Throne Room Saber -A Fully Operational Battle Saber!

Hello Everybody, nice to see you again for my regular weekly offering. I hope you enjoyed my little bonus post earlier this week celebrating ThatStarWarsGirl’s YouTube milestone achievement. I have left comments and links on her video and Discussion section but again I have yet to hear anything from her. In the meantime though I got back to designing (I do a lot of that!). You may recall I said I felt I had gained the basic techniques of 3D modelling in Blender and Neo Trinarty suggested I attempt a “full scale build”. I think he meant building the interior of a room or a piece of virtual scenery. I jokingly replied I might build a Death Star, well, I thought about it and I came up with this…

Looks like an emitter!

This could be a handgrip…

This looks more like a textured handgrip

That’s a lot of emitters(?)

This looks familiar

A wireframe of the saber

The first picture shows a part that could make an interesting emitter. It has a fluted emitter opening and what appear to be “windows” on the side. The second picture shows what I built for a hilt handle and the orange lines show the areas that I pulled out to form decorative ridges. In the next picture you can see the handle with it’s “skin” applied and it looks more like a handle complete with a matching fluted base. The fourth picture shows a large assembly of FIVE emitters around a central hub…what the heck am I building? In the fifth picture is a wireframe image of the pommel cap decoration and you might recognise the shape as the logo of the Galactic Empire or Imperial logo! The final image shows a wireframe picture of the whole saber complete with all five emitters and the logo cap on the pommel base. What would this look like with it’s skin rendered and what in space is it? Well here are a few glamour shots…

Do you Know what this is?

All lit up 5 blades.

It is a crossguard saber.

The Imperial Galactic Empire logo

Some details.

Closeup of emitters.

I did try to build the Death Star! Admittedly it doesn’t look like a round space battle station but it is meant to represent a very special part of the Emperor’s space station. I tried to recreate the Throne Room Tower where Darth Vader brought Luke Skywalker to face Emperor Palpatine and where the pivotal duel between father and son took place in Return of the Jedi! To help you visualise what I did here are the reference pictures I used…

The Throne Room Tower

Cutaway image of Throne Room

As you can see I tried to recreate the tower and pods. The tower shaft forms the hilt handle and the pods form the emitters. The spire is replaced by the blade. In the cutaway image you can see the area where the ROTJ duel took place and the windows in the pods. Green blades usually represent the Jedi but the Death Star laser actually fired a green laser beam due to it’s Kyber Crystals so I gave this saber green blades. The activation switch represents the aperture that the super laser fires from. All in all I think it looks similar to the Throne Room Tower when stood upright on it’s pommel. This wouldn’t make an effective saber but it was fun building it!

It is that time when I have to end this post but as always I want to thank all my followers and viewers. Your support is greatly appreciated and keeps me posting. I have more sabers to come and more NEW designs in my head. There will be a saber for the “best fighter pilot in the galaxy”, a new hilt for a small robot with a BIG heart and a watery weapon for deep diving combat…I hope you will call back to see those in future posts. Till next time…

“Throne Room Saber” is a For Tyeth Editions design and is ©Copyright of For Tyeth/FTSabersite 2016-2018. All Star Wars material belongs to Disney/LucasFilm.

TSWG 10K Saber for That Star Wars Girl

Hello Everybody, today I have a surprise extra post and it is dedicated to a young lady I was introduced to around the start of August. Her name is Anna and I got to know about her when YouTube recommended one of her videos (the recommend function is really slow to pick up on interesting stuff!). Anna is known on her channel as “That Star Wars Girl” and is a lifelong fan of the films we all love. Anna passionately defends and promotes Star Wars. In the first couple of videos I watched Anna was feeling a bit sad about what happened in “The Last Jedi” and the direction the franchise was going in. She explained why the SW films were so special and why the latest one (and Disney) had got it wrong. Anna did so in a very powerful manner. I watched another video and learned that Anna was a fan of “World of Warcraft”, “Orcs” and fantasy characters of role-playing computer games. She displayed a few pieces of art she had created and I was impressed.

Because Anna was feeling down and as a way to show support and let her know there are other fans out there I decided to design a saber for her based on Star Wars and “WoW” and try to personalise it for her. This is what I came up with…Works in progress folks!…..

TSWG wip1

TSWG wip 2

TSWG wip3

TSWG wip 4

I tried to push my skills (remember I had only been using Blender for 4 weeks) but was able to come up with this hilt. It featured prominent claws which are more aggressive than the ones on my Black Panther hilt. The claws just looked like something out of “WoW” or Lord of the Rings. The grip has a perforated sleeve to provide grip and decoration. Then there is the pommel…I think this is a real “Skull Crusher” type pommel complete with nasty looking points like a medieval mace! The saber I coloured gold and black to make it stand out and look as if it belonged to a high ranking warrior protector!

I watched a few more videos and Anna’s sense of fashion stood out. Anna chatted about being professional and courteous and as an example was rocking a smart business suit and a bowtie. I thought this look was great but it provided me with an idea. See if you can pick out what I did in these next pictures….

What’s that text?

Skull Crusher pommel

Pommel now rendered

Activation switches

Some more detail

You don’t want to mess with this!

TSWG Saber profile view

Did you spot my little attempts to personalise this hilt? Well the activation switches kinda look a bit like a bowtie…from a certain point of view! And the second thing I added to make this hilt uniquely Anna’s was to add her name and initials onto the hilt using the Star Wars lettering called Aurabesh! It actually reads “Anna TSWG”

Well I was quite proud of this early attempt at building a hilt and I tried to contact Anna by email to ask if she would like me to send her the pictures. Sadly I don’t think my mail got through. (I can’t do Social Media as I have too many Imperials and the First Order after me 😀 ) Anna posted a few more videos and I learnt her favourite character was Darth Vader, but I had just created this golden hero saber! I also found out that Anna was a professional concept artist and I sort of felt unsure whether or not to try and share this with her (her talent is amazing, check out her site links below!). However I thought “The Force is with me” and I decided I’d try again but I would include a couple of variations to my design…

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Well, long story short communication couldn’t be established so I have posted the design here anyway and will send Anna the link to this page. I hope she likes my efforts.

Another reason I posted this today is that Anna’s YT channel just passed the 10,000 subscriber mark and so this a way to congratulate her for that milestone as well. So please check out her YouTube channel, Here are the links:

ThatStarWarsGirl YouTube channel: Click Here

AnnaMelloDesigns.com art website:  EDIT: Sadly this link is no longer active (Date:19/04/2019. checked by For Tyeth)

Sorry folks I am running out of time with this post, I hope you enjoyed it (it was a bonus one after all!) I sincerely hope Anna likes this design and I wish her well and continued success in defending Star Wars. Thank you again to all my viewers and followers for your continued support. Please call back on Saturday the 29th as I will return to my usual schedule with another new design. Till Saturday…

“TSWG 10K Saber” is a For Tyeth Edition design and is ©Copyright of For Tyeth/FTSabersite 2016-18. FTSabersite and all content within is also ©Copyright of For Tyeth/FTSabersite 2016-18) Other materials belong to respective owners and credited.

Bridger Saber – I think I’m a Blender Adept!

Hello Everybody, well after bringing you such a villainous saber in the shape of Kaleesh last week I felt I had best restore the balance somewhat and bring you an “Inspired By” replica build. Now fellow blogger Neil Trinarty suggested I do some full scale modelling to really hone my skills so I decided I would try to recreate an “in universe” design and see how close to the real hilt I could get. The hilt in question belongs to a young hero from the animated show “Star Wars Rebels” called Ezra Bridger. Ezra originally had a saber that was disguised so the Imperials/Empire forces wouldn’t recognise it. Unfortunately as a result it looked like an industrial nail-gun or stapler! He had it for two whole seasons of the show but thankfully he got a new (and green!) saber in season three. This is a recreation of that new hilt and I just call it Bridger…as always, first the work in progress shots….

Bridger Extrude 1

Bridger Switch

Bridger Extrude 2

Bridger taking shape

Bridger nearly done

Bridger and Reference picture

To build this hilt I employed a technique which I partly explained when I first mentioned Blender and how it works. The technique is called Extruding. Just like in metal working you have a basic lump or block which you then pull, push, stretch and squeeze it into the shape you want. As a result the model forms a bit like a tiered wedding cake with layers. You make a tube then stretch it down, when happy widen the tube by scaling the edges out then continue down either widening or narrowing each section. I then created the circular activation switch as a separate piece and positioned it. The extrude process then continued all the way to the pommel. The body has ridges at regular intervals around the grip that are pulled outward as strips. The final modelling step was to create the rounded cut-out shape and the rectangular box with the striped top. Oh and I added a little triangular ring to hang the saber from your belt! The last picture above shows the reference image I used as a guide and was created by another modeller named “CaseStudyno8 ” who displays his creations on Deviantart. (I hope he doesn’t mind as there aren’t many good images of this saber online!).

Ok enough talking of extrusions layers, bumps and lumps, I had to add textures to the model to make it nice and shiny and I tried a few things to make the images look a little more professional and sharper. I’ll let you decide here’s a few Glamour Shots…

Bridger Saber Test Textures

Bridger Saber a bit too shiny

Bridger Saber shine reduced slightly

Bridger Saber replaced control box

Bridger Saber finished Glossy

I added a texture/material to make the hilt look metallic but the way Blender displays the image made it too shiny and caused a lot of speckles to appear. This is known as Caustic Noise and is a result of light beams bouncing around off various surfaces. Modellers/Designers want people to see their models clearly so try to reduce noise and I learnt a trick that works as a filter so the light beams basically hit the model once and not reflect in all directions. In the final image is the “De-speckled” version using the filter. I think there is a bit of improvement and less unwanted dots of light. The filtering does cause the computer to take longer to produce the image but I can save time by using the quicker modelling methods!

Speaking of time…yes you know it, I am out of it and will have to end this post. I hope you like this tribute to Ezra’s saber and think I’ve earned the title of a Blender Adept! As always before I go I have to say a big thank you to all for visiting today. Your support is much appreciated and keeps me pushing my limits. Whether you are a first time visitor or long term follower I hope you will return for future posts which will include a “BIG” saber build and a hilt for a “Hot Shot” along with two blockbuster movie themed hilts! Till next time….

“Bridger Saber” is a For Tyeth Editions creation and is ©Copyright of For Tyeth/FTSabersite 2016-18. This design is inspired by Ezra Bridger’s saber from the animated show “Star Wars Rebels” which is Trademark/©Copyright of Disney/LucasFilm.

Reference image by CaseStudyno8 on Deviantart.com

Kaleesh Saber – A design for General Grievous.

Hello Everybody, it’s that time again…I have another design to share with you all and a person called Qymaen jai Sheelal. Now this name may not mean much to most casual fans but Qymaen jai Sheelal was a warlord of the Kaleesh species. Qymaen was badly injured in a ship crash but was rescued and his damaged body was replaced by a cybernetic exoskeleton and life support system. He became a cyborg called Grievous. He then joined forces with Count Dooku to help lead the Confederation of Independent Systems’ droid army and learnt to duel with lightsabers mastering all seven styles of combat. After Dooku’s death Grievous became the Droid Army commander and was known as General Grievous. Grevious is famous for stealing Jedi lightsabers as trophies of victory, but now he won’t need to steal any more as I have designed one just for him, this is Kaleesh Saber…

Kaleesh Saber Build 1

Kaleesh Saber Build 2

Kaleesh Saber Eye Switch

Kaleesh Saber Build 3

Kaleesh Saber Build 4

Kaleesh Saber Build 5

Kaleesh Saber Build 6

As you can see this hilt is quite complex and a little bit different! It is based on the skull of Grevious and even has a neat little trick built in. Firstly I built the main body of the hilt to look like the upper skull and using the tools in Blender carved in the two arrow like decorations on the “forehead”. I next worked on the pommel which forms the lower jaw. Being as Grievous doesn’t have a moving mouth made this a bit easier to accomplish. The lower jaw/pommel does have a few decorative items, the silver teardrop shaped nodules and four vertical grills to form the mouth as it were. If you zoomed in close enough you will see that the grills have tiny holes!

Next I proceeded to add the protrusions on the side of his head where his “ears” attach. The Kaleesh had very distinct ears that in his cyborg form look like wings. From the pictures you will see that the “ears” actually rotate 90 degrees, from being combat ready and horizontal to a vertical position. This is the little trick I mentioned as when the ears are vertical they form two feet that act as a saber display stand. The saber rests on the ears and the Covertech Belt Clip Knob! To switch the saber on/off I created a pair of eyes which double as the activation switch and sound FX buttons (using micro switches called Tactiles) Just press the eyeballs! I have a few studio/glamour shots so here you go…

Kaleesh Saber Test Build 1

Kaleesh Saber Build 7

Kaleesh Saber Test Build 2

Kaleesh Saber Test Build 3

Kaleesh Saber Build 8

Kaleesh Saber Glamour Shot

Qymaen jai Sheelal as I mention was a Kaleesh warlord but that was in the discarded material Disney rejected in their buyout of LucasFilm, however Disney LucasFilm rewrote Grievous’ backstory then included him in two cartoon shows (“The Clone Wars” series and the later computer animated “Star Wars – The Clone Wars” series.) In Disney’s new storyline Grievous didn’t become a cyborg because of injuries sustained in a ship crash, but because he attempted to modify himself and become a superior being than the Jedi were. Unfortunately this caused a huge strain on his remaining organs and resulted in his Cough-Cough and rasping breath. It was also these organic bits which led to his demise when he fought Obi-Wan Kenobi on the planet Utapau in Revenge of the Sith. Obi-Wan pried open the chest plates of Grievous’ skeleton and shot the exposed heart and lungs with a blaster…how uncivilised!

Well I suppose this would be a good place to end this post, I mean Grievous doesn’t really need a saber now! However it was fun building this one and challenged me to try and replicate something very identifiable but in saber form, I hope I succeeded. Before I go as always I need to say a big thank you to all of you, whether a first time viewer or one of my loyal regular followers thanks so much for checking Kaleesh out. You are greatly appreciated. I hope you will call back to see future posts as I have two big movie blockbuster inspired hilts (the films will cause a buzz and a splash when released in December) and one based on a “Fully operational battle sta…Saber!” Till next time….

“Kaleesh Saber” is a For Tyeth Editions design and is ©Copyright of For Tyeth/FTSabersite 2016-2018. “General Grievous” and all other names, logos images and related material are Trademarks/©Copyright of Disney/LucasFilm.

TY Silencer Saber – Inspired by Kylo Ren’s starfighter.

Hello Everybody (and DK44, who has patiently waited for this design!) today I bring to you a TLJ inspired hilt. As you can see from the title and featured image, I have created a replica of sorts of Kylo Ren’s TIE Silencer spaceship. Now there are sabers with claws as seen with my Panther’s Claw V2 in my last post so I thought why can’t a saber have wings? They can be shaped easily enough and attached the same way as claws, so why not build a winged hilt. The TIE Silencer caught the imaginations of Star Wars fans as soon as we saw it in the trailers for TLJ (Will he pull the trigger and kill his past?) so I picked the Silencer as my inspiration. Again I tried to use a few different techniques including “Wireframe”, “SubSurf Modification”, I used different materials and I have a surprise for you all as I take this hilt for a spin later. Enough talk, let me show you some of the pictures…

TY Silencer Build 1

TY Silencer Build Switch

TY Silencer Build 3

TY Silencer Build 4

TY Silencer Pommel 1

TY Silencer Pommel 2

TY Silencer “Cockpit Blade Plug”

TY Silencer Blade Plug removed

Hopefully I have captured the dark sinister lines of the Silencer in this hilt! I think I have, I even managed to include the cockpit windows…and if you look real close you will see they are transparent red, just like the real thing. This makes it look more realistic but the cockpit section also forms the protective Blade Plug. So when the blade plug is inserted then the light from the LED can safely shine through making the cockpit appear lit up! Remove the plug, insert a blade and you have a ready to use saber. I even built the cockpit so there are a ring of windows around the blade. The body of the hilt and fighter is made up of two parts, a solid body plus a second part that is modified so only the edges and corners show. This second part is like a skeletal frame around the solid body and helps form the fuselage panels. The grip section is a basic cylinder indented at regular points to provide finger positions. The grip also has the ridged activation button mounted on top. On the underside is the location for the Covertech Belt Clip knob. Then, as if this wasn’t enough detail….there is the pommel! And the pommel I hope reflects the aft section of the Silencer with it’s angular shape and the illuminated engine ports. I am sorta famous for making designs with pommels that light up! Oh and I nearly forgot the wings, and yes I realise I made a tiny mistake as they don’t match. When I built this a few weeks ago I didn’t realise Blender had a “Mirror” function that allowed me to create a symmetrical mirrored copy of parts, I just copied the left wing, then rotated and pasted it on the right hand position. This caused it to be inverted, but rather than re-assemble the parts and retake all the photos I left the mistake in place and explained it instead – a learning experience. Now I’ve talked a lot again, how about a few more pics, here you go…

TY Silencer Test Build Textured.

TY Silencer Saber Glamour 1

TY Silencer Saber Glamour 2

Well I hope the wait for this hilt was worth it, and I apologise to my friend DK44 it took so long but I have had quite a few designs scheduled to show you all. Now as a small token of apology I’d like to try “Something….New!” and show one final image with a difference…time to take the Silencer for a SPIN!…(hope this works…)

Ok it only went round once but it is a start. My laptop nearly died animating that (it’s very old like me 😀 !) so I don’t know how many animated pics I’ll do in future.

Wow, where has the time flown? I’m afraid I am going to have to end this post here but before I go I need to say a BIG Thank You to each and every one of you who visit and support me…I have just broken the 8000 Views mark! Your support is very much appreciated and keeps me posting here so thank you and please call back to see more designs including TWO more movie blockbuster hilts, and I may have a “fully operational battle station” to show you soon in future posts. Till next time…

“TY Silencer Saber” is a For Tyeth Editions design and is © Copyright of For Tyeth/FTSabersite 2016-2018. “TIE Silencer”, “Kylo Ren”, “TLJ-The Last Jedi” are Trademarks/© Copyright of Disney/LucasFilm.

Panther’s Claw V2 Saber – Return to Wakanda

Hello Everybody, and to a young Padawan Panther Cub called Obi-Wan Wakanda. Today I am revisiting the Marvel universe and redesigning a saber I made a while back for T’Challa – the Black Panther, leader of Wakanda. This time however it is a completely new design from “scratch”. I liked Panther’s Claw but felt it wasn’t totally what I wanted, and when I showed it to someone they commented, “Oh! An AC/DC themed hilt cool!” so I thought I can do better. I spent a few days in the Blender 3D workshop and came up with my new V2 version of the claw saber. Hopefully this one will be a bit more feral and flowing. So, onto some pictures of the “building” process…

Panther’s Claw V2 Grip

Panther’s Claw V2 Pommel

Panther’s Claw V2 new Emitter

Panther’s Claw V2 Vertical Underside

Panther’s Claw V2 test view.

As you can see, this hilt is a lot more different than my previous attempt! Firstly I had to build a handgrip, and using the tricks I learnt from earlier designs I used a Modifier to create a textured/raised grip surface. The surface was created by creating a sleeve which I divided into sections, these segments were then perforated using a technique called “Sub Surface Modification” or Subsurf for short. Subsurf allows you to work on the model with flat surfaces but applies smoothed rounded edges on the finished model. I added two switches, red/green for on and off activation. Next came the pommel, which I borrowed from another hilt I have coming up but it works for this hilt too. I wanted this pommel to represent authority  and have a “regal” feel as Black Panther is basically king of Wakanda, so I created the illusion of a crown with the zig-zag shaped speaker vent.

A saber needs a blade and a blade needs an emitter to project from and this emitter is special as I used more new tricks to create it. You may have noticed most of my hilts have slightly angular looks? Well this is to reduce the number of surfaces the computer has to produce to make a shape (you will have heard of Polygons). But the emitter needed to look curvy and flowing to show off the claws. To do this I again added the Subsurf but I had a problem. Some edges still needed to be sharp (like the edge of the emitter socket) and when I added the Subform it looked like a lump of melted ice-cream. To fix this I was able to add clever loops to divide the emitter and when you add two loops you can make the bits in between either sharp or smooth! These loops are called EdgeLoops and are a really neat powerful tool. Now how about a few more pictures?…

Testing the colour scheme

The pommel “Crown” (note the insets!)

Panther’s Claw V2 pommel view

Panther’s Claw V2 Emitter View (Claws!)

Panther’s Claw V2 “Glamour Shot”

I tested the colour scheme out in the workspace view and made sure the two tone pattern worked. I also checked that the EdgeLoops did make the parts I wanted smooth or pointy. You can see how I made a “crown” by insetting the triangular faces and adding the “Vibranium” gold colour on the pommel. I also added the belt hanging device. Now the really observant viewers will have noticed the outer handgrip sleeve is actually “floating” which casts shadows to create the unique pattern on the body.

Ok I think that wraps up this new hilt for T’Challa. BUT before I go, you may be wondering who Obi-Wan Wakanda is? Well he is a young padawan I met on Ultrasabers’ forum site and he’s a big Black Panther and Star Wars fan. He is getting really good at using a saber and I thought he might like this design. I hope all of you enjoyed this redesigned hilt, thanks for checking it out but please do call back to see more new hilts in future posts. Thanks for all the support whether you are that first time viewer or a regular, you are appreciated. I will leave you with a teaser picture for my TLJ saber….It’s coming up next! Till next time….

“Panther’s Claw V2” is a For Tyeth Editions design and is ©Copyright of For Tyeth/FTSabersite 2016-2018. “Black Panther”, “T’Challa”, “Wakanda”, “Vibranium” and all other names, logos, images or related material are Trademark/© Copyright of Marvel Entertainment Studios.