It's one of those "technically illegal" things where you'll likely never get caught or in trouble for it. Unless you're making T-shirts and selling millions. Companies pick their battles.

And lovely drawing as always!

Well it's not "technically" illegal, it's just illegal, even if companies don't bother fighting those (though I do get why they don't, but people doing shit-ton of merch of commercial characters is a general peeve of mine, so I'm not going to take this as a habit).

I say "technically illegal" because it requires action on the part of the copyright owner for it to be classified as infringing. It's only illegal if the copyright holder tries to put a stop to it, otherwise your actions aren't criminal. This is dictated ONLY by the copyright holder; the president of the united states can't see you draw this and declare it illegal until the copyright holder complains about it.

I save "just plain illegal" for those crimes in which the activity in and of itself is criminal, and isn't reliant on the victim being the one who contests your actions. ANYONE can report a theft or assault as a crime, but only copyright holders can be the ones to declare copyright infringement and bring it to court.

That really doesn't make any sense to me. By that logic every single person who uses my art without my permission isn't infringing my copyright just because I don't have the time and resources to go around every other Tumblr and Polish forum and tell the to remove my art or take them to court? I don't think so.

No, they ARE infringing on copyright. But despite them infringing on a copyright, it isn't, and cannot be, illegal until YOU, the copyright holder, take action.

And this is unfortunately true; someone could be making millions off your work and, so long as they don't get caught by you, it's 100% permitted. Other people can't have them thrown into court over their infringing on your copyright, so they're all powerless to stop them directly. The only thing they can do is be a good citizen and bring it to your attention, so that YOU can take them to court over it.

This is why you see so much Zelda art being sold on etsy; Nintendo is either unaware of it, or it's too insignificant of a problem for them to waste their time on the legal issues, considering so many people are doing it and so little money is actually being made. So, while that's infringing on the copyright, it's 100% legal for such art to be sold.

So yeah sorry, I kind of messed up the definition of infringing in my earlier response, infringement happens the second you make the infringing art, but that infringement is not illegal in and of itself. That infringement is only deemed illegal if the victim of the infringement takes action.

Very stylized, I love it. :)