While we’re exploring Tellest, we’re trying to venture into the high fantasy elements of the world a little bit more.  We’ve already seen avarians in a few books, but Kazuri is a bit different those other ones.  Keota and Kyrie and the birdfolk from the aerie in Lord of Thunder, and Odawa and the Halia from Heart of the Forest had a bit of a native american feel to them.  Kazuri, on the other hand, hails from a place in Tellest that we’ve spoken about but never seen firsthand called Numasa.  It’s a bit East Asian-mythology-feeling, which gives Kazuri and her allies, the tentatively-named Protectors of Numasa, a bit of a larger-than-life, mystical feeling.

Kazuri has lived one heck of a life.  She’s been touched by the strain, so she has a power that her people didn’t quite understand.  That lack of understanding of course led to fear, which led to her being ostracized and eventually exiled.

She learned to survive by taking what she needed, and that led her to a life of piracy.  She moved up the ranks, and eventually captained her own ship!  Kazuri’s power, the ability to summon powerful wind blades, may have ended up sending her away from the other avarians, but it made her a very valuable asset in naval combat.

While Kazuri didn’t entirely renounce her pirate ways, she’s banded together with others to protect her home.  She uses her powers and her connections to influence the progress and well-being of Numasa.

So how exactly is Kazuri going to play into the Tellest world?  We’re hoping to put her and the other protectors in charge of the first Tellest comic line!  Each of the characters is interesting and great to look at, so it’ll be a lot of fun seeing what we can do with them.  Stay tuned as we delve into this new medium, and see how far we can go!

A big thank you to LizKay for bringing us another wonderful bit of talent, and helping us to bring this character to life!

The post Character Art – Kazuri, Protector of Numasa appeared first on Tellest.

Today’s character is Keota, the avarian who is aided by Bolt Thunderfury against a giant and an army of naga.

As with all of our collaborations with Hozure, we began with a few poses that we were able to choose from.  For such an interesting character, we wanted something that showed off a lot of him.

We opted to go with something that showed Keota’s broad, bronze wings.  He’s no stranger to armor and weaponry either.

Once we added some more luster to the character, Keota nearly popped of the screen.  He made for a great ally to Bolt, and it was awesome to see him realized like this.

Tacking on a background makes this incredible avarian look even more impressive.

What do you think?  Would you like to see more of Keota’s roost captured in art like this?  There’s plenty more on the horizon!

The post Character Art – Keota of the Avarians appeared first on Tellest.

We wanted to show that the avarians were tough, able to use weapons in the air that even people on land have trouble with.  Our female avarian wields a hefty halberd with ease.

With a little more detail, we opened up a bit more of her armor, specifically the helmet.  Luigi had some trepidation with opening up that visor because he was worried he wouldn’t be able to put together the beak so well, but I think you’ll see in this next shot that he did a pretty decent job.

She’s got very similar features to the male avarian, but we gave her the more interesting attire, for sure.  The texture of her plumage is a little bit more apparent as well.

And here we have both of our airborne warriors together.  Hope you liked this look at one of the races we hope to show you more of in the future!

The post Concept Art – Female Avarian by Luigiix appeared first on Tellest.

He starts us off with a pretty simple sketch.  These winged warriors can utilize shields and swords pretty easily, thanks to their broad wings.  You’ll notice that these guys have full arms in addition to their wings, unlike Tellest’s harpies, where the wings are attached to their arms.

After that initial sketch, a few things were modified.  There’s a little bit more detail in the feathering, and the weapons, and the pose has changed slightly.

After that, we experimented a little bit with color.  Luigiix didn’t like the idea of drawing the beak on the character, so he disguised him behind a pretty cool helmet.

We decided that we didn’t like the darker colors so much, and we gave him a kind of “Golden Eagle” look instead.  There’s a little bit of shine on the sword and the shield and the armor too, and that really makes this guy pop.

In a couple weeks we’ll show you the follow-up: a female avarian.  Until then, have a great New Year!

The post Concept Art – Male Avarian by Luigiix appeared first on Tellest.