We start off with David Garus, who received a brand new look in recent years, and now gets a second look with his new design in mind.  While Dennis van Kessel gave us our first new experience with David Garus from the new timeline, it’s Silky Noire who is giving us our second glance at him.  They start us off with a different sort of pose than we had in the one that we use as our TowerSphere image.  In this case, David stands with his shield behind him.  This gave Silky the opportunity to be able to hide the giant Atalatha sigil, and instead just focus on the little one on David’s belt.

You can start to see those little details a little better here in the second image, which also adds some flat colors to the piece.  There are a decent amount of colors and shades to get right for this piece, and Silky nails it down at every level.  There is so much material to David, making him both a challenge to capture, and one that is awesome to say you’ve accomplished.  Silky did not shy away from the challenge, and achieved a great looking character for Tellest on account of that.

Our final look at David Garus puts more emphasis on shadow and light, making everything appear so much more dynamic.  Silky also added to David’s face, ensuring that he has the battle scars to show previous bouts of combat, and well as a slightly more whiskered face that shows he has some wisdom gained from those encounters as well.  Everything else is nicely accentuated as well, giving us a wonderful new version of the character to add to our gallery.

That might have wrapped us up for today, but we’ve got plenty more from Silky in the future, so make sure to head back this way often!

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If you’ll recall, where once David was a raging gladiator, he’s now a mighty paladin.  He represents just about all of Atalatha as one of their premiere guards, and even though he’s kind of a star player for the city, he still has some time to hang out with one of his best childhood friends, Luca Kreegan.

So with that in mind, whatever story we’re going to tell with Luca Kreegan, David is certainly going to be tagging along for it.  There’s one more historically important character that we’re going to show as well, and the three of them tie in rather well.

Again, we’ve got the card version of David here as well.  Still not quite sure what they’ll do, but I’m imagining seeing cards you can pick up in the game that spin around when you find them.  I’ll have to work with my collaborators and see if anyone has a good idea!

The next pixel art is right around the corner, so keep your eyes peeled.  Anybody have a guess as to who it will be?

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The novellas and novels that I’ve been working on since Mageborn have been taking place in this bold new timeline, and they change a lot of things.  Characters like Adelia, Maximus, Venathryn and Bolt have retained a lot of the parts of themselves that made them easy to identify.  But as we saw with Luca Kreegan a couple weeks ago, not everyone is the same version of the characters we knew from the Child of the Stars trilogy.

Today, we’re unveiling another of the characters from the original three books re-imagined for this new timeline.  David Garus was a roughneck gladiator, but his station in life is a bit different since Rhys altered the structure of time as we know it.

We start things off with some sketches, as we often do.  Even here, you can see that our warrior, who used to wield dual axes, has a different bit of a style now.

David is still a powerhouse.  But rather than wield two axes with ease, he is almost celebrated for his power, wielding an enormous sword and shield combo, and plenty of armor to boot.

There’s a lot of silver and gold in this piece, with some blue accents to touch things up and make it pop.  So how exactly did this change come about?  Well, we’re not saying just yet.  We’ll let the story speak for itself, mostly, but we will say that David is no longer the secret gladiator he once was.  He enjoys his time in the sunshine, that’s for sure.

Ack!  He’s lost his head!  I actually really like this step of the creation process, as Dennis really takes time to make sure the lighting is handled properly.  You can see in this phase how it would look if we made a figure of the characters…

David’s grand finale really pops.  First of all, I’m so ecstatic that we were able to work the Atalatha sigil into a lot of this costume.  Going forward, we’re really trying to make the people who are banded together feel like they’re part of a cohesive group, and seeing David as a representative of Atalatha is really special.  Beyond that though, the piece is just absolutely spectacular.  Dennis Kessel crushes it again, and keeps us eager for the next piece that he’ll deliver to us.  Once again, you won’t have to wait long.  The next piece is just a couple of weeks away!  See you then!

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One of the things that makes us look forward to our future, though, is the strong connections we’ve made in the past.  We’ve made incredible alliances with brilliant writers and artists over the time that we’ve evolved, and it’s time to show off some of the fruits of those labors.

We’re going to start off art in 2017 with Hozure’s awesome take on David Garus.  David is a mountain of a man with a pretty cool power: projectiles bounce off of his skin harmlessly, no matter the size.  Of course, that doesn’t quite help him against huge catapult volleys that crush the ground he’s standing on, but surviving that is still a pretty cool bonus!

Hozure started us off with a set of sketches.  David’s pretty impressive in that he dual wields a set of battle axes.  He’s tough enough to do so, and talented enough to keep his foes at a distance with those weapons.

Things are even more impressive with this follow-up image.  I love how casually David strolls forward, as if ready to taunt a score of archers into firing off their arrows at him.

Thanks to Hozure for making our first big art release in 2017 an impressive one.  He did a great job, and we can’t wait to show off more of our awesome lineup of art over the next 50 weeks!

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David happens to be another one of those characters who you can’t really capture in a static portrait.  He’s got an awesome power that has the potential to be really cinematic: projectiles cannot harm him. Anything that’s fired from a bow, or a crossbow – even a catapult – cannot damage him.  They bounce off harmlessly.

That isn’t to say that David is some invulnerable force on the battlefield, though.  Oftentimes, as it pertains to the heroes of this fantasy world, where there’s a blessing, there’s also a curse.  David suffers from hemophilia, meaning that in melee combat, if struck, his body reacts very badly, pouring blood from his wounds at an incredible pace.   So what better way to keep your enemies farther away than equipping yourself with twin axes?

Pear started us off with a couple of different sketches to make our minds up with.

I love the lumberjack look David’s got going on here.

Red also gave us a shirtless option, but knowing David’s problems with even the tiniest nicks and scratches, we opted not to go with this version.  Of course, when we saw her other version of the character, we passed on these first two sketches altogether.

Now this is more like it.  I think the vantage of this particular sketch does wonders for this mountain of a man.  David can easily stand toe to toe with some of the other “larger than life” characters we have, like Prodigy and Schirner.

We also ended up with the shirtless version for all the ladies to swoon over.  We passed on this one for the same reason as the one stated above.

With all that in mind, we ended up moving forward with Red’s vision, and she made a really awesome portrait for our gladiator.

And of course, we had it tinted soon after as well.

But, because David’s such a huge deal, we procured a slightly larger portrait, which we’re happy to share with you!

Such wonder.  Such majesty!  Can’t wait to continue on with the work we’ve been doing with RedPear!

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General description

Location

At the center of Atalatha, a great arena sits that entices the populace of the city.  The place buzzes like a hornet’s nest, and as such has given great popularity to the shops and tourist attractions of the area.  Some of the more well known buildings that surround the coliseum are the black tower of Andrakidus, and several pubs.  Grimes’ Pub is located just across the street from the coliseum, while the Bravado is just east along the main road.

History

When the Knights of Virtue thwarted the rise of Roark, the undead king from the north, Gregory, the king of Raleigh, made a carte blanche offer to them for their deeds.  Eltan Mane, an ambitious fellow, determined that he wanted to create the town of Atalatha.  Several of the other knights had less lofty goals.

Allan Mayheyre, one of the knights, was known for his prowess in battle, though he was a bit rugged compared to most of his comrades.  He saw the sport of fighting, and created a place within the city to allow men to test their mettle against one another.

Though it was conceived as a meager and simple field, it grew in popularity as the city grew in splendor.  Over the years it has transformed, and has become one of the prime entertainment venues for the people of Atalatha, as well as visitors from other cities and even countries.

Physical Description

The coliseum of Atalatha is the largest building within the city.  It has been said that the entire population of the metropolis could fit within the arena.  While it is not the tallest construct, if you stood at its highest points, you’d be able to see much of the city.

It is built with an exterior of sturdy marble, though the halls inside the place are more versatile granite.  Long, draping tapestries hang from its parapets, proudly heralding its events and champions.

Within, the arena floor is covered with sand.  This was primarily to assist in the cleaning of unfortunate incidents.  The seating is often thought of as being uncomfortable, as the spectators have to sit upon stone.  However, in the center of the audience, a more upper-class venue remains for some of Atalatha’s elite, including Mayheyre.

Notable Battles and Events

Over the years, Mayheyre has hosted plenty of tournaments and battles.  One of the most remembered ones occurred just as he was transitioning from the large, yet plain field to the great stone construct that exists in the city currently.  He inaugurated the advance of the coliseum by holding a tournament that threw many contenders against each other.  At the end of the battle, a contender, David Garus, stood victorious.  He was intended to be Mayheyre’s champion going forward, but because of unforeseen reasons, he never facilitated that role.

The people of Atalatha also know well the lasting legacy of the coliseum’s longest standing champion.  Geylard the Great seemed to come out of nowhere, and held onto his title with fury and violence.  For nearly a year, no one could match him for strength, and his speed was nearly unrivaled as well.  Geylard met his end at the hands of an unknown assailant during a confrontation with Kaos Kreegan.

After the passing of Geylard the Great, Mayheyre held another contest, The Tournament of Kings.  Among the contenders were Kaos Kreegan, the newest champion, and Zachariah Caista, Atalatha’s guard captain.  They met Randall Hart and Grant Scott in the final bracket of the tournament, and were victorious.

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