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.

Tellest Art

First, some “bad” news, just to get it out of the way.  Over the past year and some change, we’ve been doing an awesome job of getting character and concept art in front of interested fans.  For a little indie publication, this is an incredibly huge feat.  You don’t often get the little unknown guy making a big splash with that kind of thing – it’s the people who have already gained popularity, and fans pour their hearts into art for their favorite new series.

As it stands, we have art that’s going to run for about three more months before we’re all tapped out.  See, that’s part of the plan right now.  Because of where I’m hoping to take Tellest in the future, as well as other life events (Rhianna and I are getting married this year… yay!), I need to be a little more frugal with finances, and invest properly.  That’s not to say that the art will be completely cut off.  I’m going to have certain needs for art that will require my attention (like cover art), and I have certain talented people who are both affordable and dependable, so I will lean on them whenever they are available.  Also, it’s completely possible that Tellest breaks out in the next few months.  When it happened in 2011 (albeit for only a few months) it was a complete surprise, so I’m not discounting the possibility.  But, in the case that it doesn’t play out like that, we’ll still be getting more pieces, just not at the same pace we’re getting them now.  As I said before, it’s ludicrously lucky that I’ve been able to do this as long as I have!  As for some of those other investments…

Side Projects

Part of what I love about Tellest is how accessible it is to other mediums.  This is a written universe about medieval superheroes. How awesome is that?  It would be a wasted opportunity not to try and see where else Tellest could go, and in a lot of ways, we’ve already scratched the surface with ideas (see Heart of the Forest – not dead, just sleeping).  Part of the reason that these have just been scratched, and not really followed to their truest potential is the aforementioned lack of capital.  And one of these ideas has potential financiers, which is an awesome thing to say the least.

In the interest of being transparent, I have about 10-15 ideas for games stirring around in the back of my head (including card and board games and video games).  I really want to be able to set my sights on things like those.  But there’s also plenty of opportunities for Tellest to evolve into the realm of comics as well.  Kev and I have been talking about that for years, and the nature of this universe fits that kind of thing perfectly.  But again, to do that, we need capital, which brings me to my next point.

What’s Next for the Tellest Written Universe?

I might as well get this out of the way first.  The Fall, the final book in this most recent endeavor, is nearly done.  To give you an idea of when I think that will actually be the case, I believe you’ll see me on Twitter next week telling you “the dragon is slain.”  It’s been an amazingly long process – something that somehow wasn’t as daunting for the other four novellas in the Tales of Tellest collection, and I hope that the care and patience I gave to it comes across well to all who read it.  Still, finishing that initial draft is only the first phase of the writing process – Nace and I still have to go through about three waves of editing before it goes to the Tellest street team (don’t forget to sign up for that and our newsletter over on the sidebar – free books are never a bad deal).  I’ll let them mull over it for a few weeks and we’ll try to have it out in time for my birthday in the middle of July.

And here’s the big reveal.  I don’t think that I’m done with the Tales of Tellest.  I really don’t.  It wasn’t done intentionally for this reason, but there were always threads that I lay out a little loosely in each of these stories.  There were ideas that I’d come back to them eventually, but I didn’t think that I’d have the itch this soon.  In fact, I was even ready to pass along the torch for Mageborn to Rhianna, who had a lot to do with the original story.  After some consideration though, I think we’re going to co-write the sequel to that, and I’m going to work on follow-ups to each of the other stories in the quintet, with the ultimate goal being a set of five trilogies (at least). Now, this is by no means a formal reveal of this goal – anything can change, but I’m very interested in continuing these stories.

Now here’s the rub: I’m still committed to continuing the story that was unlocked at the end of The Enemy Within.  There are still things that haven’t been explained.  How did Steel Tip end up in a tower in Blacklehn?  Why was Eltan Mane held captive in Viscosa?  How was Bolt able to use the ring of amplification?  These are all things that need to be told.  And on top of that, there are other novellas that I want to write, too!  I have 11 other novellas with various bits of pre-production done on them, and I don’t want them sitting down on the back burner for too long.  So what’s a nerd like me to do?  I really need to sit down and put my nose to the grindstone.  Last year, I was working on Tellest for at least 2 hours a day.  I’d like to resume that pace and eventually eclipse it – after all, some day I would like to make this a full time job.  There’s no better time to practice than now.

Grand Announcement

If you’ve been clamoring for some nice summer reading, we released our first bundle on Amazon.  The Child of the Stars Trilogy, books 1-3 are available now for the low price of 2.99.  Three books for the price of one isn’t a bad deal!

So be on the lookout for The Fall in the next few weeks.  When that comes out, I do hope you enjoy it.  I spent a lot of time on it, and I really hope that it shows.  In the meantime, I hope you’re picking out a bunch of other fantasy books for your summer reads, and that none of them disappoint you.

Until next time!

The post State of Tellest, May 2015 appeared first on Tellest.

One of the reasons for that is that Leo was practicing his hand at these comics before I came on board.  He was working on a very plot-thin premise just to see if he could pull off the style (and we can see that he could).  Along the way, he realized that he had a lot of fans of that “story” and he asked me if I wanted to craft something around it.

So, now we have two comic book stories, including Demon Hunter:

I’ve written a synopsis for this story, as well as the opening points of the tale.

One of the other reasons that we’ve had to step away this week is that we’re actively considering shipping this to comic publishers. We’ve got a couple of submissions out, for both this and Inner Demons (what’s with all the demons?).

And of course I can’t let Leo get away with not doing any Tellest-related work, so I’ve got him working his butt off on the new cover for As Darkness Falls – which just in sketch form looks amazing by the way.

Anyway, we’ll be back next week with at least one more page. Cheers!

The post Another Comic – Demon Hunter appeared first on Tellest.

Today, we trade one nightmare for another.  As you can see on this page, we’ve traded the black gutters for white again, meaning that this is not merely another dream sequence.  This is Sebastian’s new reality, and its not so pretty.

You know the drill: Check out Leo’s gallery to get the next page early!

The post Inner Demons – Page Eight appeared first on Tellest.

Hello there everyone.  We’ve reached the end of the dream sequence. At this point, we see what happens when our hero lets the inner demon win, and it isn’t pretty.  The only question is, is this dream merely a manifestation of something in his subconscious, or is it really a dark memory?

Check out Leo’s gallery to get the next page early!

The post Inner Demons – Page Seven appeared first on Tellest.

This week, we watch as our hero is pushed too far.

(NOTE: We’ve changed the font in the final pieces you’ll see on Leo’s gallery.)

As always, don’t forget to check out Leo’s gallery to get the next page early!

The post Inner Demons – Page Six appeared first on Tellest.

Read on:

Once again, don’t forget to check out Leo’s gallery to get the next page early!

The post Inner Demons – Page Five appeared first on Tellest.

We also get to see a little bit of change to the appearance of the comic.  It’s brighter, except for the gutters, which have changed from white to black.  I did this (well, Leo did it, but it was because I told him to, so there!) because that signifies that you’re not in the “real world”. Could this be… a flashback?

You can see the next page a week early if you check out Leo’s gallery on deviantart here.

The post Inner Demons – Page Three appeared first on Tellest.

Ladies and gentlemen, I proudly present to you the first page of my project with DLeoBlack.  This is essentially the prologue of our story. Neither of these guys is the main character, but it does help to establish our setting.

As I said in my initial Inner Demons post, this part of the story takes place in Le Havre, a nice little port city in France.  This is just before the French Revolution.  And this day is not a pretty one (though Leo did a phenomenally beautiful job).

These comics are going to look a little squat on the Tellest website, but if you click on them, they’ll enlarge appropriately.

Hope you enjoy this little peek at the world we’re developing, and that it leaves you interested for more!

Don’t forget to check out Leo’s gallery, here.  He’s doing all the hard work, making everything beautiful, so he’ll get the new pages up earlier than me.

The post Inner Demons – Page One appeared first on Tellest.