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Description
This is part of my "Gizoid Imitator" series, where I take a random character, and draw them as a Gizoid, who are powerful robots from Sonic Battle and Sonic Chronicles, that are able to copy the abilities of those they fight, to create unique Gizoid designs. It's as if these mimic masters decided to fully embody those that they copied. I based the framework design on my current Emerl and Gemerl Redesigns, which are more complicated than their original designs in Sonic Battle and Sonic Advance 3, respectively.
I do not intend to take requests, though don't let that stop you from dropping ideas. If I like the idea, I might take it, and add them to my list to work on later.

So, I’m releasing TWO Imitators today, and here is the second of them: The Battle-Tested Guardian for Age of Calamity’s first DLC wave.

So, the reason I wanted to do this, and decided to do two gizoids for the first time again since the original two gizoids (Bowser and Undyne the Undying) was, well... it’s been a while since I did a celebratory art piece, where I make a piece for something game I like that just came out, or just had DLC released... usually several weeks or months late, because that’s just how things go.

I kind of wanted to do something of Age of Calamity’s DLC Wave 1 while the fire was... let’s say luke-warm at this point. Plus, this is the first robot that I designed as a gizoid, the first robot model fusion basically.

So making a Breath of to Wild Guardian as a Gizoid Imitator... how to do it? Well, the first thing that came to mind was, I kid you not, “guardians have those clawed, mechanical, tentacle legs, right? For freedom of movement. So how do I make this work with a gizoid?” Gizoids, being based on a humanoid design, have four limbs, and they are very standard limbs, not tentacle limbs.

So, first I thought to replace the rods that gizoids have for their biceps and thighs with the segment joints for the tentacle legs, and I even replaced the feet with the guardian-like claws. But the last part to this, and the part you’ve most defiantly noticed, was adding the last two legs on the back, sort of like a Doc Oc kind of vibe, to make the total six limbs.

So next, two things I added during the vector process were the sword and spear. The sword is a Guardian Sword++ that you can get in BotW, and while it fits the idea of the gizoid being able to learn any combat style, and this one is a swordsman (he must’ve fought Link himself), and the Guardian Scouts can have them, but really, it was just to make the pose cool.

The spear was the really interesting thing I came up with. It’s based on the Flail weapon Link gets in the same DLC Wave, which can be used to grab and create a copy of weapons from enemies. I liked it because it fits with the gizoids ability to copy techniques and abilities from those they fight. Honestly, it's perfect!

So, let’s rapid-fire some things here. I was trying to figure out what to do with the guardian’s single, laser-firing eye, and I just decided to have it replace the gizoid’s normal third eye, used to show its evolution of power. And yes, it is targeting something, just had to do it (man, this gizoid can do a lot of things at once). The three circles that are on a gizoid’s chest, I reworked them into the guardian's design style, including the glowing circles (I was also thinking about the Zora’s symbol, which also involved three circles in it, but as you can see, I choose not to work that in). And I added the Sheikah symbol, specifically the one on the Sheikah Slate, on the Imitator's hand, just to link to the Sheikah origins of the guardians.

Finally, the moss. Yes, the moss. Since this isn’t just any guardian, it’s supposed to be the Battle-Tested Guardian, I wanted to add some of those aged details. I thought that this was going to be the most annoying part of the vector process, but it wasn’t that bad. I did want to add some of the old rusted weapons that were stuck to the guardian, but with the humanoid design, I didn't think it looked that good. So, I scrapped that idea (though I think I added the Guardian Sword++ after I scrapped that idea.

----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----

So, I wanted to add a second section here, since this is also a celebratory piece, to talk about the Battle-Tested Guardian itself, since it’s super cool to me. After seeing this old guardian in the Forgotten temple, with all the moss, and broken weapons, I couldn’t help but think about what this thing had been through.

And... the game kind of ruined it. In the Battle-Tested Guardian's description, they say that it’s theorized that it was a specialized model. I mean, it’s plausible, and they say it’s a theory, but because it’s said in-game, it’s probably going to be taken as canon. And that ruined my imagination, because... let me paint a picture of what I was imagining.

I think that this was a normal guardian, but after Calamity Ganon was first beaten 10,000 years ago, how whatever ever reason, it strayed off, and missed the call to return, so they just assumed it got destroyed. Over time, the Sheikah were told to deal away their tech, and this guardian was forgotten.

Millenia later, after this tech has been mostly forgotten, someone runs into the “monster of metal”, which is the stray guardian, and the bravest of warriors band together to go get rid of it. And because it’s a guardian, well... you can guess how it went. Where do you think all those broken weapons came from.

The guardian, by programming, didn’t want to fight the Hylians it was meant to protect, but it had to protect itself, so eventually, it stopped, well, caring (this is why it fights you on sight when you encounter it. Everything is its enemy, until it realizes the Calamity has returned. Then it returns to its original directive.) And over time, it just wandered off, or people realized they had to stop trying to fight it and just leave it alone, or they would die.

But over all that time fighting, somehow, it began to learn, to evolve, and it developed new moves. This pattern repeated from time to time, until the Calamity struck again. Thus, it became “Battle-Tested”, by having been tested by battle, long over the millennia.

Ironically, I didn’t realize this until I started this piece, but that theoretical story fits super well with what the Gizoids are about. Which is just neat.

Now, let’s also consider this. What happened to it on the main Breath of the Wild timeline, where the little guardian didn’t go back in time to save everyone?

Well, this is what I imagine. Basically, after the Calamity won, the BT Guardian wasn’t found, the same as it was over millennia. But, at some point, it detected Malice, the source of the Calamity. So it woke up, and went forth to eliminate the new Malice source, as it was programmed to do.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t just any source of malice. They were corrupted guardians, now roaming the lands to add in the destruction. The BT Guardian found these guardians, and well, since they were corrupted with Malice, it attacked them.

But it was a lot of guardians to fight, and while the BT Guardian was more powerful than all of them, the corrupted guardians were the most capable power to match it. They were, after all, all Sheikah-made guardians. And there were a lot of them.

And here, I am imagining this being a Zack and Shinra soldier situation, where the BT was definitely more powerful than any of these individual guardians, but it was outnumbered, and eventually, it was destroyed.

But it died doing what it was made for... fighting the Calamity.

Here is my previous Gizoid Imitator, CPU Iris Heart of the Ultradimension’s Planeptune:

Here is my next Gizoid Imitator, Percival de Rolo from the Legend of Vox Machina:

Here is a link to all my Gizoid Pieces

Here are my Emerl and Gemerl pieces:

Description
This is part of my "Gizoid Imitator" series, where I take a random character, and draw them as a Gizoid, who are powerful robots from Sonic Battle and Sonic Chronicles, that are able to copy the abilities of those they fight, to create unique Gizoid designs. It's as if these mimic masters decided to fully embody those that they copied. I based the framework design on my current Emerl and Gemerl Redesigns, which are more complicated than their original designs in Sonic Battle and Sonic Advance 3, respectively.
I do not intend to take requests, though don't let that stop you from dropping ideas. If I like the idea, I might take it, and add them to my list to work on later.

So, I’m releasing TWO Imitators today, and here is the second of them: The Battle-Tested Guardian for Age of Calamity’s first DLC wave.

So, the reason I wanted to do this, and decided to do two gizoids for the first time again since the original two gizoids (Bowser and Undyne the Undying) was, well... it’s been a while since I did a celebratory art piece, where I make a piece for something game I like that just came out, or just had DLC released... usually several weeks or months late, because that’s just how things go.

I kind of wanted to do something of Age of Calamity’s DLC Wave 1 while the fire was... let’s say luke-warm at this point. Plus, this is the first robot that I designed as a gizoid, the first robot model fusion basically.

So making a Breath of to Wild Guardian as a Gizoid Imitator... how to do it? Well, the first thing that came to mind was, I kid you not, “guardians have those clawed, mechanical, tentacle legs, right? For freedom of movement. So how do I make this work with a gizoid?” Gizoids, being based on a humanoid design, have four limbs, and they are very standard limbs, not tentacle limbs.

So, first I thought to replace the rods that gizoids have for their biceps and thighs with the segment joints for the tentacle legs, and I even replaced the feet with the guardian-like claws. But the last part to this, and the part you’ve most defiantly noticed, was adding the last two legs on the back, sort of like a Doc Oc kind of vibe, to make the total six limbs.

So next, two things I added during the vector process were the sword and spear. The sword is a Guardian Sword++ that you can get in BotW, and while it fits the idea of the gizoid being able to learn any combat style, and this one is a swordsman (he must’ve fought Link himself), and the Guardian Scouts can have them, but really, it was just to make the pose cool.

The spear was the really interesting thing I came up with. It’s based on the Flail weapon Link gets in the same DLC Wave, which can be used to grab and create a copy of weapons from enemies. I liked it because it fits with the gizoids ability to copy techniques and abilities from those they fight. Honestly, it's perfect!

So, let’s rapid-fire some things here. I was trying to figure out what to do with the guardian’s single, laser-firing eye, and I just decided to have it replace the gizoid’s normal third eye, used to show its evolution of power. And yes, it is targeting something, just had to do it (man, this gizoid can do a lot of things at once). The three circles that are on a gizoid’s chest, I reworked them into the guardian's design style, including the glowing circles (I was also thinking about the Zora’s symbol, which also involved three circles in it, but as you can see, I choose not to work that in). And I added the Sheikah symbol, specifically the one on the Sheikah Slate, on the Imitator's hand, just to link to the Sheikah origins of the guardians.

Finally, the moss. Yes, the moss. Since this isn’t just any guardian, it’s supposed to be the Battle-Tested Guardian, I wanted to add some of those aged details. I thought that this was going to be the most annoying part of the vector process, but it wasn’t that bad. I did want to add some of the old rusted weapons that were stuck to the guardian, but with the humanoid design, I didn't think it looked that good. So, I scrapped that idea (though I think I added the Guardian Sword++ after I scrapped that idea.

----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----

So, I wanted to add a second section here, since this is also a celebratory piece, to talk about the Battle-Tested Guardian itself, since it’s super cool to me. After seeing this old guardian in the Forgotten temple, with all the moss, and broken weapons, I couldn’t help but think about what this thing had been through.

And... the game kind of ruined it. In the Battle-Tested Guardian's description, they say that it’s theorized that it was a specialized model. I mean, it’s plausible, and they say it’s a theory, but because it’s said in-game, it’s probably going to be taken as canon. And that ruined my imagination, because... let me paint a picture of what I was imagining.

I think that this was a normal guardian, but after Calamity Ganon was first beaten 10,000 years ago, how whatever ever reason, it strayed off, and missed the call to return, so they just assumed it got destroyed. Over time, the Sheikah were told to deal away their tech, and this guardian was forgotten.

Millenia later, after this tech has been mostly forgotten, someone runs into the “monster of metal”, which is the stray guardian, and the bravest of warriors band together to go get rid of it. And because it’s a guardian, well... you can guess how it went. Where do you think all those broken weapons came from.

The guardian, by programming, didn’t want to fight the Hylians it was meant to protect, but it had to protect itself, so eventually, it stopped, well, caring (this is why it fights you on sight when you encounter it. Everything is its enemy, until it realizes the Calamity has returned. Then it returns to its original directive.) And over time, it just wandered off, or people realized they had to stop trying to fight it and just leave it alone, or they would die.

But over all that time fighting, somehow, it began to learn, to evolve, and it developed new moves. This pattern repeated from time to time, until the Calamity struck again. Thus, it became “Battle-Tested”, by having been tested by battle, long over the millennia.

Ironically, I didn’t realize this until I started this piece, but that theoretical story fits super well with what the Gizoids are about. Which is just neat.

Now, let’s also consider this. What happened to it on the main Breath of the Wild timeline, where the little guardian didn’t go back in time to save everyone?

Well, this is what I imagine. Basically, after the Calamity won, the BT Guardian wasn’t found, the same as it was over millennia. But, at some point, it detected Malice, the source of the Calamity. So it woke up, and went forth to eliminate the new Malice source, as it was programmed to do.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t just any source of malice. They were corrupted guardians, now roaming the lands to add in the destruction. The BT Guardian found these guardians, and well, since they were corrupted with Malice, it attacked them.

But it was a lot of guardians to fight, and while the BT Guardian was more powerful than all of them, the corrupted guardians were the most capable power to match it. They were, after all, all Sheikah-made guardians. And there were a lot of them.

And here, I am imagining this being a Zack and Shinra soldier situation, where the BT was definitely more powerful than any of these individual guardians, but it was outnumbered, and eventually, it was destroyed.

But it died doing what it was made for... fighting the Calamity.

Here is my previous Gizoid Imitator, CPU Iris Heart of the Ultradimension’s Planeptune:

Here is my next Gizoid Imitator, Percival de Rolo from the Legend of Vox Machina:

Here is a link to all my Gizoid Pieces

Here are my Emerl and Gemerl pieces: