Today we’re going to be look at the last piece that Dennis worked on, that of our werewolf, Dirk.  Before Dennis moved on, he worked with us on a few poses for the fan favorite character.  You’ll see here that we began with a look that was a little more rugged and savage than that which we were planning for.  Dirk is quiet, calm and collected, and we wanted to capture that.

Dennis’s next set of poses were more akin to what we anticipated when we began working on this piece.  We took a few elements of these poses and put them together, creating something that made Dirk’s art eventually look like one of the best pieces we were able to acquire.

It was around this point that Dennis handed the work off to Wern.  With Dennis’s guidance, Wern was able to pick up what we were looking for, and develop a line art for Dirk that was incredibly catching, and we knew at this point that we remained in good hands.  Dirk has the look of a medieval warrior, almost appearing like a Viking in some ways.

The next steps were subtle, but they added to the overall feel of the piece.  We changed the boss on the shield to a more fanciful one that’s reflective of who Dirk is, and we also added a cape that gave him a more adventurous feel.

With the first bits of color, you could see just how fantastic this piece was going to be.  Dennis was known for taking a lot of steps in order to make sure that the art he was working on was rendered properly, and Wern did just the same, doing his homework and taking his time to ensure we got something fantastic.

In this phase, you could see a bit more details fall into place.  Some darker lines made their way onto the fur around Dirk’s face, as well as the material of his outfit.  You’ll also see that we stepped back from the tattered cape to a more put-together piece.  Though Dirk is essentially a ranger in some ways, and it wouldn’t be totally out of character for him to have weatherworn clothes, we wanted to show that he was well-respected and well-equipped.

A bit more detail brings us close to the end of the piece.  We still needed to do a bit more work on the legs and the tail, but nearly everything else was accounted for here.  You could see that shading and reflections had been put in place, and these things helped to make him pop a bit more, giving him substance.

And then here we go.  We’ve finally arrived at the final version of our illustrious werewolf.  This was honestly probably the best character work we ever received, and it is thanks to the work of two incredible artists who put tremendous care and thought into their work.

As I mentioned earlier, the introduction to Wern has been quite fruitful.  We’ve been working together for some time now, and he’s consistently bringing great quality, as well as new ideas to the table, and he’s helping to add richness to the world of Tellest.  Dirk was just the start of Wern’s journey with us, and I can’t wait to show off the fantastic things we’ve accomplished together.

The post Character Art – Degrad “Dirk” Camdy appeared first on Tellest.

Let’s start off by looking at the poses of the character, Kelvin Drakos.  This is a slightly older version of the character that we’ve had in the past.  Hozure / Skence gave us some younger looking versions, and you can see here that Kelvin knows his stuff, and he’s ready to stand up against anything that gets in his way.

We decided to go with this Prince Charming-esque version of the character.  One of the things that Kelvin is know for is his charisma, and I really liked the idea that he would be able to jump right into battle, but had enough cool to keep his bow drawn away from his opponents or targets until just the right time.  Perhaps he’s using his enhanced vision here.

Dennis added a little more detail in this next step.

Here, we can see that Dennis added a huge amount of color to the piece.  Though it’s an abundance of golds, browns, and greens, it just makes things come alive that much more.  You can still see that there are certain bits that are unfinished, which just goes to show you how much farther Dennis can take his talents.

And he certainly delivers.  We decided to forgo a bowstring in this piece and make it magical in its use.  No bowstring means no worrying about it snapping, too.  You can see a bunch more definition in his outfit, and the magical energy exuding from his arrow is pretty cool too.  All in all, a great final piece from Dennis.

Now, I mentioned earlier that although Dennis is leaving us, and this is his last piece, I still had some good news.  Turns out, it’s actually two pieces of good news.

The first is that while this is Dennis’s last solo Tellest piece, he’s done a special collaboration—with his replacement.

Yep, Dennis was awesome enough to find another character artist that he enjoyed working with in the past, and we’ve had the baton change hands.  I’m looking very forward to introducing you to Wern Szuen Lee soon enough.  You likely won’t see their work on the Tellest website anytime soon, just because there are so many other things scheduled, but patrons and patreon visitors may see them sooner.  Keep an eye out!

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As you can see, we started off with a few pose trials for Adelia.  I love getting a few options for poses, because it helps me to imagine the character in more ways than one.  On the other hand, sometimes the choice is difficult, and I don’t answer as quick as I’d like to while I’m mulling over the options.

Case in point, Dennis ended up moving to the next step in his creation, lighting and shading.  In this case, he just decided to do it for all the versions of the pose.  We ultimately ended up going with the third option, on the right, as it seemed the most dynamic.

Here, you can see that Dennis put a little more emphasis into the character in line work.  We wanted a general shape and structure for the character, and this was Dennis’s way of achieving that.  You can see that we aged Adelia up somewhat here.  A lot of the character work that Dennis put into these pieces is a little bit further on down the timeline, and while Adelia’s solo books take place when she’s around 16-17, this shows her as more along the lines of her mid 20’s.

After putting together the line art, Dennis figured out what colors he wanted where, and you can also see the background he placed our aspiring sorceress on.  This step is always so important, but it always feels understated.  But wait till you see the final piece.

Here we have Adelia with all her bells and whistles.  Her staff is complete, and you can see she’s still playing a little whimsically with her magic.  Especially notable is that some of the magic seems to be coming right out from beneath her.  Adelia may be kindhearted and good by nature, but she’s also one of the more powerful characters that we play with in Tellest, even though we’ve barely scratched the surface of what she’s capable of.  In any case, Dennis did a spectacular job, and we’re excited to show off his final solo work in just a few weeks.  Stay tuned!

The post Character Art – Adelia Kreegan appeared first on Tellest.

Anyway, off to the races.  Dennis started us off with a few poses.  We wanted something a little more dynamic for Alicia, so we chose…

…pose A, which ended up changing a little bit as we moved something around.  We wanted this new version of Alicia to feel more powerful, confident, and almost arrogant.

This ended up kind of doing the trick, since with Alicia’s floaty magic here, she looks as though she’s looking down on whoever is watching her.  Part of Alicia’s arrogance in the new timeline comes from being one with her magic.  Whereas in the original timeline, most of her magic was either innate or bestowed upon her by a magic trinket, in this version, Alicia is more studious, and learns magic on her own.

As always with Dennis’s work, he creates his pieces in so many different forms that it ends up informing the final piece in some very awesome ways.  Above, he was working on shading and lighting, whereas below, he worked on the color palette that he intended on using.

Finally, below, we have the finished piece.  Alicia is one of my favorite characters who Dennis has lent his hand and his talent to.  Here, you can just feel her presence and her power.  It’s Alicia as we’ve never seen her before, and I’m excited to tell this story of hers.

That’s it for Dennis for now, but as I mentioned before, we have two other pieces that we collaborated on, not including another piece that we worked on where he brought in his replacement for us.  I’m very excited for you to see that collaboration and introduce you to Wern, but that’s still a little while in the future.  But, as noted before, some of Wern’s work has already been seen by newsletter subscribers.  If you’re looking to get early looks like that as well, go ahead and sign up for the Tellest newsletter.  You’ll not only get early access to Tellest content, including art and short stories, but you’ll get three novellas for free, and access to some contest giveaways that we do fairly regularly.  It’s a lot of fun, so don’t miss out!

The post Character Art – Alicia Mane appeared first on Tellest.

Things are a little different for Anson this time around.  When we next see him, he’ll be back in bard mode.  But things are…a little different.  Obviously we’re going to play some things close to the chest so that when you first read about these characters again, the surprises really hit you.

If Anson looks a little melancholy, there’s a reason for that.  Life hasn’t been great for him, though he of course has his friends to lean on.

This is the first good look at his new style.  We went a little bit further though, and changed certain pieces of him to better reflect his new history, along with giving him a slightly different wardrobe.

You can see that Anson’s got a little bit of scarring on his face, which indicates some of the trauma he’s gone through in this new timeline.  We thought that was a little too prominent, so we dialed it back just a bit for the final piece.

In our final piece, the scars Anson has are a bit lower, and a bit less apparent.  The trauma happened a while back and hit a little closer to his throat.  Since then he’s come a long way then, achieving the kind of serenity that prompts birds to perch on your shoulder as though you’re quiet and statuesque.  Anson’s like a Disney princess with a slightly unnerving quirk.

But we’ll be waiting a little while to talk about just what that is.  In the meantime, stay tuned… we still have more character work to show you!

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