Swordtember – Design a sword!
Looking for a new art challenge? Check out the Swordtember – it’s an art challenge dedicated to drawing swords!
The challenge takes place in September, but that shouldn’t discourage you from giving it a try at a different month, or from drawing only a few prompts.
It’s actually a perfect exercise for imagination (shout-out to concept artists!) – well, the challenge is about designing a sword, and that on its own is quite a challenge. Additionally, some prompts are very unusual, so you have to really think about how the design can reflect the given prompt.
So… interested in participating? In this article, you will find info about rules, prompt lists, who created the challenge, and see some amazing Swordtember drawings created by other artists!
What is Swordtember?
Swordtember is a sword-themed art challenge that takes place in September. Its goal is to draw a sword – inspired by a daily prompt list, for each day of September.
The name is a combination of 2 words: the main theme – Sword and the month – September.
*You can interpret it as fantasy art challenge instead of a sword-specific challenge.
You can find the leading prompt list for Swordtember on its creator’s site ( @faith_schaffer ), or “borrow” a list from other artists (please remember to use their hashtags!). You can also create your own list – as long as the sword is the main theme, you can participate in the challenge.
There’s no restriction regarding what media you can use – both digital and traditional media are allowed. It’s open for writing, painting, 3d modeling, writing a D&D campaign around a cursed sword, etc.
hashtags: #Swordtember #Swordtember2023
Swordtember Prompt list 2023
You can find various Swordtember prompt lists on the internet, but the official/ most popular ones are created by Faith Schaffer. She publishes them on her social media accounts. Here’s a prompt list for Swordtember 2023:
created by @faith_schaffer
Who created Swordtember?
The Swordtember Art Challenge was created by Faith Schaffer in 2020. Faith is a designer and visual development artist for animation. She is currently designing backgrounds full-time for Disney TV’s ‘Amphibia’ and illustrating her first graphic novel for Harper Collins projected for release in spring 2024.
You can find her artworks on social media: Twitter, Instagram, and her website.
Swordtember Prompt lists (past and created by others)
Here are previous lists, and lists created by other artists. Please mention them in your drawing’s description in you are using them!
by Tim Kaminski
created by @faith_schaffer
by @GuildParty
by Tim Kaminski
Swordtember Artworks
Here’s my favorite part in every article about art challenges I write – checking out other artists artworks! Some have really incredible designs, where you can see that the artist did hard work while designing, before staring the illustration. Sinlaire definitely gave his all in both years – Swordtember 2020 | Swordtember 2021.
I hope you find these artworks inspiring, and participate in the Swordtember too!
by Ron Broyde
by Hedgy
by PlaguePixels
by amumaju