I’m of course talking about Icarus, our winged elf who has survived on Tellest since the times before The Fall.  We’ve got a few pieces of art of Icarus so far, but with this latest piece, we bring him more in line with the contemporary timeline that he is in now.  You’ll see he still has a youthful face, even amongst his race, so this might not be 1:1 with where he is now, but we’ve only seen him sparingly in the current timeline.  In any case, Wern tackled him with a great first attempt, and nailed down the physical characteristics of most of him almost right away.  The only thing we knew that we needed to change was the wings, as they looked a little too devilish (especially in combination with his pointed ears and slightly reddish skin here), and in any interpretation we had before, the ethereal wings were always blue.

We went a bit farther in the opposite direction in the next take, with the wings having an otherworldly glow that looked a bit too unlike the ghostly wings he would have otherwise had.  While the blue radiance nailed what we were looking for, there needed to be some definition to them, as they look like real wings, just semitransparent.  You can also see that Wern began working his way down, putting more polish on the character, from his armor, to his sword.

We were nearly to the finish line with this last piece, as the feathers did in fact become more defined here.  Making your way down the rest of Icarus’s body, you can see the level of detail on his legs and his cloak, as well.  We did make some other slight last minute adjustments though.

The wings felt a little too blue and glowy, so we pulled that back just a bit, and then we also lightened the hue of Icarus’s face as well.  The red didn’t quite seem right, all things considered, so giving him a paler look made him feel more in line with a fair-skinned elf.

That ended up wrapping us up for Icarus.  Wern gave us what feels like one of the best Icarus models to date, and really gets to the heart of what he brings to the table.  You can see bits of valor and determination here, and more closely than ever, we get a sense of what these ghostly wings appear as.

We collaborated with Wern for many, many more characters after this, but it was the next one that closed out a special series for us.  Join us in a few weeks to see the final character he tackled.

The post Character Art – Icarus Callatuil appeared first on Tellest.

Back in October of 2017 (really!), Silver Serpent hadn’t even been released, and since then, we’ve had a handful of other books come down the pipe.  Quantum Quest wasn’t out yet, and we hadn’t even started the first Kickstarter for it.  Since then, though, we have seen a lot of momentum on a lot of different battlefronts.

Tellest Legends and Beyond

We’re nearing the end of this beautiful, long-gestating project.  I’m so close that I can almost sense the impending doom of when I have no more books I’m “committed” to writing!  I kid, of course.  While The Maelstrom is the end of a new era of Tellest books (Tales of Tellest, Volume 2 not withstanding), I’m excited to wrap up this second phase of novels.  This was the biggest commitment that I’ve ever made for Tellest, and I’m happy that I’ve been able to show people that it can be done!  I’m going to be even more careful about it next time though, because as we know, my writing process is a little on the slow side.  My game plan for the next big “set” of books is to have more of the books done prior to running an event like a Kickstarter.  While I’m incredibly blessed that people have been so patient, it also kills me that I can’t be as quick with the stories as I want to be.

That’s not to say that there won’t be little one-offs here and there to shake things up while we wait.  As you know, there are little secret side projects that I’m always working on, and they’ll fluff up my library over the long spans between those big releases.  Speaking of…

The Whispers

Back in June, I began the process of starting a new project that honestly has been very interesting to try and adjust to.  The Whispers is a story that has a life of its own—it’s what I’m calling an interactive novel, because the story doesn’t quite write itself, but needs the input of other people, in this case the readers.  This month we wrapped up the third chapter, and gave the story’s protagonist, Declan, his third set of choices.  I know a lot of the beats, but I’m being surprised in more ways than one about how we’re getting to where I expect to go.  Because of the structure of the tale, I have to be aware of more than just the linear path.  It’s strange and exciting, and knowing that the way that I expect to go could be the “wrong” way gives me a detour that I have to adjust to on the fly, but it’s actually been really fun putting it together.  I thought more people would have voted the opposite way as they did in the first chapter, and I’m excited every time I wrap up a chapter, to see what choices come next.  If all goes well, the story will go on for quite a while, and when it’s done, we’ll have a book to publish with a lot of acknowledgements inside!

Tellest Visions & Art from the World of Tellest

Also back in June, I finally put something really awesome together that I’ve been dreaming of doing for a while.  Tellest now has an official artbook, which chronicles the Tales of Tellest and Tellest Legends.  Believe it or not, we only barely scratched the surface of all the art we’ve amassed over the years, and if things keep going the way they are we’ll have a second book before we know it.  Tellest Legends collects more than 100 beautiful pages of artwork from so many of the great artists we’ve collaborated with, and you can get your signed copy right through the Tellest website.

Just as important as where we’ve been is where we’re going, and I can tell you that you’re in for another fantastic year of art through the end of 2020.  We’ve got new artists, new art styles, some old favorites returning for new sets of art, and more.  As we continue to perform well with all that we offer, we’ll attempt to surprise you in even more ways!

Quantum Quest: Quarterly, Reinforcements, Merge Dungeon and More

I didn’t realize just how much content we’ve put into Quantum Quest until I wrote out that header.  We’ve got a lot of love for this spinoff, it seems, and it should show based on how much we’ve done for it, and how much its expanded.  This is the piece I’ll probably spend the most time talking about, since we have so much coming out (or that has already come out).  First and foremost, hey, we released a tabletop game!  Within months of our last “State of Tellest” feature, we officially released Quantum Quest: The Living Dungeon, and it has gone on to be a hub for other projects that we’ve worked on over the two years since.

First, let’s talk about the Kickstarter that brought our game to life.  We missed our mark on the original Kickstarter, which would have allowed us to have the game printed overseas for a much better price.  From there we would have had to figure out distribution and storage and things of that nature, so it might have been a good thing that it didn’t work out quite like we anticipated.  A Kickstarter with a smaller goal several months later meant that we were able to have a domestic print run which completely blew up and did beyond what we needed.  That was fantastic, and we’re so blessed to have such awesome fans that helped us make that a reality.  All of our games were delivered and it sounds like people had a lot of fun, and we’re still adding value to that in a lot of different ways.

At the front of the pack, a few months ago we released a supplemental magazine for Quantum Quest that told our story, including the new projects we were working on, tips and tricks, and even a short story that will be exclusive to that magazine until Tales of Tellest Volume Two comes out.

Let’s talk about the other projects that are coming down the pipeline though.  We’ve been talking about Reinforcements, the first expansion for Quantum Quest, since the first Kickstarter came out.  And it’s remarkably close to being done.  In fact, the only thing we have left to do for it is continue balancing and tweaking to make sure it is as tight as it can be.  Although, to be fair, we’ll also probably get together a few more cards to do a special Kickstarter and Convention exclusive like we do for the original box.

The project that’s coming out before that, though, is one that we’ve been working very hard on for the past few months.  Quantum Quest: Merge Dungeon is a game that’s got the specifics in the name.  The objective is to merge monsters for the dungeon master.  In doing so, you make them stronger, and more valuable to the Living Dungeon.  Originally, it was a game that strictly adhered to the merges, and the need to see what monster you were creating next, but it evolved to also include a pretty cool arena, where you’ll see the adventurers from the card game, done up in an entirely new style—yet still with Sergei at the artistic helm.  We’re also adding awesome support in the form of our programmer, Jordan Hoover, and our composer, Dakota Pawlak.  We’re so close to putting together an open beta where people can actually play the game on their own computer, and give us feedback as to how to make the game play better, and what else they’d like to see.  We’re aiming for a late 2019 or early 2020 launch, depending on how things go, so keep your eyes peeled.

We’ve got even more potential Quantum Quest video game stuff coming down the line, too.  In addition to Merge Dungeon, there’s another project that we’re working on that we’re incredibly excited about.  It’s still in the very early stages, but we’ll be giving news on that before you know it.

Finally, we’re not far off from one last piece of bonus content from the Kickstarter we ran, and it’s going to be going out to backers from our Quantum Quest and Tellest Legends campaigns.  Quantum Quest is getting its own novelization, and I’m so close to the end of that story that I can almost taste it.  It’s surprisingly deep for the novelization of a tabletop game, and it leaves tons of room for intriguing questions and as yet unanswered mysteries.

That will wrap things up for now, but as you’re always aware, I’m constantly trying to explore new things for Tellest.  We’ve done so much already, but by this time next year, maybe we’ll be offering up some brand new ways to experience the world of Tellest.  Make sure to check back weekly for new art, and monthly for a new chapter from The Whispers!

The post State of Tellest – August 2019 appeared first on Tellest.

Today’s artist is Hozure.  If you’ll recall, he did a version of Icarus for us about two or three years ago, so it’s nice to have him utilize his polished talents on one of our characters.  As always, we’ll start off with the poses.

We got a lot of cool options to choose from, including a couple where he’s a pseudo-Disney princess.  Maybe we’ll put some birds and butterflies in his story, haha.

We ended up going with the fourth pose.  It seemed in line with what the elf was going through.  Looking at the sword was like looking inward at himself, and putting himself to task for his failings.

A little bit more detail made Icarus pop even more.  His outfit is awesome, and the sword has more character in this form.

Of course, it’s the final version that’s always our favorite.  I’m very impressed with this work, and I’m excited to continue working with Hozure in the future.  We have some more great stuff from him on the way, so keep your eyes peeled!

Enjoy your holidays!

The post Character Art – Icarus appeared first on Tellest.

Hozure began bringing this character to life in his distinctive art style so that we had a better understanding of his look going into the second Icarus book, The Maelstrom.

Here you can see the four poses we were given to work with.  I always feel so regretful that we don’t have multiple final versions done.  Maybe someday if I win the lottery!

Next up, you can see the character starting to take more shape. Yvensar is a proud elven druid, but without his magic, what does that mean for him?

Yvensar has to practice with his weapon of choice, the staff, in order to be effective in the dark new world that was left behind.  But there may be greater dangers than supporters of the late Rezarius, and the dwarves who hold elves to blame for the destruction of their beautiful planet.

And here you have it.  Our final look at the brother of Icarus. Yvensar lost just about everything at the end of The Fall, so it’s going to be interesting to write about what comes next for him.  Good luck to this proud elf as he deals with the cataclysm that follows the loss of magic from the world of Tellest!

The post Character Art – Yvensar appeared first on Tellest.

The cover for The Maelstrom is one of my absolute favorites.  Leo did a fabulous job making not only a beautiful cover, but helping us come up with an awesome new race of creatures.  Let’s dive right in, and see the process.

So, when we started, Leo knew that The Maelstrom would involve “demons.”  There was more to it than that, of course, but we sometimes have translation issues since we’re on different continents.  So the demons that Leo came up with at first were very traditional.  It was my job to steer him away from that.

In this second shot, you can see that things are cleaned up substantially.  Our demons were supposed to be storm demons—you typically see these infernal type beings that hail from fiery realms, but I wanted to switch things up with this book.  As it stands anyway, our demons look kind of like towering mannequins!

At this point, you can see our cover taking even more shape.  Color was adjusted, a pose was picked for our main character, and the demons, a race of otherworldly beings called the Kin Maelar, really come to life here.

We adjusted the position of the invading demons, and threw a weapon in the leader’s hand.  These guys tower over the surviving elves of Shandranar, but Icarus is ready to face them head on.

Here you see the final take on the cover of this upcoming novel.  The two other characters, Icarus’s father and brother, are fleshed out, and the odds are even less in our hero’s favor!

If you recall, Icarus went through a lot of trouble during the event now known in Tellest’s history as the Fall.  You might have thought the worst was over, but these new invaders are sure to make our beleaguered elf wonder if the worst is truly behind him.

The post Cover Art – The Maelstrom appeared first on Tellest.