A few months ago, we were very lucky to show off an interim cover of the upcoming book, Heart of the Forest. Red Pear did us a solid and gave us some gorgeous artwork surrounding a character that she was familiar with, and that helped us to really sell the idea on Heart of the Forest as a Kickstarter stretch goal.
Today, she’s at it again, this time with a new character who I’m certain you’ll love. And she provides us with what may be the best art we’ve had commissioned to date.
You’ve all seen Kaiyonani before, but never like this.
Dragonspeaker is the name of Kaiyonani’s first big adventure. It’s the first story that’s told without any preexisting characters being seen or mentioned. We knew that there was a lot of work on the table for Red Pear, but she floored us every step of the way.
First off, we had to pick from a set of sketches.
These were all the ones that we ultimately passed on. They’re incredible, but we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see Red tackle the next sketch:
We’ve yet to see a dragonrider in any Tellest art, and this was the perfect opportunity. Red was certainly up to the challenge, too, and she gave us a series of work in progress sketches as we neared the final piece.
We were coming along fairly well, and then Red went into some greater detail and shading.
Every time she added detail, it ended up being that much cooler.
Once color was part of the equation, it started to steal our breath away.
Seriously… how can you not like that cover. It’s one of the coolest things I’ve seen in the longest time, and I could not be prouder of Red for kicking so much butt with it.
This could easily pass for the cover of Dragonspeaker. I hope it ends up getting a lot more people excited for the book, and that we end up surprising a lot of people with the upcoming story!

Michael DeAngelo

Latest posts by Michael DeAngelo (see all)
- Sigil Art – Vessa - June 7, 2023
- Guest Post – The Enpirion Project, Reminder - June 6, 2023
- Guest Interview – L. Bossi - June 1, 2023