All of our other characters of The Nine, with the exception of one, has had an in with the group for one reason or another by the time they do their first big “together” quest.  Besides Christopher, who primarily lives far away from Atalatha in the Seramore region of Raleigh, Holklund is the only one who hasn’t really meshed with the group in the same way as the original timeline, and that’s for a very big reason: Luca never ends up in Fostervilla in this timeline.  In his youth, Fostervilla played a formidable role in how the other timeline Luca (Michael/Kaos) turned out, but it also shaped Holklund as well, as his survival depended on the other hero being there.  Now, in this timeline, something else is responsible for Holklund’s perseverence.

Death has always been a major through-line of Holklund’s personality.  He loses his father in the event that also nearly takes his life, and it is in the Tomb of Fleeting Souls that he ends up receiving the mighty artifact, Sepulcher’s Claw, a sword that causes terrible necrotic damage despite its wooden form.  But in this new timeline, Holklund is brought there upon death’s doorstep as well, and it enhances his powers in some ways.

Wern was able to take our already pretty dark character and add a more macabre feel to him.  As the youngest member of The Nine, it’s interesting to see our thief look like a wraith, but Wern makes it work so dang well.  His attire gives him a sort of mummy-wrapped look that just looks great, and then of course his cloak, with some magical properties as well, gives him a ghostly look.

With an extra splash of color, you can see that Holklund has no fear of getting into a tussle here and there.  The blood on his face is evidence of that.  Ever the opportunistic thief (and potentially assassin), we also see some other tricks of Holklund’s trade.  He’s got access to plenty of hardware, and he isn’t afraid of spilling a few coins here and there to distract the people who would otherwise spot him coming.

In this final look below, we see even more polish than we had leading here.  The black and gold works so incredibly well for Holklund, and it makes him instantly interesting.  This costume is certainly one of the better ones we have had, and it will be interesting to describe it for the first time when we dive into his story a little deeper.

A big thank you to Wern for bringing this final member of The Nine to life.  Now that we have all of these characters put together, there will certainly be a time that we plan out seeing them all within the same artwork.  That’ll be a little bit down the line, but I’m very excited to work with Wern on that!

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But then, lo and behold, we found some Hozure works that we didn’t use!  They got lost in the shuffle, so over the next few weeks, we’re going to treat you to the final trio of Hozure art pieces.  I really hope you like them, and I’m happy to start things off with his interpretation of Holklund Crescentshire.  Let’s get started!

As always, we started with a set of poses.  Can you spot which one we ultimately went with?

After that, a sketch put things in place a little bit more.  We wanted to make sure we caught sight of Holklund’s wooden sword, Sepulcher’s Claw, so a little bit changed there.  The color scheme was a little bit different than we intended too, but we let Hozure do his thing, and were ultimately really happy with what we ended up with.  Let’s move on…

Here’s our sneaky thief in all his glory.  Hozure did an awesome job of putting this together, and I’m glad we were able to track this down and realize we didn’t post it!  Let’s look at one more version with the background in place.

Well, there you have it!  One of the last three Hozure pieces down, and in my opinion, one of his best pieces.  Don’t forget: we have two other characters left to show off.  Any ideas who gets the Hozure treatment?  Here’s a hint: they’re both characters another artist has done at least once.

We’ll be back in a couple weeks with the next character!

The post Character Art – Holklund Crescentshire appeared first on Tellest.

We’re going to look at our last mech pilot of the group, which in this case happens to be Holklund Crescentshire.

We opted to go with the hooded version of our pseudo-ninja character.  Holklund plays a thief in the Tellest Legends timeline, but in the Tellest 3000 timeline, we kind of envisioned him as a little bit of Raiden from Metal Gear Solid.

Even with that splash of color, he still looks like he’s utilizing a lot of robot / mechanical tech.

But once we have all the bells and whistles, you can see he still somewhat embraces his past life as well.  Holklund wields two handguns for close combat, but he also has two swords on his back in case he wants to get even more personal.  And he still does that crazy thing with his eyes here too!

Sepulcher’s Claw was meant to be the natural evolution of Holklund. With two massive extending wristblades, this mech is agile and quick, and will get right up on top of you and cut you to pieces.

Just like with Steel Tip and the Spectrum, we opted for similar coloring between mech and pilot here.

We really dig what Sepulcher’s Claw became.  It’s definitely a formidable mech, and something that Holklund would surely enjoy driving about to save the world he loves.

And then of course you have mech and pilot together.  Ai did a great job with this set, and we’re so happy for that collaboration.

We’ve got one more pair of characters to show you, and then we’ll start thinking about next year’s April Fools’ joke!

The post April Fools’ Art – Holklund and Sepulcher’s Claw appeared first on Tellest.

RedPear was the first of the artists to really try her hand at this spectacular character.  We knew that we had a lot of cool options, but we were able to narrow it down to a piece that we really liked.

First off, as always, we had a few sketches that we were able to work with.

I really liked this one, and it included Pear’s interpretation of Sepulcher’s Claw, but it left a little too much of Holklund’s character out of the picture.

This one had a more lively feel to it.  Holklund felt like a real person here, and it was just the sketch.

It was even better when our lovely artist put the finishing touches on it.  Holklund’s got that little bit of arrogance to him, and this smirk really makes a lot of difference compared to the mask he would have had.

And then of course, as always we have to have that nice splash of color, which does wonders here:

Holklund is one of my favorite characters to have a portrait – Pear did a lovely job, and I’m very happy to share this with you!  We’ll be back soon with some more awesome RedPear work!

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Creation

Based on the tales that were told of the sinister sword, Sepulcher’s Claw was fashioned from the grave of an old, forgotten hero of the lost ages.  A corpsewood tree grew upon the man’s grave, and when it grew too large to be safe, it was cut down.  Rather than using it for kindling, the wood was given to a blacksmith of unknown origins.  He shaped it into a dao, and infused it with dark magic, before giving it to a shadowy group that dwelled in and around the city of Fostervilla.

Resting Place

Sepulcher’s Claw disappeared from records for a long time before it turned up in a dark and dreary place beneath the sands east of Fostervilla.  It was used as a key within the Tomb of Fleeting Souls before a worthy wielder was gifted it.

Attributes

Sepulcher’s Claw is a vampiric sword.  It leeches life away from those it touches, appearing as necrosis.  Oftentimes the wounds can be quite fatal.  Those who have been injured by the dao seem not to heal.  Their necrotic wounds do eventually scab over and scar, but it is an unpleasant healing process.

Because it is a wooden sword, Sepulcher’s Claw is ultimately very light.  Its wielder is afforded some extra agility.  Despite the material, the enchantment cast upon the sword seems to have made it indestructible.

Wielder

Following a crisis in Fostervilla, the thief, Holklund Crescentshire acquired Sepulcher’s Claw from its previous owner.  The blade had been passed down to him, though he’s been careful to keep the identity of the benefactor a secret.

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