HOME | DD

Description
Slime Eel the fifth boss from Legend of Zelda, Link's Awakening.

In the game, Slime eel is another snake boss, but this one has a jaw powerful enough to break down walls. It's also the first boss to have a jaw that is set vertically instead of horizontally. In other words; instead of the jaw opening with the lips stretching upwards and downwards, they stretch from left to right. In other words, it is a sideways mouth...

Yeh, you can imagine the trouble I had of getting his mouth right without it looking like a...

Anyway!!!

Incase you havn't noticed by now, one of my favorite sources of inspiration is oceanology. I love sea creatures. And I don't mean I'm one of those whale and dolphin loving sissies. (though I do love whales and dolphins). I mean I love all the creatures of the sea; they're so colourful, creepy and at times ugly. Some of them appear very alien. We havn't even discovered half the creatures that populate our oceans; hell, we know more about the Solar System than we do about our own oceans!

Anyway, I digress.

Eels are another one of my favorite creatures to draw, and although Slime Eel in the game is not technically an eel (it's more like a sea worm) it does look like something from a supermario game. A lot of the bosses from Link's awakening are very cartoony and do not fit well within the universe. This is just my opinion however, and when the game was developed the technology probably limited the design of a lot of the creatures in the game. Anyway, I wanted to change pretty much the whole design of this boss and when searching for reference material I used pictures of actual slime eels as well as giant eels. I also looked at pictures of snakes.

The head took a lot to figure out. As far as I knew, the closest thing I could find in real life to have a vertical jaw was the cat fish. These fish don't actually have jaws (most fish don't) but this fish tends to have a very vertical looking mouth. I love the whiskers that cat fish have and decided to incorporate that into the design. The horns came from an actual slime eel; their tongues are very short but very thick, and look more like horns to me (they grow out of their top lip instead of inside the mouth). I made the mouth very round, more round than I wanted it to be, but I decided asthetically it looked better this way. The teeth are round the sides of the mouth instead on the top and bottom (obviously with a vertical jaw this would be how they would be placed). Its eyes came from a mix between eels and catfish; very black but shiny with two white pupils instead of just one. Instead of just one set of eyes, I gave it two. This came about in some of the preliminar sketches I drew up and I liked how it made the slime eel more alien than previous creatures I've drawn.

Being called Slime eel it is surrounded with slime. (please not that actual snakes and eels are NOT slimy, and I hate it when people say they are when they've never even held a snake.) I didn't want it to be covered in slime because in the game it has a red body and a black head. I did not want to dilute the colour with the slime, also I just recently did a drawing of a creature that is actually made of slime and didn't want to repeat myself.

Anyway, sorry for the long description. Have a cookie if you read the whole thing.

Description
Slime Eel the fifth boss from Legend of Zelda, Link's Awakening.

In the game, Slime eel is another snake boss, but this one has a jaw powerful enough to break down walls. It's also the first boss to have a jaw that is set vertically instead of horizontally. In other words; instead of the jaw opening with the lips stretching upwards and downwards, they stretch from left to right. In other words, it is a sideways mouth...

Yeh, you can imagine the trouble I had of getting his mouth right without it looking like a...

Anyway!!!

Incase you havn't noticed by now, one of my favorite sources of inspiration is oceanology. I love sea creatures. And I don't mean I'm one of those whale and dolphin loving sissies. (though I do love whales and dolphins). I mean I love all the creatures of the sea; they're so colourful, creepy and at times ugly. Some of them appear very alien. We havn't even discovered half the creatures that populate our oceans; hell, we know more about the Solar System than we do about our own oceans!

Anyway, I digress.

Eels are another one of my favorite creatures to draw, and although Slime Eel in the game is not technically an eel (it's more like a sea worm) it does look like something from a supermario game. A lot of the bosses from Link's awakening are very cartoony and do not fit well within the universe. This is just my opinion however, and when the game was developed the technology probably limited the design of a lot of the creatures in the game. Anyway, I wanted to change pretty much the whole design of this boss and when searching for reference material I used pictures of actual slime eels as well as giant eels. I also looked at pictures of snakes.

The head took a lot to figure out. As far as I knew, the closest thing I could find in real life to have a vertical jaw was the cat fish. These fish don't actually have jaws (most fish don't) but this fish tends to have a very vertical looking mouth. I love the whiskers that cat fish have and decided to incorporate that into the design. The horns came from an actual slime eel; their tongues are very short but very thick, and look more like horns to me (they grow out of their top lip instead of inside the mouth). I made the mouth very round, more round than I wanted it to be, but I decided asthetically it looked better this way. The teeth are round the sides of the mouth instead on the top and bottom (obviously with a vertical jaw this would be how they would be placed). Its eyes came from a mix between eels and catfish; very black but shiny with two white pupils instead of just one. Instead of just one set of eyes, I gave it two. This came about in some of the preliminar sketches I drew up and I liked how it made the slime eel more alien than previous creatures I've drawn.

Being called Slime eel it is surrounded with slime. (please not that actual snakes and eels are NOT slimy, and I hate it when people say they are when they've never even held a snake.) I didn't want it to be covered in slime because in the game it has a red body and a black head. I did not want to dilute the colour with the slime, also I just recently did a drawing of a creature that is actually made of slime and didn't want to repeat myself.

Anyway, sorry for the long description. Have a cookie if you read the whole thing.