This week, my task was to model and unwrap a sword using the UV mapping and texturing principles learned during lectures.
As I was creating a model independently for the first time, instead of jumping straight in and choosing a reference from which to model my final outcome, I decided play around with the software, and create my own generic version first to help me to become more familiar with the process. Here’s my first attempt, which admittedly looks more like a dagger than a sword, but even though the dimensions and proportions are way off, at least I felt more positive about the task ahead.
When searching for reference materials, I came across the Morgul-blade used by the Witch-King to stab Frodo in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, and decided to loosely base my sword on this weapon.
Having first watch YouTube tutorials on sword creation (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxHXIz69l0E and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNXxZ2iets0), starting with the handle, I added a 12 vertices circle, that I turned through 90° and extruded to the desired length, before then shading smooth. Then, grabbing the edge of the end which would become the pommel, with auto smooth applied, I extruded this outwards, and scaled it up, before then extruding outwards two more times. Next, I filled and bevelled the end into a semi sphere, before adding several loop cuts and extruding and repositioning a selection to add detail. The handle was then filled, and further smoothed using a subdivision surface modifier. At this point I also checked for any N-gon issues, increased the length, and amended the thickness of the handle by adding a loop cut at the midpoint and scaling this upwards. The edge was then grabbed, and using extrude along normals, I extruded outwards, and scaled upwards on the X-axis, before adding loop cuts to create an oval base for my cross-guard.
Following a similar process to how I had made my skateboard, I then formed the cross-guard. Again, beginning with a cube, this was reshaped and rescaled into a thin cuboid (a rectangle) and, after selecting both ends, using extrude along normals, I extruded these outwards two times before scaling along the Y-axis, and pushing the top face upwards until I had achieved the desired basic cross-guard form.
Turning to the blade, to create the tip, starting with a subdivided plane that I rotated through 45°, I selected and extruded the bottom four edges, before scaling them on the X-axis to zero and pulling them out into a triangle made up from quads, as this is the best geometry for creating detail later on using subdivision modifiers. Next, after scaling the triangle in to produce the pointed end, I extruded downwards and outwards to form the main body of the sword. The edge geometry along the blade was then created by adding a loop cuts along to the side face, and scaling it along normals (alt + S) to the produce the desired shape.
Fullers, the grooves in the blade used to lighten and strengthen the sword, were then created by adding and moving loop cuts that were then inset on the appropriate faces on both side. In retrospect, wanting to create a more detailed model, I got a little carried away using more loop cuts than were necessary, and the finished fullers don’t quite resemble my source image. Finally, I added a subdivision modifier, and to improve the geometry and definition at the tip, also added a small loop cut on either side.
Wanting to create a more polished appearance to where my blade joins the cross-guard, at this point I replicated the process used to create the oval base on the other side.
The next stage was to add some additional detail and decoration. With limited experience and having been told we should resist the temptation to sculpt excessively, I thought it unwise to create the cross-guard detail in this way, so instead I created a separate object that could later be joined onto it. So, after adding a plane, I used the knife tool to cut out the shape, and keeping it flat on the rear face, adjusted the front face using a similar process to that used for creating the blade fullers.
Moving onto the handle, instead of the sculpted, crown shaped pommel in the reference image, I decided to change this to a huge emerald, set in gold. To achieve the faceted appearance of the gemstone, I turned off shade smooth, and amended the geometry of the end.
To push myself further, instead of animating my sword, I decided to add more detail by creating a two-tone, double spiral wrapped leather handle.
Following a YouTube tutorial (https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=Ys_8P9Et28I), using what the contributor calls ‘The Power of modifiers,’ I added a mesh plane, and removed the two right-hand vertices, to leave two from which I added a screw modifier. This produced a circle with 16 vertices, from which a spiral effect can be created by increasing the number of iterations, which I then scaled down and moved into the correct location by changing the position on the both the X and Z-axes. The screw factor was then reduced, and the number of iterations again increased, before adding a shrinkwrap modifier to shrink the spiral wrap into position on the handle. Adding a solidify modifier, I then changed the thickness and offset values before adding a subdivision surface modifier, which subdivided my two vertices twice, to create a sharper edge.
Next, by using G + Z to make changes on the Z-axis, and reducing the number of iterations, I made my strapping thinner and more spaced out, before then duplicating and reversing it to cross over using alt + D and scaling to -1 (minus 1) on the x-axis. Finally, before colouring both brown, to improve the effect where the strapping crosses I decreased the thickness of my original spiral, and increased the thickness of the duplicate.
Here are a few screenshots of the colour prototype I created to check I was happy with the design.
With my model completed, and the constituent parts parented, it was time to start the UV mapping process. First, with my UV Editor open, applying the same process leaned in my workshop tasks, using a UV project modifier I unwrapped and flattened my model, applied a checker texture material, and following the natural breaks and edges, marked the seams, before then arranging my islands into material groups. The emerald gemstone wasn’t included, as I intended to simply colour this in Blender and amend the roughness, specular and surface sheen values.
Next, I exported the UV map layout into Krita, where I applied textures from online images – various metals in different colours and textures to differentiate different parts of the sword, aged gold for the pommel gem setting, rough full grain black leather on the handle to provide grip, and an interesting section of an image of an old, rusty metal plate which I rotated to produce the coloured detail on the cross-guard decoration. Once happy, I then exported my albedo map back into Blender as a png, and changed the checker texture into an image texture, before applying this as the base colour.
Here are some images of my completed model.
Looking back, using an image source containing a darker area as a tileable texture for the blade of my sword wasn’t ideal, as this darker area was then repeated at a point along the blade, and I should have cropped the image to remove this area first. The gemstone is also quite opaque, and could have been made more realistic by adding additional loop cuts to produce more facets, and applying alpha blend to make it appear translucent.
Also, working independently for the first time while exciting, was a little challenging, and wanting my first independent task to be a success, the time spent practicing, and watching quite lengthy YouTube tutorials to get things right meant the modelling and texturing process took a little longer than normal to complete. However, all things considered, I’m very pleased with the outcome.