burndive: hacking my mind: Link's Awakening Wind Fish and BOTW Pinewood Derby Cars and Marin amiibo

Wednesday, August 18, 2021

Link's Awakening Wind Fish and BOTW Pinewood Derby Cars and Marin amiibo

This is where it all started. I participated along with my kids in a pinewood derby for our church's AWANA program, and I made my car into the Wind Fish. On top, I made a little Link and Marin.

I made a Pinewood Derby car for AWANA today:
The Wind Fish from #LinksAwakening with clay Link, Marin, and Owl.

My kids also made cars with clay additions but the aren't quite finished yet. pic.twitter.com/B2I7oGk7AF
— burndive (@burndive) October 13, 2019

I used colored polymer clay to make it, and I had a fun time doing it. It got a little bit damaged during the actual races, but I put it back together with hot glue. I've since learned that super glue works much better with polymer clay over the long term (and isn't goopy like hot glue), but creating these mini figures inspired me to make a whole series of custom clay video game figures, complete with amiibo NFC tags.

The previous year (or maybe it was two years previous?), I had made a similar pinewood derby car themed after Breath of the Wild with Link fighting a Lynel, along with a shrine entrance and a Korok.

I had recently attended PAX West, where Nintendo had set up a beautiful Link's Awakening diorama with Link (looking just like his amiibo) and Marin. I thought to myself it was a shame that they didn't make a Marin amiibo to go with Link.

Having just made little mini Link and Marin for my derby car, I decided to make a bigger version of Marin. I wanted Marin to be an amiibo, and I had recently gotten som Super Mario Amiibo cereal. I decided to cut out the cardboard box around the amiibo tag and then register the amiibo on my Nintendo Switch with Marin's name. Later on, I would get some NFC stickers and make her into a Toon Zelda amiibo.

This was the first of many such figures I would make.