At least give it a shot, marioman. An Essence is only 16 x 16 pixels, and doesn't have many colours. You could easily doodle something in Paint and there really isn't much space to mess it up. If you draw the general shape, that's already more than halfway there.
I was hoping that a modified sprite from another series would be less likely to be recognized. I will modify it more so that the original only served as a mere template. But if bustin or someone else can churn out some good (and distinctly original) sprites for all of us then I will throw out my design and ask the other dungeonmakers to use theirs too for a sense of consistency. I will actively look for spritemakers on other forums right away (it's how I met bustin for the art in last year's project) and then if they do good work, we can leave the bosses to them. So, dungeonmakers, think about what your ideal boss for your dungeon might look like, so they have an idea.
RT, I was trying to walk through your dungeon. Where do the stairs in the upper-left lead? And I think for a first dungeon there should be a little less ice (as in, the slippery surfaces) and aren't the map and compass both rather late? By the time you get the map you're practically at the boss, aren't you? I'd also put a shutter door in the mini-boss room, even if you do want the Roc's Feather to be obtained before facing the mini-boss. And in the header, there's no name of the dungeon. What is the name of the dungeon, anyway? (I put together "Clock Tower" on mine from ransom note-like cutting from other dungeon headers...unfortunately the "Black Tower" level, which would've saved me lots of time, did not have such a header because it wasn't a regular dungeon...but it was stil fun to put together.) And if I do get a sprite-maker soon, would you be willing to replace your boss? You can think up what your ideal dungeon boss would be (so they can make it) if what you really want is different from the whatchamacallit that you used.
After you fix whatever needs to be fixed, are you going to do another dungeon? Like the Excavation Site you proposed? There are 44 days until April Fool's (and I'd rather we didn't work on this 'til the last minute). That's a much later dungeon so you're be working with obstacles that involve a variety of Link's tools.
