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Post by Jussi Ekholm on Jul 22, 2013 14:48:27 GMT
Well I haven't drawn sword-related things in years. Heck I haven't done much drawing in couple of years as I'm only mediocre drawer. When I was younger I used to draw a lot of swords & tsuba when in school. I've drooled many of the member design threads in here, wish I'd be half as good at drawing. But after getting those full size oshigata couple days ago looking their fine details kicked me into drawing again. Funny how I feel that having a full drawing of a sword is so sweet, feels bit like owning the actual sword. As many forumites might know I'm a big history buff, so now when I draw Japanese swords, I would like them to be historically plausible. Kinda like the Next Generation line by Albion, not 100% recreation of an actual sword but something that could have appeared in that certain time period. (now after this first I'm getting a crazy idea to make drawings of various eras and possibly even try to recreate some school sterotypical features with my limited knowledge ). Here is my first 1:1 scale design. After several hours spent on design & drawing, I must say my respect for swordsmiths has again rised by a notch. I can't even draw clean lines by free hand... Especially my shinogi has problems, as it's very hard for my skill to draw smooth and good transition, some places it looks to be slipped 0,5-1mm wrong and it looks horrible. Here is a comparison shot with Nine Circles/Kaneie (pretty much your average production katana sugata although bit longer than most). I must say that drawing this was very addicting. There is still lots of fine honing & tweaking in this one, and I should draw a koshirae for this too, Of course in 1:1 scale. I would love to have this made, but it would be an expensive project as there are a lot of fine important details I've planted in design. And I'm pretty sure I would be disappointed if I ordered it through the usual Chinese custom forges as I've had communication problems in my few quote askings.
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Post by Jeffrey Ching on Jul 22, 2013 15:25:54 GMT
Looks like the second image is corrupt... I was curious about the comparison shot What's going to be the nagasa for that tachi btw?
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Post by Jussi Ekholm on Jul 22, 2013 17:09:29 GMT
I think there are some technical difficulties at Imageshack, I've seen that disclaimer for couple days now. And using the site is somewhat hard. Nagasa of the tachi is 86 cm. This is so much fun, so I made 2nd 1:1 sketch. There are slight errors with the flow, I made this too hastily compared to the first one, and possibly made most errors in very pronounced saki-zori placement. And I would need finer pencils (maybe 1 of those mechanicals where you insert thin lead inside) for details, making the horimono with regular pencil and my limited skills was awful, so I just filled it with color instead of details. It's just showing how great skill creating horimono on steel needs. Here is another comparison if this would work.
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Post by Jeffrey Ching on Jul 23, 2013 9:34:10 GMT
Looking good man... btw I really love the left shorter design. The nick in the nakago with the horimomo, that would really make a killer waki!
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Post by Deleted on Jul 23, 2013 13:01:17 GMT
Jussi, to draw an even curved line, you can try a technique that woodworkers use, get a flexible straight edge (strip of wood or any springy material) or ruler, sit it on its side and bend it to the curve you want. Support it at the necessary point to maintain the curve, then trace along with a pen or pencil the same way you use a regular ruler.
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Post by Vue on Jul 24, 2013 5:40:46 GMT
Looking good there Jussi, I can totally pictured Pavel Bolf making that first design of yours I notice you use grid paper there, have you thought about using non wax baking/butter paper? they're fairly cheap and comes in a long roll and is perfect for this application. The baking paper is especially useful when you need to do Koshirae or individual pieces of fittings due to the paper translucent nature. For drawing nice curved lines, I usually use a combination of the French Curve and a flexible ruler. I find the results are acceptable for most applications, here is some of my drafts laying around to give you an idea. Tactical Ken Tiger Tooth Dao With the scabbard overlay, you could still make out the blade details. It's much more apparent in person although it's hard to make out in the photo's Keep up the good work
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Post by Jussi Ekholm on Jul 24, 2013 12:47:39 GMT
Thanks for the tips guys, I'll definately have to try out some of those curve creating tips. As for using grid paper, it's cheap and I use the grids for some measurement help. I put small dots to help my free drawing. I am very novice when it comes to drawing & art, so I don't know much about different papers. I have a good stock of oshigata paper, but I'm saving that when I start the oshigata tries again. That thinner translucent paper idea for koshirae would be sweet, I'll have to keep that in mind. I must say I dig that Tiger Tooth.
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Post by Vue on Jul 25, 2013 6:09:23 GMT
I get what you mean with the grid papers, I usually use them for accurate scale drawings but I find with draft work it's much better to start with butter paper as you could built layers upon layers. Another benefit of butter paper is once you're finished with your drawing you could simply transfer the outlines over to any paper or in your case oshigata paper. you can do this by simply flipping the paper over and tracing down the opposite side; it works very much like a printing press.
Thanks Jussi, my Tiger tooth Dao is a 1:1 scale; the handle vs blade ratio is also 1:1 so the entire sword is exactly my total height of 180cm. Although it's only a draft, it's a very imposing weapon and I have no doubt it'll cleave a man in half.
BTW with scale drawings, you might want to buy a scale ruler. It's a simple tool but very effective and efficient; you will save a lot of time with them.
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Post by justin520 on Aug 17, 2013 16:11:05 GMT
I'd really like to see your ken made, maybe with a katana style tsuka.
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Post by Jussi Ekholm on Sept 30, 2013 17:42:17 GMT
Not exactly a sword design but a stand. I was almost ordering tanto stand or 2 from Japan. But then I smacked myself in the head. Do I really want to pay the shipping cost from Japan, I now decided I will get a local professional woodworker to do probably 2 stands for me. Might be about the same cost as ordering custom made tanto stands from Japan, hopefully less. So I made some planning with cardboard today. I felt like a little kid when doing this. The 3 tanto stand was more to my liking. I designed it for 3 tanto but it can hold 5 if needed. But I think it gets too cramped if I fit 5 to it. The first one I made was for 4 and it could hold 7, but I had some errors in that desing which I fixed for the second one. Of course there will be much finer details added when it's made of wood, but I just wanted to make crude cardboard plans, so I could see my desing in 3D. I couldn't have fiqured out the bad things in first design without a model.
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Post by LastGodslayer on Sept 30, 2013 20:40:47 GMT
That's so cool! Ingenious stuff Jussi. Can't wait to see the final version.
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Post by Jussi Ekholm on Nov 19, 2013 12:18:30 GMT
So it's been almost 2 months since I took that swordstand model to professional woodworking company. We discussed all the details, they told they'd give me a price for 2 stands in 2 days. 2 weeks later I called them, they had forgotten my order... After they gave me a quote for 1 later that day I gave them ok to make me 2 of them. Now over month from that I've heard nothing from them... So I'm going to make the stands myself (I think I'll need some help from my father though). Kinda bummer since I was really excited about professional work on fine wood and special finish for it. On bright side I did my first full-length oshigata today. I think it came out pretty well for first effort. I'm really happy how some parts turned out. Of course I made multiple errors, and I'm not satisfied by my work. I need to get more pencils and study more closely. Hadori was giving me bit hard time getting the real hamon out, and couple times on the oshigata I followed hadori by mistake. I missed a lot of fine details, but I hope to improve that for the next one I make.
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Post by LG Martial Arts on Nov 20, 2013 0:22:08 GMT
cool! I like it! Oh, and i also hope your stands come out well.
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Post by Jussi Ekholm on Apr 21, 2014 17:36:51 GMT
It took me too darn long to make a first prototype of the stand. But here it is, not perfect but it's the first prototype. At least there will be lots of fine tweaking to be done for the next gen stand. I think it came out pretty cool.
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Post by LastGodslayer on Apr 22, 2014 19:42:27 GMT
That does look very nice.
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Post by Jussi Ekholm on Nov 6, 2014 15:31:30 GMT
Here are few tachi shapes that I drew recently. Doing full scale drawings is so fun, but pretty hard at the same time. As I'm no artist drawing something of this scale accurately is challenging for me but at the same time you learn much by doing this. 83,7 cm and 80,3 cm in length. I like both shapes very much and it's hard to pick my favorite from these 2. Left one has strong wide shape and the right one has lot of tapering.
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Post by Jeffrey Ching on Nov 6, 2014 21:04:37 GMT
I'm gonna go with the right one tough perhaps there's a bit too much fumbari to my taste. Slight less tapering also allows for a slightly bigger kissaki. Good job on the overall sugata (of both blades btw).
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Post by frankthebunny on Nov 6, 2014 21:34:23 GMT
Nice stand Jussi
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Post by Aurélien on Nov 12, 2014 0:03:02 GMT
And it did, Jussi! It did. You're gifted.
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