jhart06
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Slowly coming back from the depths...
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Post by jhart06 on Sept 23, 2011 6:57:56 GMT
Nope, not a business! I am thankful to MOK and Vincent D. for helping me learn inkscape so I could have some fun. I only have a couple of designs as of current, but i'm happy to take requests, even though i'm slow and may not be the best/still learning, and for now, I present to you my finished design, for myself: Still pondering a name for it. The next is an experiment in leaf blades for a friend, not totally happy with how i can't get the blade to flow straight into the pommel, and the overall flare/taper of the blade leaves something lacking to me, but i'm still working on it. He wanted a wrap like my saber design had on the hilt, but i'm loathe to try to duplicate it, that was annoying as feck. Need to figure out how to make holes in circles without having white spots in them though XD looks horrid when i post them up. Next up, barring any requests, is a foray into trying to either make a hammer design resembling wulflund's mjolnir (i've had severa like it I loved) As well as a shield and an axe. EDIT: Ok, I lied... tossed together another blade WIP, for a friend... Still needs some tweaking.. I can't find a good script or a nice font in inkscape, but the blade engraving is 'Lupus Frate' - translates to Wolf Brother. The top/inner pommel on the wheel type is designed to have a light etched spiral, which isn't very obvious currently. Going to fix that.. I also was going for a borderwatch/boromir sttle flare to the shoulders and blade.. Forgive me, but 4am erases my memory of Oakeshott designations.... Feedback welcomed!
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Post by Vincent Dolan on Sept 23, 2011 8:29:43 GMT
Nice work, J; by the way, regarding the leaf blade, I made one by accident a day or two ago, so maybe I can chime in on how to make it look a little better. Instead of putting the waist near the bottom, put it more towards the middle/top, just below where I'd imagine the COP to be. Here's mine: As you can see, mine has a much less pronounced waist because that's my preference (although I could have gotten the effect by flaring the shoulders more), but you can still see something of one near the middle. Unless you want the waist really pronounced, I'd only move the nodes inward 1 or 2 squares each; then drag their handles to match up with those at the base of the shoulders so that they don't curve inward at the guard. Also, I haven't tried it yet, but I think this might be a good way to make a ring pommel: create the base circle in 30% grey like usual, create a slightly smaller circle in completely white, then create a bar in 40% grey to bridge the "gap". Last, create a small square on the other side for the peen block in 30%. If you get the gradients right, I imagine it should give it the appearance of being sunk in between the ring.
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jhart06
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Slowly coming back from the depths...
Posts: 3,292
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Post by jhart06 on Sept 24, 2011 1:26:08 GMT
Thanks for the ideas there Vincent! I'll see if I can't apply them and see how it goes. I'm currently using two half circles with the bart in the middle part of the circle underneath, but it's not working out quite how I imagined it.. Over complicating I suppose. Thanks a ton on the leaf blade suggestion! I'll try that out tomorrow! i've got some tweaks to all of the above designs.. widened the belt on the saber and shortened the suspension rigging on the straps for the scabbard. I also made the Lupus design less narrow at the point, as it looked a bit fragile, and gave it a bit more flare at the base. Thinking of shortening the fuller substantially, to about 1/2 to 1/4 the blade length. Straightened the angle of the blade and how it sat in relevance to the guard, widened the belt, shrank the suspension system. Now just to name it really.. I'd like something more intricate to the buckle on the belt, and i'd prefer an interlace sword belt, but haven't gotten either thing to come out right yet. There is the Lupus Frater, before I shrink the fuller... I've also though of thinning the fuller out, and giving it a double fuller that runs half the blade length, v.s. 2. And is it just me, or does the handle seem thin to you guys too??
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Post by Vincent Dolan on Sept 24, 2011 1:45:51 GMT
Not a problem. By the way, that leaf blade example is from before I got a hint from MOK on how to make blades with spines (also works for grips, guards, and pommels), so that weird little line you see that looks out of place, yeah, that's not it. You can draw the blade in halves with one lighter than the other, but MOK's preferred method that worked out fairly well for me is this:
Actually, what I like to do is to draw the entire blade profile in the darker shade, then draw the lighter half on top of that. It lets me see the full blade shape to begin with, and eliminates a minor potential glitch when exporting the blade (sometimes - not always but sometimes - a one-pixel gap can appear between objects that are right next to each other but don't overlap).
As to your Lupus design, if you shorten the fuller like you plan, I'd recommend widening the tip a little more or reducing the shoulder flare some; right now it's got a pretty uniform taper for most of the blade, then at about 1/4 from the tip, it goes kinda straight. Then it could fit in quite nicely as a bastard XIV.
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jhart06
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Slowly coming back from the depths...
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Post by jhart06 on Sept 24, 2011 1:51:52 GMT
not horribly over-worried on typology.. But it's good to know it'd have some sort of fit, lol.. So you think I should shortne the fuller then, and maybe just reduce the shoulder flare? I'm leaning towards widening the tip if I shorten the fuller. The shoulder flare is pretty iconinc to this design idea.
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Post by Vincent Dolan on Sept 24, 2011 1:59:50 GMT
Ah, I didn't see the second version you posted; that one looks pretty good. What I was talking about was the first version in your OP. As for the hilt seeming too thin, that's a matter of perspective, I think. Lupus' blade is probably, what, 3" at the base? If that's so, then that's actually a regular sized hilt.
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jhart06
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Slowly coming back from the depths...
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Post by jhart06 on Sept 24, 2011 2:04:39 GMT
I know that's been a recurring issue i've ran into.. my hilts start out too thin or wide.
Would a double fuller work for a design like lupus? I like it the way it is, but i'm trying to think of ways to make it stand out while keeping it simple overall.
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Post by Vincent Dolan on Sept 24, 2011 3:08:27 GMT
Hmm. There's certainly precedent for double fullers on an XIV (I know I keep coming back to that; that's just how I think these things through), but I think it would probably depend on how you did them. If you pulled them back to about half length, spread out the original fuller (it'd give you shallower edge bevels, but that shouldn't effect performance too bad), make the original somewhat darker, and then overlay a second, half fuller on top of it in the original color and you should get a nice double fuller with a central rib.
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jhart06
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Slowly coming back from the depths...
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Post by jhart06 on Sept 24, 2011 3:41:09 GMT
I'll probably mock it up tomorrow, just to see how it looks.. Then I want to get on tackling a shield and/or hammer... Getting back to sparring and instructing newer people in it with a group locally, and I'm not much up to scratch with a blade yet.
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jhart06
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Slowly coming back from the depths...
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Post by jhart06 on Sept 26, 2011 18:04:34 GMT
Isolated pic of the updated 'saber'... Wanting to try something LoTR inspired next. Not sure how to best go about an axe though.
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jhart06
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Post by jhart06 on Sept 28, 2011 8:03:06 GMT
very, very early and rough mock up of a numenorian/anduril inspired piece, with (again) an attempt at a leafblade.. I need to shrink the guard some width wise i think, check scale overall, work on the fittings gradient, and get the fuller thinner and better fitting. but, it's a start. this one was for fun, trying to sketch out the hammer my D&D cleric carried.
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jhart06
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Slowly coming back from the depths...
Posts: 3,292
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Post by jhart06 on Sept 28, 2011 22:01:04 GMT
Worked some more on the Justicar design, the leaf blade.. I'm pretty happy with the fuller and guard now, the only thing that feels off is the pommel... It looks too big overall, but I want to keep the general Anduril-ish shape to it. Scabbard isnt done yet, and i'm hoping to make it to resemble the new custom Anglo-Saxon scabbard by Brian Kunz, found here... Beginning to run low on ideas, any suggestions or requests???
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jhart06
Member
Slowly coming back from the depths...
Posts: 3,292
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Post by jhart06 on Oct 26, 2011 7:33:52 GMT
So I have a loaner laptop up, and the internet back at the house, so i'm good to start on this again. Here's (since the old laptop is dead) a new rough render of my warder, Miere'shain. The name of this blade comes from the Old Tongue from the Wheel of Time, and means roughly 'wave of peace' You'll notice I did a much better, smoother blade on this rendition, thanks totally to Vincent Dolan and his suggestion/advice.. I tweaked it, as I like my curved blades edge down, but it worked nicely. Thanks to MOK as well for the photobucket tip on upload sizes! The attempt at a notare like hamon is also present... I basically copied the general blade shape, slimmed it to about 1/4" or so, aligned the edges and nodes on the slimmed version, and then proceeded to add a node every inch of the blade.. I then adjusted the left side of each node so the handle for that side went 4 squares over, and left one square between the edge of the blade and it... And thus the little wave pattern was born.. It's tedious, and perhaps not the best.. But it sorta worked! This re-do has highlighted that I need to toy with the gradients to get them smoother on the furniture of my weapons. Something I'm doing is making the transition on them much harsher than some of the other designers in inkspace have shown, so i'll have to pound away at it for a while and get it solved. I have a new scabbard idea thought up too, I just need to finish the blade to satisfaction before I do the accessorizing. I'm still muttering and shaking my head on the ahsandaeri design, I cant get a smooth trace with the caligraphy tool, so it looks like the script was drawn by an epileptic monkey, to take a phrase from chuckinohio. The blade looks MUCH better with Vincent's tips applied, and I'm working on making some nicer furniture to it, so it's shaping up well, and i'm using the hanwei pudao as a basis, if anyone is curious. In closing, I realize a ton of in progress pics are gone.. My apologies on that, but I had to clean house on my photobucket, as i've had it for... well.. a while.. and never bothered to delete the old ones, so my bandwidth was almost used up. The ashandaeri is next to try and finish, and then I intend to try Majhellnar, Perrin Aybara's power-forged hammer.. After that, a special treat, if I can summon the courage to try it!
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jhart06
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Slowly coming back from the depths...
Posts: 3,292
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Post by jhart06 on Dec 23, 2011 18:35:59 GMT
Resurrecting this, as thanks to Vincent Dolan, I have two 'beta' version designs. I have a new charger and mouse ordered, so you'll see more of my own stuff soon. But i asked Vince to help out, as another forum member (mikeeman) has provided me with a good cache of steel to work under the supervision (re: him doing a lot, me stoking the fire and the like) of a master smith and mentor of mine. So without ado, here are two of the prospective designs! You may have to open them up in a new tab/window or click them to view full-size. This design is made to mirror a tolkienian style dwarven axe. The smith I'm learning from said the hardest part will be finding a jig for steam bending the handle, as the curves would work best that way rather than carved/cut. And something about we'd have to see about changing where the curve back to the handle is, as it may muck with the natural CoP. I think. It's hard to understand him when he gets excited. If anyone has advice on who can assist steam bending or how to make/procure a jig, i'd be greatful! Up next Just a simple(sorta) spear designed to try and evoke a feel of the Conan movies... I figure atlanteans used more than a sword like Conan had! I dont want it as fancy as the King's sword, so the intent is to do similar, but simplified designs on the bronze throat holding the blade into plate via engraving/etching, and likely some atlantean runes down the shaft. Thanks again to Vincent Dolan for the concept drawings, and thanks in advance to Elheru Aran for the woodwork on the hafts!
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