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Post by MOK on Aug 8, 2015 11:40:13 GMT
In breaking news this week, a major archaeologcal discovery! I've been sorting through old stuff piled up in our garage recently and came across an old sketch of mine of some weapons from The Hobbit, made when I was maybe ten years old? Something like that - a full decade before the movies came along, at any rate. Here's this blast from the past: What you see here are the famous swords recovered from the trolls' hoard, Sting, Orcrist and Glamdring, along with Dain's mattock and, well, an oaken shield, har har har. I think I was on to something with these, so I thought I'd take my ancient designs and work them out into proper vector graphics renditions, just to see what I could do with them. Ignoring the last two curiosities for now, let's see what adult me could make of kid me's conception of the swords from the Trollshaws. A few brief notes before we move on: I imagined all these swords to be one-handed because 1) Gandalf never goes anywhere without his staff so his other hand is occupied with that, and 2) I always assumed everyone else would use shields when dressed for battle. For that matter, I also imagined elves as magical Merry Men of Sherwood and the Rohirrim and Gondorians as mail-clad knights in surcoats and great helms, straight out of the Maciejowski Bible. Yes, I knew of the Maciejowski Bible at age ten. It was one of my all-time favorite comics. Also, I took a lot of cues for the decoration from this fantastic thread over on myArmoury.com, especially with the "jewelled hilts" which I've never been a great fan of despite them being so ubiquitous in fantasy. In fact, I've grown somewhat fonder of such ostentatious affectations after looking at dozens of fully functional and actually quite attractive examples from all around the world, lately - sure, they tend to look somewhat tacky to modern sensibilities, but increasingly I find this aesthetic is actually growing on me, in no small part because of that unashamed tackiness. Sometimes more is more! I didn't post these in the "Redesign a classic fantasy sword!" thread because, if anything, they're really more like pre-designs. I think Peter Lyon and Weta Workshop did an all around fantastic job with the movies - do they ever not? - and don't think I could improve on their particular interpretations. These are my own, entirely unrelated takes on the source material. (Orcrist did turn out kind of similar; we probably looked to the same historical sword for inspiration.)
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Post by MOK on Aug 8, 2015 11:48:44 GMT
First up is Sting. I remember I based it on a dagger in some book from the library; I don't recall what book it was anymore, but the dagger might well have been the historical one pictured here. Since kid me didn't take notes, adult me took some liberties and my final take on this design is a somewhat more robust weapon than the one I drew back then, somewhere in the ballpark of a very large dagger or a very small sword (for a human). It should be a very nice light cutter and, I hope, short enough to retain sufficient stiffness to be quite effective with a thrust, too, despite the lenticular cross-section being fairly thin towards the tip; the sharp, cutting geometry of the point should penetrate very well into soft tissue and non-metallic armor (or giant spider underbelly), earning its name despite lacking the sort of thick, awl-like point you see on most thrust-oriented daggers. Overall length 52cmm Blade length 40cm Blade width 4cm, with linear taper down to 3cm right before the point Guard width 7cm Pommel width 6cm While still an elven blade of excellent make, Sting is rather more plain than the other two, with a bare wood grip and some simple silver inlays on the blade, guard and pommel. The runic inscription in the fuller is not original: it was added by the dwarves of Lonely Mountain for Bilbo before his return home, according to my fanon for this version, and says simply S-T-I-NG in English (standing in for Westron), written in cirth in the mode of Erebor.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 8, 2015 12:21:40 GMT
This looks great! Way better than the movie version IMO
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Post by Dave Kelly on Aug 8, 2015 15:03:33 GMT
Jacksonian? I wouldn't have thought they weren't any older than Van Buren.
10 years old huh? Since you're talkin to someone incapable of drawing even a decent stick figure, your talent is overwhelming me. Must have had a sword book about? All the forms are quite recognizable. Give yourself a kudos. (But don't tell your friends or they'll never come over for diner. )
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Post by MOK on Aug 8, 2015 19:06:48 GMT
Aw, shucks. You guys just say that 'cos I'm awesome. Jacksonian? I wouldn't have thought they weren't any older than Van Buren. 10 years old huh? Since you're talkin to someone incapable of drawing even a decent stick figure, your talent is overwhelming me. Must have had a sword book about? All the forms are quite recognizable. Give yourself a kudos. (But don't tell your friends or they'll never come over for diner. ) Oh yeah, I had lots of books! Mostly about cool things like mythology and guns and swords and knights and dragons and lasers and rocketships and old paintings and maps and cars and castles and... *ahem* Let's just say yes, I did have reference material at hand. I lived literally next door to a damn great public library for most of my childhood, and this was a Finnish public library we're talking about here, at that - we take our public libraries very seriously, as a major aspect of the whole free education for everyone thing. I learned to read, not spell words out letter by letter but actually read, within a week of starting school, thanks in large part to my parents who tried hard to teach me before hand, and within a month I had read through all my textbooks; from then on for the next nine years of my life I spent all my time in class bored out of my mind doodling and drawing in my notebooks - like, seriously filling one notebook after another with fighting stick figures and dragons dropping bombs on schools and plans for secret underground fortresses - and virtually all my free time exploring the library or reading at home. What I'm getting at is that, speaking as a trained professional artist and lifelong idle doodler, 99.9% of the time when people say they can't draw a stick figure, it's for a lack of practice, not talent (whatever that's supposed to be). I really don't think it's a matter of having any particular gift or anything: quite simply, my "wasted" youth was wasted on drawing and reading, is all! And even now, I'm absolutely certain if you had the time to practice drawing stick figures for a week or so, eight hours a day, every day, you'd totally have it in you to produce art to rival the likes of XKCD. (No joke! XKCD rules. The Order of the Stick, too. Stick figures are one of the most underrated things in the world.)
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Post by Dave Kelly on Aug 8, 2015 22:40:14 GMT
I'll pass on an epistemelogical discourse. Andrew Jackson was seventh and Martin Van Buren eighth US Presidents... Peter Jackson of course is the famous fellow of LoTR fame who later turned into a frog and made the unfortunate prequel, "The Vomit".
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Post by MOK on Aug 9, 2015 9:28:33 GMT
Yeah, I was going to make a crack about not knowing a single US President back in the day but forgot.
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Post by MOK on Aug 9, 2015 10:07:12 GMT
Next, we have Orcrist, Goblin-Cleaver, also called Biter. This one had a very definite inspiration, which most of you can likely guess just looking at it: the famed Conyers Falchion, a quite literally legendary historical weapon, allegedly used by sir John Conyers in the killing of the Sockburn Worm and probably the original model for Lewis Carrol's "vorpal blade". My Orcrist is almost exactly the same size but the negative taper and maximum width of the blade are a fair bit less dramatic. It also has a false edge along the last third of the back, starting right around where the fuller terminates. This should keep the handling nice and responsive despite the imposing profile, and without getting quite as insanely thin as the original. I omitted that round notch at the base of the blade from my final rendition; back in the day, every damn magic sword seemed to have that shape, but for that very reason I've grown kind of averse to it since... Overall length 91cm Blade length 75cm Blade width 5cm at the cross, 8cm at the widest point Guard width 18cm Pommel diameter 6cm Originally belonging to some elven noble of Gondolin, the hidden city of singing stone, Orcrist is a more ornate sword, with geometric silver and copper inlays on the blade, silver inlays on the guard and wheel pommel, and eight pale blue gemstones inset into the pommel. The name of the sword, O-R-KH-R-I-S-T, is also inlaid on the blade in silver wire. (The inscription is upside down in this image because I like to draw these designs with the front edge up so I can hold my hand up to the screen for reference, and I wanted it to display the right way up when the sword is drawn or pointed at the enemy.) It's a Sindarin name, so I assume the sword was made at some point after Thingol's ban on Quenya. The inscription still uses the older tengwar script brought from Valinor, albeit in the new-fangled mode of Beleriand in which vowels are indicated with their own letters instead of mere diacritics on the adjoining consonants.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 11, 2015 12:26:41 GMT
I'll pass on an epistemelogical discourse. Andrew Jackson was seventh and Martin Van Buren eighth US Presidents... Peter Jackson of course is the famous fellow of LoTR fame who later turned into a frog and made the unfortunate prequel, "The Vomit". Ah, Lord Dave...dont be so hard on that special movie trilogy...has had its moments for sure! Well, a little less elven acrobatics though... xD
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Post by Lukas MG (chenessfan) on Aug 11, 2015 18:28:35 GMT
Beautiful designs!! When I was 10, my swords looked a good deal different... Anyway, you know what your sting reminds me off? It has literally the exact same specifications and is, as you describe, a very nice light cutter and thruster on soft targets. Overall length: 53.5cm (21“) Blade length: 40cm (15.7“) Blade width at the hilt: 4cm (1.6“) PoB: 8cm (3.1“) weight: 340g (0.7lbs)
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Post by MOK on Aug 11, 2015 21:54:32 GMT
Ah, Lord Dave...dont be so hard on that special movie trilogy...has had its moments for sure! Well, a little less elven acrobatics though... xD Martin Freeman is Bilbo.
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Post by MOK on Aug 11, 2015 22:05:00 GMT
Beautiful designs!! When I was 10, my swords looked a good deal different... Anyway, you know what your sting reminds me off? It has literally the exact same specifications and is, as you describe, a very nice light cutter and thruster on soft targets. Overall length: 53.5cm (21“) Blade length: 40cm (15.7“) Blade width at the hilt: 4cm (1.6“) PoB: 8cm (3.1“) weight: 340g (0.7lbs) Well, that's just spooky. Similar functions beget similar forms, I suppose, but still... Isn't that the one you made out of the cursed longsword sword dagger blade that just wouldn't cooperate? It's a lovely piece!
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Post by Deleted on Aug 12, 2015 4:18:12 GMT
Ah, Lord Dave...dont be so hard on that special movie trilogy...has had its moments for sure! Well, a little less elven acrobatics though... xD Martin Freeman is Bilbo. He is. Excellent jobs from Armitage and most of the other dwarfs also
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Post by Lukas MG (chenessfan) on Aug 12, 2015 6:36:33 GMT
Yes, that's what's left of a longsword blade that just didn't want to play along...
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Post by Cosmoline on Aug 18, 2015 17:46:47 GMT
Wow, I really like those! I especially like the idea of Sting harkening back to some older time with that Celtic style. It does indeed look like something they would have forged in the First Age. The Jackson films went with a kind of vague late medieval look and as a result all the blades resemble each other. I think he may have had kind of prot-Anglo Saxon blades for the horse riders, but that's about as far as it went. Very conservative approach overall. Your ideas are better.
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Post by MOK on Oct 1, 2015 7:33:32 GMT
Better late than never, I hope, because finally, here's Glamdring - Foe-Hammer, Beater, a sword made for Turgon the Wise, King of Gondolin himself, who together with some since forgotten elven hero used Glamdring and Orcrist to such effect in Dagor Nírnaeth Arnoediad, the epic Battle of Unnumbered Tears, that well over six thousand years later the goblins of the Misty Mountains still recognize the swords on sight and fly into hysterics in their presence. Talk about leaving a lasting impression... This one was also directly inspired by a famous historical artifact, the River Witham Sword in the British Museum. It's fairly close in overall size and shape, but my final version deviates from the historical sword and my original doodle in the design of the hilt, having a simple "gaddhjalt" style cross. Like its real life counterpart, this should be a powerful yet graceful weapon, worthy of one of the greatest of Noldor. Also, royal bags o' bling, of course. Overall length 96cm Blade length 80cm Blade width 5.2cm with linear taper down to 3.6cm before the point Guard width 16cm Pommel radius 6cm There's a mention in Unfinished Tales of Turgon having a white and gold sword with an ivory scabbard. Assuming that's Glamdring, I gave mine an ivory grip with gilded ferrules and gold wire and studded with ten cabochon gemstones; the rest of the furniture is also gilded, the pommel bearing eighteen more gems on each side along with silver inlay displaying the sword's name, G-L-A-M-D-R-I-NG, in the same mode of tengwar as on Orcrist. The guard has running spiral inlays in silver wire, and another cabochon set in the center of it.
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Post by Cosmoline on Oct 5, 2015 17:24:07 GMT
Looks great! The only thing that looks somewhat odd is the handle shape, which looks more like a longsword's with the angle change. With the wheel pommel I usually think of a gently sloping grip shape to ride easier under hand.
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Post by MOK on Oct 5, 2015 20:49:27 GMT
Thanks! I actually had it more barrel-shaped to begin with, but couldn't quite get the curves to look good...
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