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!

Here are my eight eidolons, which will be part of the game as tarot-sized cards you will be able to use at the table to nail down the tone, setting, mood and vibes of your story before you start play.

Epidiah has titled my folio Trials of the Stargazers, and I took that title and ran with it!

Who are these stargazers? 
Where has their heavenly gaze led them so far? 
What responsibilities have they undertaken? 
What mistakes have they made? 
How have they stayed brave and fearless in the face of a world as large and unfeeling as the night sky? 
...and what happens when something as grandiose as a constellation turns its gaze upon our rogues themselves?

Each tarot-sized eidolon card will have more story and additional game mechanics on the reverse, and I can’t wait to see what Epidiah builds from these images! See a preview of the reverse of the eidolons in this kickstarter update.

But I dither and delay! Here, let me reveal to you the eight glorious eidolons of the Trials of the Stargazers folio for Swords Without Master!¹

Each of these paintings is about 10 x 16″, on watercolour paper, painted with gouache and neocolour ii art crayons. To say they taught me a lot about my painting process and my own art goals would be an understatement – working on this was transformative, and I feel a little bit like I’ve been let off a leash I didn’t know I was keeping myself on! Where will I go next with this? I will let you all know when I find out, I guess!

But Shel, you ask, how did you manage to create these?

Well, each started as a thumbnail in my sketchbook, and for your viewing pleasure I have actually saved those to share here!

Some thumbnails were really almost ready to paint right off the bat, and others needed more development, but all of them held the seeds of a story that I wanted to know more about, and I hope the finished paintings do right by the possibilities I found here.

For more in-depth information about how these paintings were made, and why they look the way they do, I have already done a write-up on the Great Bear, which you can read here, and I am planning another thorough process post on the Pearl Axolotl, and will link that when it goes up!

In the end, creating this collection of sword and sorcery artwork was a dream come true, even if the process of doing it while also art directing so many brilliant artists (many of whom I have admired for years and years) did leave me with some gut-churning imposter syndrome to work through first! But the best jobs are always the ones that push me to stretch myself beyond my comfort zone, and working with everyone on Swords Without Master certainly did!

If the game appeals, I hope you’ll check it out over at swordswithoutmaster.com and consider grabbing yourself a copy!

In the meantime, I am dying to know – which one of these eidolons would you love to use to build your own epic tale?

1. Formerly in Vol 1., Issue 3 of Worlds Without Master, but now successfully kickstarted into its own stand-alone fix-up edition, and still taking late pledges if, say, you missed the funding period but now find yourself desperate to get your hands on the game! ↩︎