The Four Swords - March 10, 2011

I've been wanting to alter these for a while now. I've always really liked the art of the two old swords. And swords in general are pretty cool. But I didn't think the art on the Sword of Feast and Famine and the Sword of Body and Mind really did the swords justice. Too much arm, not enough sword. I wanted to make the cards more about the swords, so I decided to make them bigger. I made them big enough to stretch over the entire card, so some of the text is covered up. I aligned all four swords the same way, to keep a sense of unity. One consideration was whether the swords should be pointing up or down. I eventually decided to have them pointing down, because it made the swords feel more like powerful artifacts, hovering and scheming, rather than just swords waiting to go to battle. I also decided to paint the original swords and their wielders out of the backgrounds to get rid of the extra noise. Another consideration I had was to paint these swords on foil cards, but in that case cleaning up the backgrounds would have been more difficult. I am pretty happy with the way the swords turned out. They are definitely on of my favourite set. I love the colours and the particle effects on the swords, and I love that they all fit together so well. I hope that they have found a great home somewhere out there.