Ganondorf's Face Lit in Blood-Red Shadow — Print & Oil Painting

One light source, held low and to the left, and it is red. It rakes across the near cheek, the brow ridge and the bridge of the nose, throws the far half of the face into a green-black that keeps almost no detail, and turns the beard into a burning fringe. Skin that should read as green reads here as raw meat.

The head is dropped and the eyes are lifted, which is the oldest way to make a portrait look like a threat rather than a likeness. The mouth is closed and pulled down at the corners; the muscle at the jaw is tight; a single dark eye with a pale yellow iris sits in the shadowed half and catches just enough light to be found.

He wears a wide flat circlet that reads almost as a halo, a ring of dark metal studded with short spikes all the way round, with a green stone set at the centre of the forehead and fine chains dropping to either side. Below, at the very bottom of the frame, gold ornament crosses the chest.

The paint is smooth and tightly blended, closer to airbrush than to bristle, which makes the few hard edges, the spikes and the chain links, feel like metal. From our Zelda collection, near the hand coming out of the shadows and the profile painted in the classic manner.