In our first look at Bolt, we sort of swung a little bit too old for the character.  We wanted to age him up a little bit, but we overthrew our aim.  Everything else looked great, and we were truly beginning to see a great look at this character coming together.

We overcorrected, then in the next iteration of the work-in-progress.  Bolt ended up going just a little too young here, but we at least were headed in the right direction.  Wern did an awesome job of bringing the character’s attire to life, jumping off from what we had seen in the works that Leo and Hozure had done with the character (among other artists who had a hand in his growth over the years).  One thing you’ll notice is that the hand position seemed a little janky.  That was a big focus leading us into the next step.

We aged Bolt up a bit more here, and Wern made some awesome polish updates to the attire.  We also, of course, see an update to the hand that makes it look a bit more comfortable, and we see the effects of the electric power coming together very nice here.  We are about halfway down Bolt’s body with the refinements to the piece here, and then of course the final pieces really make it come together.

There we go.  Our final look at Bolt really pops, because there have been some enhancements to the electrical powers he exhibits.  In fact, you can see that not only does he have a sort of shock orb in his hand, but the chakrams he keeps on his hip remain charged even when he’s not currently using them.  That’s one of the ways he keeps himself armed in combat.  Xena may have been good with her chakrams, but Bolt can do some pretty cool things with his as well.

That will wrap up our look at Bolt for today, but we’ll be looking at more heroes from the Tellest universe very soon.  Keep your eyes peeled!

The post Character Art – Bolt Thunderfury appeared first on Tellest.

Bolt Thunderfury gets the pretty cool anime treatment here.  These are some pretty cool opportunities to see our characters in a new light, and as our first male character represented, I can very much see working with Enenaniki a lot in the future.

I love the way this turned out.  The artist did a phenomenal job, and there are so many little touches that you aren’t even aware of if you’re looking at it with only a passing glance.  Stay tuned for our next team-up, which we’ll show off on here soon!

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Hozure once again took ownership of this project, and he delivered an awesome image that I’m very fond of.  But let’s take a look at the journey that brought us there.

First we have our sketches.  This was how we were thinking about bringing six new characters from the Tellest universe into the “baby universe.”  As opposed to the first one, this set also had characters interacting with each other a little more.  Maximus’s clockwork mouse knocks over a candle that Alicia was using for light to study, causing a bit of a panic, while Bolt teases Kaiyonani by zapping her fluffy tail.  Gaston and Icarus, meanwhile, are both having “oops” moments of their own, with Gaston tripping due to his attempts to try and find a cure to their babification, and Icarus trusting that his wings are still going to work even in his new, smaller state.

So, after that, it was time to start putting together a scene.  This one was a lot more robust than the original that accompanied April Fool’s.  We decided to make it a little more in line with a story, too, as though we were preparing to actually have a long-running tale attached to this version of our characters.

A little more detail and color brings our characters to life some more.  Some things were adjusted more than others, such as Bolt’s mischievous turn where poor Kaiyonani gets zapped!

Taking things a step further, we’ve zoomed in a bit, and added more detail to our characters.  The biggest change here was probably to Kaiyonani, who was given an outfit that looks a little less “dressy” that suited her better.  You also notice her book has a dragon emblem on it, which was a nice little reference to her debut novella.

Here you have the final piece.  A little more detail and greenery added to spice up the room, and two subtle changes to our characters: Kai has her black hair, and Alicia has a red pendant more in line with the other art that we’ve seen in the past.

Hope you liked this playful take on our universe!

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Well, we’re back with more things to show off, thanks to our ongoing collaboration with him!  Today, we’re going to display two more Tellestian artifacts—we hope you enjoy them!

Bolt’s Chakram

Azot has a way about making the ordinary extraordinary.  While Bolt’s chakram in Lord of Thunder is pretty tame, he added some cool features to it like you wouldn’t believe.

I feel like this is the kind of stuff you would see as a Dynasty Warrior character’s ultimate weapon.  Needless to say, I absolutely love it.

Maximus’ Clockwork Mouse

Next up, we’re looking at another character’s specific item. Maximus is pretty well known among the Tellest populace for being a tinkerer, and the clockwork mouse he made was one of his earliest inventions.

Here, we see the “skeleton” of the clockwork creature.  It almost looked like Azot put it through a 3D modeling software.

The final form looks even cooler.  The color fits what I would have imagined of it a bit better, and I like all the bells and whistles.  I could see this being made by a Warcraft gnome easily.

That’s it for today’s feature, but we’ll be back with two more concept art pieces in just three weeks.  Mark your calendars!

The post Concept Art – Bolt’s Chakram and Maximus’ Clockwork Mouse appeared first on Tellest.

Of course, since then, his art prowess has increased tenfold.  We asked him to go back and try his hands at making our characters pop even more than the last time the characters saw the light of day.

Now, it should be noted, Bolt was a special piece for us.  When we told Hozure we wanted to tackle these characters again, he was all about it.  He even did Bolt for free for us—he was the last one, and we technically didn’t have it on order.  So when we received it, it was a complete surprise!

Comparing the two makes it incredible to see how far Hozure’s come.  It’s like night and day, and that’s an incredible feat considering how good his art already was.

And here you have our Thunderfury adoptee in all his glory with a nice background behind him.  Hope you liked seeing what a year’s worth of increasing talent can do!

The post Character Art – Bolt Thunderfury appeared first on Tellest.

We’ll see how the book does on Amazon, but just remember, every ten weeks from here on out, another Tellest adventure is coming your way.

Once again, this is just the beginning…

The post Lord of Thunder Released appeared first on Tellest.

Each of these pieces of art is a “VS” scene.  We decided to start with Bolt, the hero of Son of the Storm and the upcoming Lord of Thunder. His first big challenge was against the beautiful yet vicious harpy arcanist Keilana.  What we decided to capture here was the feel of that encounter, but with a kind of quantum twist.  What we’re about to show you didn’t happen in the canon of the books, but it very well could have.

Horace started us off with a test, so that we could see what the battle could have ended up looking like.

From there, we had almost a storyboard situation, where he gave us a couple different options for the way the scene could have progressed.

What we ultimately decided was to use basically the test version that he came up with, and expand upon that from there.

In the full version, with feathers flying around and dwarves in the background, the scene truly does look as chaotic as the encounter in the mountains were.  Bolt and Keilana meet here a little more on even ground, but it’s gorgeous nonetheless.

Stay tuned for more from this series in the next couple of months!

The post Bolt and Keilana appeared first on Tellest.

Bolt’s weapon of choice is a chakram.  He can use it to channel his electric energy, but I haven’t really had much course to demonstrate it over the course of his current stories.  In Son of the Storm, he was just coming to terms with being a human, and in The Enemy Within, he was just trying to survive.  In the stories that will be coming out that feature him going forward, we will bring a little more focus onto that weapon choice.

So, this first sketch shows what we would have when we put a weapon in Bolt’s hand.

This particular one is a little vague, and with that in mind, we had to really determine what we were going to do about giving him a chakram that he really enjoyed using. Pear was decent enough to give us some choices.

We went with the one at the top there. It may seem a little Xena-esque, but it made the most sense for someone who was good at throwing a disc, but was also brutally efficient enough to use it in hand to hand combat.

Once we had our chakram all picked out, Pear went ahead with the second sketch.

You can see here that the chakrams we went along with were integrated into the sketch.  He’s got a stern look about him, too. Maybe the need to work with his weapons means he’s encountering an enemy that requires his utmost attention.

With the enhancement of the final polish, the clothing is more layered, the chakram has some more sinister blades, and there are some special effects in regards to the lightning.  As as we’ve come to expect from the excellent RedPear, we’ve also got the version completed in color.

After Bolt, we’re now completely caught up with Red Pear.  It’s a woefully depressing notion, but we hope to work with her again very soon.  Keep your fingers crossed!

The post Art: More Bolt Thunderfury appeared first on Tellest.

We’re happy to show you the first product of that collaboration, just in time for Bolt month.  Here were Skence’s initial sketches of the lightning powered hero:

As you can see, it’s a slightly different take on the character than we’ve seen before.  He’s more angular and skinny.  Not an altogether bad look, though, and I certainly don’t mind “different.”  Skence’s take on the final piece was equally new in approaching Bolt.

In a lot of ways, it doesn’t even look like what you’d think of Bolt. Still, I’m in love with the style, and as I mentioned above, I’m 100% for a different take on an established character if it gets people thinking.  That said, it has got you wondering if that’s actually the Bolt that we know.  Hmm…

The post Art: Bolt Thunderfury Figure appeared first on Tellest.

Today, we’re looking at a piece from an established collaborator of ours.  RedPear has always done a wonderful job for us, and the work that she’s done on Bolt is no different.

We started, as always, with some sketches.

This one seemed a little too “kung-fu” for what we were looking for, but we did approve one other one, which we’ll show you later this month.

Instead, we went with a third option:

This one, I thought, more accurately depicted the kind of arrogance that Bolt had, while simultaneously demonstrating his cool powers. We gave RedPear the go ahead to move forward with this particular sketch.

A rough pencil sketch later had us even closer to a finished product. Bolt looks more like himself here than we’d ever seen, and we were really impressed by what Pear did.

With an extra coat of paint, our artist made Bolt look even more impressive.  If you knew who the character Bolt was inspired by, you’d nod in agreement when we said this is the spitting image of him.  Finally, as she’s ought to do, RedPear gave us a full color version of the character.

Three cheers to RedPear for doing an amazing job with this character.  And happy birthday to my brother Matthew who inspired this awesome character!

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