Greetings Wielders
We are hard at work with Yulan, and while some of us focus on the story part of our faction DLC, building campaign maps and shaping the lore and stories, others are working on that all-important art. This Steam post is mostly about that. We’ll give you a look at the work so far, showing both finished pieces and a ton of concept art.
But before that, we want to thank you. We’re a couple of weeks past the release of Rise Eternal, and your feedback, your praise, and your bug reports all mean a lot to us. It’s been great reading your war stories and seeing your experiences with Kastus Maal and his Tale.
But as we said, this post is about the art of Yulan.
View game pageIt has been a lot of work for the art team to figure out how Yulan should look and be represented in our world. Challenging work, but very enjoyable. There is plenty of inspiration out there, and that’s always valuable, but as with all our factions, we want it to feel like our own.
That process starts with a lot of concept art. First sketches, then more refined versions. From there, it goes through our Art Director and our Game Design Lead, followed by further iteration before finally reaching our pixel artists. It’s quite the journey. Now, to be fair, in comparison to big studios, our team is tiny, but still!
An insight into some of the process
We want Yulan to feel magical, but also distinct §from the other factions. The three Essences play a central role, and that should be visible, especially in the buildings tied to them.
As mentioned in a previous devlog, you’ll be able to develop buildings and troops around Arcana, Order, or Creation, and those choices will be clearly shown on the adventure map, making your upgraded buildings, in some cases, glow in the colour of your chosen Essences.
This is not always easy. We only have so many pixels to work with, and sometimes a well-liked concept simply doesn’t make it into the game. But let’s give you some examples, like the humble bomb-maker building, both concept art and a more finished in-game version.
From rough concept to finished (although not animated) art piece.
The Yulan biome really stands out, and because of its isolation from lands like Arleon and the Bleak East, we can’t rely on many of the existing map assets when creating maps for Yulan. Some still work, but far from all of them. For example, we can’t place Aurelian statues here. The Empress Aurelia never reached these lands, even if she might have wanted to.
So as we’ve started building new maps, we’ve also been asking for more and more dedicated assets from our art team. And with that comes some truly beautiful concept art.
Can you spot what they replace?
In short, Yulan is shaping up to be, in our humble opinion, a stunning faction to view. We’re having a great time creating art for it, while our design team and coders make sure the gameplay is just as amazing as the visuals.
What would you like us to show in the next devlog? And what do you think of the art so far? Let us know in the comments. /Anders and the rest of the Lavapotion team And to excuse the fact that I have her in the cover image, Meet Meilin, an Arcana "Touched" Seeker 
Concept art has been made by our art intern: https://x.com/3inart/media