As we move into October, a month where many creators take on daily drawing challenges and produce a whole bunch of cool art, I thought it first important to point out that September got in on the action early. The ninth and best* month of the year transformed into “Swordtember,” as many creators decided to dedicate the month to drawing awesome swords.
The idea came from artist Faith Schaffer, who offered prompts for each day to inspire the artists who participated. (For her part, Schaffer drew several new sword tattoos that you can find in her Gumroad store, in addition to daily drawings).
Ron Chan, whose work you may know from the Plants vs. Zombies comics and the recent Earth Boy graphic novel, created a single sword image for each day of the month that not only stood on its own, but also all connected into a month-long story.
Chan’ efforts introduce us to The Lord of Blades, a collector of magical swords, and each day brought not only a new image but a small piece of the story behind the character. Chan collected all of them on his website, as well as in a PDF you can buy on Gumroad.
Here are a few more artists who participated, including Becky Cloonan:
Human Remains artist Sally Cantirino:
And Where the Black Stars Rise artist Marie Enger:
And of course, you can find even more images of swords by searching the hashtag #swordtember on your social media of choice (here’s Twitter, and here’s Instagram, to get you started).
*It’s the month in which I was born, so I do have a bias there.
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