Greetings travelers! We’re back today with another look at one of our Tales of Tellest characters, brought to life in a new style by Wern Szuen Lee. Let’s jump right in.
Venathryn has long been a fan favorite. Strong-willed and not afraid to speak her mind, this ranger from the Whisperwood is known best for her book, Awake, which sees her struggling with the terrible affliction called the Dreamplague. In a way, she and the other hero of that story, Maravek, switch spots across the two books we’ve got so far in their saga. While Venathryn certainly needed saving in Awake, the one who ultimately saves her is herself, and she shows her strength in turning up for Maravek when he is in need as well. Wern captures that strength and delivered it from the get-go with the opening sketch.
By the time the first real details show up on Venathryn’s concept piece, we can see that Wern was very much finding his flow with the Tellest characters. He was delivering spectacularly consistent work, and Venathryn was no exception. We see a little more of Venathryn here than we usually do, and he even lightly incorporated the Whisperwind sigil into the art, in the form of the tattoo on the elf maiden’s arm.
A splash of color gives the details even more oomph. We see Venathryn here in some natural colors, but instead diving into the tried-and-true emerald green that we usually see, Venathryn has a lot of golds in this iteration of her character. You can see that she’s well-equipped, from her battle bow to her sword, indicating she can bring the fight to enemies both near and far.
Wern took things a step further in the final piece, not only adding a lot of spectacular details to the attire—seriously, look at all that beautiful line work—but also giving us a background we could use to make Venathryn pop as well. It feels inspired by the cover of Awake too, just perhaps a bit drearier. Who knows, maybe Venathryn is locked in a dream once again here.
Wern had brought two of our Tales of Tellest characters to life by this point, but you can bet that we ensured we could get him involved in the others as well. I have no doubt that you’ll love each of them, and all the characters we collaborated on since then.
But we’ll take those things one at a time. Just a few weeks until the next one. See you soon!
Michael DeAngelo
Latest posts by Michael DeAngelo (see all)
- Character Art – Priest of Animus - April 24, 2024
- Sci-Fi Promo: Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000 - April 18, 2024
- The Whispers – Chapter Ten - April 18, 2024