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Post by Anders on Nov 23, 2010 10:39:04 GMT
Because I crave attention and admiration, I decided to collect my sword designs here so that you can admire them. Not that I have a lot of finished designs right now, but I'm working on that. Starting off, here's the design for my Nobilis project: Hilt detail.Note: Lately, I've been considering putting an Irish style ring pommel on it. Mainly because I've been obsessed with ring pommels a while now. Also, here's the Hawkwing Warder I made for the DSA contest a while back: I'm still kinda proud over how well that one turned out. That's it for now, but I do have some old drawings I need to scan and put up here, so there's hopefully more to come.
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Post by Enkidu on Nov 23, 2010 15:46:51 GMT
I dont know how many times i've said that i really like the Hawkings or how many times i'll say that again, but... i really like this one.
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Post by Vincent Dolan on Nov 23, 2010 18:04:49 GMT
Seconded. And I'm normally not a fan of the S-guards like that.
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Post by JohnE on Nov 24, 2010 3:13:59 GMT
Every time I see the Hawkwing, I momentarily miss read it as "Hawking" and I wonder why someone would name a sword after a famous physicist. :lol:
They're both very nice designs. What does the inscription on the first one mean?
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Post by Anders on Nov 24, 2010 9:09:02 GMT
Thanks for the kind words, guys.
It's supposed to be latin for: "Our kind is noble."
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Post by Young-Soo on Nov 29, 2010 12:02:39 GMT
Haha, me too! :lol: This must be the first time I notice it's HawkWing No matter, the design is still great!
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Post by Anders on Nov 29, 2010 23:25:08 GMT
This one is one of my older designs: My idea with the Rebellion was to have a "ordinary" Japanese style blade with a really far out, kinda western saber hybrid type hilt. Given that the way a katana can be disassembled means you never have to commit to any one style of hilt for a specific sword, I've always found the unrelentingly traditional approach to be a bit puzzling.This blade could be mounted as an ordinary katana, but there's a billion of those so, really, where's the fun in that? Speaking of which: This may be the last time I put tsukamaki on a sword. I've concluded I don't really like maki. (Heck, I'm not even sure how it's supposed to be attached to the pommel.) Oh well. Being a genius and all, I totally forgot to write down the measurements of this sword when I scanned it. I'm pretty sure the blade is 34" long, though, and the whole sword should be about 47" or so. A big one, in other words - only an inch or two short of being an odachi. I drew this sword back during my big obsession with o-katana.
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Post by Vincent Dolan on Nov 29, 2010 23:56:28 GMT
Ooooh.... I want!
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Post by Anders on Jan 21, 2011 0:17:31 GMT
Been in kind of a Highlander mood for a while now, so I wanted to design my own Highlander-style katana hilt. I think it turned out pretty nice: It wasn't easy, though; just drawing the head took like two days. Main reason is that I totally suck at drawing stuff like dragons and demons, so it took a while for me to get a design that didn't look completely aweful, and I was very close to giving up several times. The over-all design is also a lot more simplistic then the actual Highlander movie swords, partly because I don't have the patience to draw complex stuff but mostly because I wanted something I could at least concievably make myself. This tsuka is actually designed to go on my Dynasty Forge o-katana, that being the only Japanse style sword I own. As such it's kinda big, but proportionally speaking it could probably fit a regular-sized katana as well if made smaller. I'd actually like to give a shot at trying to manufacture it, but I'm not sure I could find suitable materials. I may also design a tsuba to go with it, we'll see how it goes.
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Post by Anders on Jan 22, 2011 23:21:14 GMT
Here we go: Couldn't really think of anything fancy to call it. I wanted something similar to the Highlander 3 tsuba but with some hints of the original design as well. Somehow I think it looks a bit small when matched the tsuka like that, but it's actually pretty big - three and a half inch across. Man, that tsuka is huge. EDIT: Tweaked the design a bit since I wasn't entirely satisfied with it. I like it better now.
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Post by Anders on Aug 8, 2011 22:51:24 GMT
I decided to go back to the Nobilis and play around with the blade design a bit. I was thinking of removing the unsharpened part of the blade altogether, giving it a section devoted entirely for paries. I once saw a spanish sword with that kind of construction and for some reason I thought it was nifty. While I was at it, I decided to try out a couple of alternate points. Very rough photoshop, nowhere near a finilized design: I gotta say I like the MK 3 quite a bit, even though it doesn't fit the concept I was originally going for.
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Post by Vincent Dolan on Aug 8, 2011 23:13:46 GMT
I'm quite fond of MK 3 myself, Anders. I like the idea of that secondary fuller in the forte; really makes it an authoritative "this is what you parry with, son".
That said, I still think Hawkwing is awesome.
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Post by Anders on Aug 8, 2011 23:32:38 GMT
That's the basic idea, yes. Well, of course you do; that's how I wanted people to react to it. I designed it for a popularity contest, after all. The Nobilis isn't so much an attempt to design an awesome-looking sword as it is an attempt at designing a sword around a specific idea or philosophy. Of course I'd like it to look good as well, but it's not the main priority.
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Post by Anders on Aug 8, 2011 23:37:10 GMT
That reminds me: I did draw a new warder a while back. I have to remember to scan it later.
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Post by Vincent Dolan on Aug 9, 2011 0:17:46 GMT
I happen to like curved swords the best, so that's already a point in my favor; add in the fact that one of my favorite pommels is the V1 and it's going very well for me. Plus, one of my problems with the Type 12 guard is that it's usually just a simple bend at the very end and looks weird; the complete curve is very much better and more practical. Hell, I liked it so much, I actually used it for one of my designs: Ifearnán. Which reminds me, I have a slew of new designs I should sketch out, but I just haven't gotten around to it.
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Post by Anders on Aug 9, 2011 1:32:04 GMT
You ought to like my next warder, then. Hm, are you thinking of those slightly S-curved guards you tend to see on longswords? I've never been sure if those count as real Style 12's. Oh, tell me about it! I should get more stuff up too, but I'm a lazy man with too many things to do already. And the fact that I only draw these things in 1:1 scale these days probably doesn't help either.
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Post by Federico on Aug 9, 2011 2:02:14 GMT
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Post by Vincent Dolan on Aug 9, 2011 11:15:26 GMT
Anders: Looking forward to it! That'd be interesting, if true, and I kind of think it might be, since I've always heard those referred to as "bow-tie guards" rather than Style 12s. Well, I draw most of my inspiration from anime swords ('cause, let's face it, anime has some awesome designs, even if they are impractically huge) and I recently managed to find a whole mess of swords and spears that I really liked the look of and want to design for the real world. In my case, I don't do anything at 1:1 because I don't have enough paper; I just suck at drawing.
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Post by Anders on Aug 9, 2011 18:48:17 GMT
Really?
...In what way? :?:
I don't think so, bow-tie guards are the ones with flat, flared quillions. Styles 5-6, I believe.
I sometimes find inspiration in anime artwork, as opposed to anime itself - there are a lot of skilled illustrators working in this style who often don't need to create under the restraint of an anime production, and some of them occasionally throw some interesting out-of-the-box ideas for weapon designs.
The main problem with anime swords - and popculture swords in general - is that they tend to be designed to give an aestetic impression rather then being actual weapons. Mostly, I just look at real swords and ask myself what I like about them so I can use those features to create all new designs that are - hopefully - fully functional.
As for drawing in 1:1, I do it that way mostly because it helps me keep track of the size and proportions. Plus, it makes me feel like I'm making blueprints rather then drawing pictures of swords, which is strangely satisfying.
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Post by Vincent Dolan on Aug 9, 2011 19:17:39 GMT
"...slightly "S" curved ornate bowtie guard." From the Albion Kern description, which has that type of guard; they don't list a style, so who knows?
Oddly enough, my flagship design, Ithin, was inspired by a manga sword; the Watou from Rurouni Kenshin. But that's more or less what I meant; I don't look to anime itself, but to anime artwork, since the designs in the anime themselves tend not to be very developed. They have to be simple, so they're easy and quick to draw repeatedly. It's in the official artwork or even fanart that you really find the good stuff.
That is indeed a problem, but, if you dig deep enough, you'll find stuff that is realistic or at least plausible, unlike most. The problem really stems from the reasoning behind the design, not so much an aesthetic impression; it's the impact, the recognizability. Take Ichigo from Bleach. If he'd been designed with black hair and a normal sized sword, what would have been special about him from normal shinigami? What would have distinguished him, so to speak? With a normal sword and a normal outfit, he'd have just been another face in the crowd. However, give him bright orange hair and a huge ass, impossible sword and you'll never mistake him for anyone else. With that reasoning in mind, it's no wonder they design impossible swords.
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