Udo is a kobold from Numasa who looks a bit like a racoon dog, or Tanuki.  He swears up and down that he’s not, but his power seems to suggest otherwise.  You see, Udo has luck on his side.  Or at least that’s how other people see it.  If a rain of arrows were to fall on the battlefield, Udo would know just where to stand to avoid being hit.  If he was standing in a corridor, and knew he couldn’t run from an oncoming spear, he would know just where to strike with his katana to shred the weapon in two.

Udo uses his power for good, and has become a sellsword for merchant caravans, or troubled villages who are dealing with pirates or bandits.  He’s made a bit of a name for himself, and if some ne’er-do-wells find out he’s on the opposing side of a fight, that’s often enough to have them aborting their nefarious plans.

Udo was brought to life here by the same artist who worked on another member of his team, Kazuri, the wind-blade summoning avarian.  LizKay put her spin on both of these characters, and they ended up looking so vibrant and expressive and fun.

Together with Shiro, they make up 3/5ths of an interesting group of heroes from a place not often seen in the Tellest universe yet, but we’re hoping to see more of it.

Here is your final look at Udo for today.  I’m excited to cross the halfway mark of introductions to this team.  We’ve still got one more featured member that needs to be drawn up, and then the fifth and final member may not show up until the first sight of their group project.  But it’s fun to think about either way.

The post Character Art – Udo appeared first on Tellest.

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.

Alright, alright.  That’s not spectacular, yet.  But over the course of this set, you’ll see just how awesome it became.

That opening sketch led to some rough lineart…

Which led to some finer lines.

It was also around this time that we started discussing things like ear tufts, and whether they were always things that our avarians have (they’re not—it’s like ear lobes for humans).

After that, LizKay put some color into the mix.  The only problem was that Kyrie was written as having silver feathers.  So we had to make some last-minute adjustments.

Here was our first try at changing the color.

We lightened things up so that they didn’t blend into the mountain so much.

We ultimately decided to do a bit of a mishmosh, that turned out really cool.  We’ve had tons of opportunities to grow this universe beyond just what I see in my imagination, and this was another one of those cool chances to evolve a character in a cool direction.  LizKay’s interpretation of Kyrie here is pretty much how I see her now, just like that.  I really hope I have the chance to work with LizKay again, as this work was just so expressive and beautiful, and I know she has the potential to bring a lot of other awesome characters to life.  We shall see!

The post Scene Art – Mountain Watch appeared first on Tellest.