Dies-Gund N'vos Tessai FOIL

Things seems to be settling down with my Father doing pretty well so now I can get to some backlog of work. This collaboration piece has been sitting on the back burner for sometime so it's nice to finally finish it.

Originally drawn by the ever talented (Charles Liu) I always loved this unique FOIL design of his. Back when he did this I said I'd do a color version, to which he agreed... unfortunately it kinda got shelved. In any event, now it's done and up it goes I did some minimal clean ups to the original illo in order to open it up for color, along with adding digital inks to pop it a bit, but otherwise it remains the design Charles created originally.

Here's the write up of the FOIL also found on 's original posting: [link]

The Dies-Gund N'vos Tessai CAV FOIL model was jointly developed and manufactured by the Indus based manufacturing corporate entities Dies and the Gund FOILArbeiten plant in the political bloc of Germane. A relatively recent model in the line of FOILs by this collaborative union of two manufacturers (much like the Jiendel Gavil FOILs), the 'Tessai' favors more aggressive pilots with its digitigrade stance and lack of shield. This N'vos Tessai, as shown here, is a stripped down model, thin on armor for extra speed and maneuverability.

This machine is tailored to its pilot, a skilled swordsman with a swift and graceful combat style. The thin armor is a weakness, to be sure, of this otherwise elegant CAV design but an effective FOIL operator can always exploit the advantages over inherent flaws. Even with the thinner armor a CAV FOIL in the hands of a capable pilot and faedi control entity is a dangerous and formidable opponent. The standard, off the factory body, has more armor plates and is a little less maneuverable but still an effective machine.

Original pencil illustration by: digital inks and color, in Photoshop CS3, by