Date of Completion: January 2021
I wanted to continue my journey in modeling fantasy weapons. Another concept piece I really like from the artist LoneGaze. It's a really cool weapon concept and I'm really a big fan of the circle guard and inlay patterns.
Programs Used: Blender
The Concept
Concept created by LoneGaze on ArtStation (https://www.artstation.com/artwork/QrxJAr)
Modeling
I started with the pommel of the sword. I love the design of this weapon and the pommel is just gorgeous. I modeled it using a mirror modifier to make my life easier since it's symmetrical. I started with one vertex and kept extruding until I had the basic silhouette. Then I pulled some vertices out to create the depth. It was a lot of fun modeling this because it felt like a big puzzle of where I should be placing my vertices and where. I then modeled the handle and used loop cuts to create the indentations.
I then moved on to the intricate guard for the sword. I love the design of this too and had a blast modeling it. Once again it felt like a big puzzle on how to approach the different details. It took me about 4 hours of experimentation to figure this out. I used the mirror modifier once again and lined up the silhouette of the guard with the picture so I could get the small details correct.
For the next part of the guard, I used a couple circle primitives to create the circular guard pattern. Extruding and bridging vertices til I got the appropriate detail. I used bevel at different strengths on most edges to match the concept. It seems to have lightly rounded edges in some place, and heavily rounded on others.
For the blade itself I overlayed the reference image across my model so I could match the subtle curvature of the blade as it reaches a point. I struggled with the topography but after a couple hours of struggle and figuring things out I got it to a place I am happy with.
Shading
For the blade I used a mix shader to blend between a glass material and a emission material. I also used a color ramp to create a gradient based on the generated texture coordinate information. I used a separate XYZ node to determine how I wanted the gradient to fall on the blade.
For the pommel, which has a darker blue glass I used a lightly modified version of the above shader. No emission.
Finally, for the gold details I used a principled BSDF and just adjusted the metallic, roughness, and albedo values to get what I wanted.
