buying a grey material that isn't very stretchy and the pattern was made to suit stretchy material. Needless to say, it wasn’t the most comfortable of shirts. It was a bit of a tight squeeze to get into and out of, but I managed. The two shirts looked really nice together and the grey shirt covered up the bad stitching job I did on the collar of my green tunic.

I got the tights from the Bay. Unfortunately, I couldn't find tights the right colour for Link (I was looking for a lighter shade of green). I had hoped to dye my tights but when I tried to dye a pair of white tights at Amanda's, I found out that the tights were synthetic and wouldn't dye properly. I re-used my old black boots (from Terriermon) and just cut rectangles of brown material for the boot covers. Since I wanted to save my boots for Terriermon on Sunday of CNAnime, I just attached the boot covers to my boots with duct tape. The material was tight at the top of the boots, so they never slipped during the con. I decided it would be a nice idea to hunt down a pair of elf ears for the costume since it's quite evident in the video that Link has them. I managed to find a cheap pair at Ganesh. They didn't stay on my ears that well, but Pan came up with the great idea of putting double sided tape in each ear and that held them in place quite well.

The belt was just an old brown belt I found in my closet. I still had a piece of silver vinyl leftover from my Sailand Cooro costume so I traced out the triforce shapes using round container lids and paper patterns. I then cut out the vinyl shapes and glued them to the belt. They held together fairly well, but by the end of the con, the shapes had lost a lot of their silver colour. My mother helped me out with the hat, which was originally square in the back, but was later changed to be more triangular. A strip of lime green material was sewn at the bottom of the hat because I couldn't find a decent yellow-green fabric. Underneath the lime green is an elastic band. The band really helped to keep the hat in place.

The sword was re-used from an old costume. The sheath will also not be making a reappearance if this costume is ever worn again, because the sheath ripped when I was going home from CNAnime. The pattern on the sheath was an original design because Dance Link doesn't have a sheath, but I knew I would need one if I was going to be in the masq.

Lastly, I did not make the bomb. My friend Bonnie did. It actually has a bouncy ball inside of it. The bomb was a big hit at the con. The best part about doing this costume was being in the Link dance skit at CNAnime 2004. For the masq, my friends Bonnie, Jen, Lauren, Hannah, Amanda and I decided to do a rendition of the dance from the commercial I Cosplayed from. I had trouble learning the dance and was the weakest Link in the group, but it was tons of fun performing with them. Our group was well received by the audience and we ended up winning an award for our efforts. (^^)

Events/Conventions this costume was worn to
CNAnime 2004 (Saturday), when watching the movie Hero on Friday, September 10th, 2004 & on Halloween 2004


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