Author: Shel Kahn
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Trials of the Stargazers, Eidolon Folio for Swords Without Master
Well I mentioned earlier that I was also painting a whole folio for Swords Without Master, a wildly ambitious thing to do in addition to art directing, but I did indeed take it on and in the end: I finished it!
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Colour Design and Colouring for Swords Without Master
I wanted to share some of the work I took on in my role as art director on Swords Without Master – not the admin side, today, though — the colour design side! I worked with a few of our artists to take black and white work they were able to offer us, and bring…
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Plein Airpril 2026
This year I decided to do Plein Airpril again, but from photos, since Toronto’s April weather is rarely good, and I have been so busy photographing things this past year that I’m drowning in my own reference! And I did it! I did 30 paintings this April, on wood panels ranging from slightly smaller than…
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Plein Airpril Parts 2 and 3
I missed last week’s blog post because we’ve been under the weather over here, but I did keep up with the paintings themselves! Thankfully, painting a study is a really relaxing, meditative act for me and was already likely to be an activity I did when I wasn’t feeling great otherwise, so staying up to…
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Plein Airpril 2026! Part 1
It’s the most painterly time of the year – plein airpril! Learn more about it on the Warrior Painters website here – this year’s theme is Harmony in Contrast, so this is honestly is a very easy theme to run with for me and left me lots of room to set my own boundaries! This…
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Dragon Crystal Island on Wood Panel
I’ve been thinking a lot about stylization as I do more gouache painting, and particularly trying to find a way to integrate a lot of the “happy accidents” you get from brushes, water, paint and substrate all messing with each other into my larger visual goals. Doing this on paper can be really fun —…
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A remembered field in gouache
I’ve been doing some gouache studies from remembered places this week to keep my hand in while I’m at the digital stage on a few pieces of art. Getting away from reference photos helps me focus on the possibilities of the medium, and this piece was a test of using 100% cotton paper, which will…
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I Guested on the Unwritten Earths Symposium Podcast!
I had a great time talking with Nathan and Epidiah at the Unwritten Earths Symposium about art, games, and all the amazing things we have in store for Swords Without Master – check the episode out here: Eppy and Nathan kindly let me go on several rants about what art does in TTRPGs, how graphic…
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Painting the Great Bear for Swords Without Master
For this painting I spent more time than I honestly expected wrestling with my style goals. In the context of my arm recovery, I’ve been trying to figure out a stylistic angle for myself going forward as an illustrator. Over the past few months I’ve been doing style tests, digitally and then on paper, trying…