Who drew the old Zelda guidebook art?

If you grew up with the Nintendo Player's Guides for The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Link's Awakening (1993), you know the pictures: Link small against huge weather and bigger monsters, all crosshatching and ink wash, closer to a European comic album than to the sprites on screen. They were drawn by Katsuya Terada, then in his late twenties and already one of Japan's busiest game illustrators.

Terada contributed to Nintendo Power from 1989 to 1995 and to the official guides on both sides of the print world: the American player's guides, and the German Link's Awakening guide, which received a set of his illustrations all its own. The staff page of the Link's Awakening guide lists four artists; his are the pieces that walked out of the book and into legend.

His Zelda was never the only Zelda. The same years produced other official art in a cleaner anime style, which is why Terada's pages startle people who meet them late: they look like one strong imagination let loose on the games rather than a style guide obeyed. That is very nearly what happened, and his full Zelda story has its own page in this hub.