“Kenobi Saber – FT Master Series” Inspired by Obi-Wan Kenobi’s Iconic Saber

“Hello there!”….yes hello everybody! If you recognised the quote then you may have an idea who this post and saber design is in tribute to. As some of you will know Disney and Lucasfilm has just broadcast it’s latest Star Wars live action show, “Obi-Wan Kenobi” and the finale aired this week. Sadly I don’t have Disney+ in my cable subscription so haven’t seen any of the shows (I still have to watch The Mandalorian too yet) BUT I felt it was time that I modelled the classic Obi-Wan Kenobi saber that he uses during the time this show is set. The show takes place between the movies “Revenge of the Sith” and the original Star Wars (A New Hope) and tells the story of what Kenobi was doing on Tatooine and how he was overseeing the young Luke Skywalker. This saber was Kenobi’s THIRD lightsaber, having lost his first during his battle with Darth Maul in “The Phantom Menace” then when he was captured by Count Dooku and the Geonossians in “Attack of the Clones” his second saber was taken from him. So much for “Remember, you lightsaber is your life”! Anyhoo the third saber was an elegant “Thin Neck” style lightsaber that looked a bit like this:

Kenobi’s third lightsaber from Episode 3 Revenge of the Sith

It was a much more complex lightsaber and one that Obi-Wan was constantly modifying and “tinkering” with. And this is the saber he used to defeat Anakin Skywalker in the pivotal duel that led to the emergence of Darth Vader – you know the whole “ANAKIN! You were the Chosen One!” bit. So it was this saber I had to model and after about two weeks’ of tinkering myself I came up with this…here’s a few “arty” work in progress shots….

These pictures show the 3D model with a “MatCap” texture on it. The MatCap texture creates a sort of “Clay Model” effect so I can see how a model is shaping up before I apply the final textures. I realised I had added a part that isn’t on the Episode 3 saber so I had to remodel that part (if you look on the neck there is a round drum shaped object with a fan like insert – this is known as the wind vane and was in real life a part of an old World War 1 rifle launched grenade!). So another hour of work and I had removed the incorrect part and modelled a new neck section. I then started adding the final textures and little details till I came up with this….here is Gallery One….

I think I came pretty close considering I had no diagrams or blueprints to base the model off, I just estimated the dimensions and did it by eye (though it isn’t far off). The saber has the elegant bell/cup shaped emitter sat atop the brass/copper thin neck section. I made the thin neck look darker and tarnished as Obi-Wan had used this hilt in battle on the volcanic planet of Mustafar so would have some signs of wear. Next to the thin neck is the black “Grenade Grip” foregrip which gives the hilt amazing tactile feeling when you hold one. The mid section of the hilt is the switch section with the copper “printed circuit” board plate. This mid section also has two old transistors used to replicate buttons on the side of the hilt. To finish the saber I modelled the “Booster Gear Cog” which is the ribbed black segment with the small belt hanging Covertech wheel attached. The Booster Cog was again a piece of WW2 hardware, this time being a section of barrel from a heavy machine gun recoil absorber. Then finally another iconic part, I modelled the pommel….this time the pommel was made out of an old sink faucet/tap. A famous bathroom accessories company named Armitage Shanks produced a faucet/tap knob called the “Starlight” and it is this knob that was used by Roger Christian (the prop designer of Star Wars) to build Sir Alec Guinness’ famous lightsaber. Anyhoo, I’m taking too much again and its time for some close up detail pictures of what I just spoke about, here’s Gallery Two….

You can clearly see the thin neck, grenade grip, the transistors and circuit board and the Booster Gear Cog in these images. And you might just be able to make out some etching, which says “Graflex” – this marking shows that the switch section is made from the clamp found on old press photographers’ cameras which were made between 1958-1970. The famous Skywalker lightsaber which Alec Guinness’ Obi-Wan gives to Luke was made using a Graflex camera flashgun.

Now I mentioned that this was a saber I am including in my “Master Series” of designs and so it needs something special to qualify and that something is of course, a heart of Kyber crystal. SO this hilt features a crystal chamber inside and when opened you can see the glowing crystal within…here’s Gallery Three!….

A fitting finale to this saber design and hopefully a fitting tribute to Obi-Wan Kenobi. I have heard/read mixed reviews about the Disney show so I can’t say how good it is or not but at least we still have the original Star Wars movie content (with Sir Alec Guinness and Ewan McGregor as young Obi) to enjoy. And i hope you have enjoyed this Master Series offering, I was happy with the results of two and bit week’s work. You can see other “FT Master Series” hilts by clicking this link: https://ftsabersite.wordpress.com/tag/ft-master-series/

And that just about wraps up this post and tribute to Master Kenobi. Obi-Wan did have one more saber variant seen in Star Wars (A New Hope) but I still have to model that one for a future post. Hopefully you will call back to FTSabersite to check it out and much more that I have lined up. But for now thank you all for visiting and supporting me and this site, it’s much appreciated. Please comment, maybe leave a like and subscribe if you haven’t already. Till next time…..

“Kenobi Saber – FT Master Series” is a For Tyeth Editions creation inspired by the lightsaber seen in “Star Wars” Episodes 3&4 and “SW Obi-Wan Kenobi” on Disney+. The saber was 3D modelled and rendered by For Tyeth/FTSabersite and the files/models/images are ©Copyright of For Tyeth/FTSabersite 2016-2022. The saber and all related names and images are Trademark/©Copyright of Disney/Lucasfilm.

“Power Red Katana” Blender 3D Nex Gen – Inspired by Saban’s Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers

Hello Everybody, today I have to return to the world of Power Rangers and my collection of Nex Gen Katana hilts I designed recently. I say this as I saw a video posted on YouTube earlier today and it seemed to suggest there is going to be yet another reboot of the franchise. I have yet to look further into the story but I was already showing off my new designs anyway. And today we look at the Red Ranger, Jason Scott Lee, and his saber. Now the Red Ranger already had a sword in the show but it seemed heavy and cumbersome as seen here…

Red Ranger with original Ranger sword -looks like a wrench!

It also didn’t feature a plasma lightsaber cutting edge. My design is a Nex Gen Katana that is lightweight, sleek, strong and was wrapped by myself! Enough chatter…here is Gallery One of “Power Red Katana”….

This is my base Katana model and I have recoloured the handgrip, Tsuka Ito wraps and blade colours to match the Red Ranger costume. The leather is a nice deep red that suggests status or importance, almost regal. I discovered that I can use the base texture used for the leather and using photo editing software edit the colour to any shade I want. Then I apply the extra layers to add the detail and depth effects. This means I can have normal plain leather in any colour but then I can have a stitched leather base image that I can recolour so I don’t have hundreds of texture files clogging up my hard drive storage. Anyhoo, too much talk, here is another trio of pictures…

You might be able to make out the shipping containers in the background of these gallery pictures and I chose this environment as I recall a lot of the battles the Ranger’s had with Rita Repulsa’s “Putty Men” took place in car parks or dockside locations with shipping containers.

And talking of shipping…my parcel I was waiting for last week has arrived and my Nerf blaster arsenal seems to be getting bigger….a LOT bigger. First the blaster I was waiting for last week was a Nerf Sharpshot which came with Velcro tipped darts so you could play “Dart Tag” games against each other. Well the blaster is very sleek and svelte and with a minor paint job would look wicked as a Sci-Fi/Star Wars-y blaster. And it should be easy to paint. The blaster looks like this…

The yellow plates actually unscrew off the blaster so I should be able to spray paint them separately quite easy – when I can get outdoors to paint! But when I said my collection was growing I meant it…not just my two big tripod mounted Havok Fire blasters, or the X-Shot round ball blasters….No, I bought a few more and now this is just part of the For Tyeth arsenal….

I think I have a new problem!!

There are 8 further blasters marked in the pic above and these are new additions! Some are “Classic Nerf” items I got from Ebay and some are fresh brand new ones! Number 8 is one called a Retaliator that I may paint to look like a Clone Trooper blaster – it already has a Star Wars look/feel to it. Number 1 is a Nerf Strongarm revolver which also has “Clone Vibes” to it.

Oh, just before I go…here is the original Red Ranger hilt I designed back in 2017 with the old software I had!…

Anyhoo, that just about brings this post to an end, I am still expanding my collection, both blasters and sabers, so I hope you will call back to FTSabersite to see future posts on all of that. Next week I should be revealing a new “Master Series” lightsaber to celebrate the finale of the Disney+ series “Obi-Wan-Kenobi” and it may or may not be his saber🤔. In the meantime thank you for visiting my site today and for the support, as always whether you are a new visitor or one of my regulars, please comment, leave a like or two if you want and maybe subscribe if you haven’t. I appreciate all the help and kind words. Till next time….

“Power Red Katana” is For Tyeth Editions design,modelled and rendered in Blender 3D by For Tyeth/FTSabersite. The design, 3D model and images are ©Copyright of For Tyeth/FTSabersite 2016-2022. The “Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers” was created by Saban International, and all names, logos, images and related material are Trademark.©Copyright of Saban International.

“InVader X-1” A saber inspired by Lord Vader’s TIE Advanced X-1 fighter.

Hello Everybody and welcome back to the warm cosy surroundings of the Star Wars universe! Yes today I leave the Katanas for a while and bring you a Star Wars inspired Starfighter saber. I recently did a Starfighter hilt inspired by Kylo Ren’s “TIE Silencer ” ship (you can see it here: https://ftsabersite.wordpress.com/2022/05/21/ty-silencer-elite-for-tyeth-strikes-back/) but Kylo wasn’t the only Darksider to have a fancy advanced TIE-Fighter…Lord Vader also had a modded starfighter too. It was called the TIE Advanced X1 and was built by Sienar Fleet Systems. It featured many upgrades including cluster missiles, more powerful twin laser cannons , shield generators, a ten waypoint navigation system to control it’s Hyperdive….and it even had food and provisions for FIVE days should Vader need to eject. Oh yes it had an ejection seat too….almost everything that a regular stock TIE Fighter DIDN’T have! Vader did in fact need those survival supplies as, at the end of the Battle of Yavin (in the original Star Wars 1977 movie) his ship was famously knocked out of control by Han Solo and the Millennium Falcon. Vader was sent spinning and eventually crashed landed on an outpost jungle planet where he had to defeat some rather nasty animals. (This was seen in the Marvel Star Wars comics released to coincide with the Sequel Trilogy movies). The TIE Advanced X1 looked like this:

The ship had a much more bulky look to it with thicker wing strut pylons which were more like wings and instead of the tradition hexagonal solar wing panels, this featured elongated wing plates with two folds. This made the wing plates “wrap” around the fuselage bubble and body section. The chunkier look accommodated the shield generators and Hyperdrive units (again which regular TIE Fighters lacked). Anyhoo….I thought this was an Iconic starfighter and I wanted to replicate it in saber form as I had honoured the TIE Silencer and X-Wing fighters previously….so using my Quartermaster hilt as a base I created the InVader X-1!

I again used the emitter to mimic the ship’s cockpit with two red laser cannon barrels visible at the base of the round “windshield”. There is also a red Kyber crystal to replicate the eerie glow of the ships laser targeting system that lights the cockpit up. The emitter is surrounded by shrouds that wrap around and have “solar panel” texturing just like the real fighter. The saber has a basic, rugged ribbed activation switch that slides forward/back to switch the blade on/off. The handgrip is wrapped in a nice leather and on the underside of the grip near the pommel is a Covertech Knob wheel to hang this from your belt. The detailing is done in a chrome finish which stands out from the Imperial grey colour of the hilt body. Back to the shrouds you can see I mirrored those on the pommel section with a smaller pair of shroud plates. However if you look closely at the inside edges of the main emitter shrouds you will see some detailing in chrome that looks like some sort of mechanical parts exposed – those parts (and the pylon struts) are actually the same shrouds from my Mandalorian Quartermaster hilt. I forgot to delete the original shrouds when I modelled the wrap wing shrouds and I positioned them resulting in the layered look, mechanical parts inside the shrouds and solar panelling outside – I think it kinda works! Here are a few more detail shots in Gallery Two….

You can clearly see the chromed mechanical parts in the first two images above. Another “Happy Little Accident”! And that just about wing wraps this design and post up! < Sorry another bad joke….I need some new comedic material! Thank you so much for checking this saber out, I hope you liked it. I hope Lord Vader liked it too….he did like his saber I built for him before (you can see it here: https://ftsabersite.wordpress.com/2019/05/04/the-destined-one-saber-and-may-the-fourth-be-with-you/).

I am close to the end of this post but I do need to let you know about some upcoming content including something rather special from the new Kenobi TV series on Disney+ and a whole load more Katana hilts. I also have more Nerf blaster news including another blaster I am awaiting delivery of as I type this (I’m being good and typing this out on Thursday morning instead of last minute!). Finally sometime this month I might be getting a new lightsaber to add to my collection – a much sought after one that started me off on my Star Wars adventure – and the saber will be a gift from another member of the lightsaber community! If and when it arrives there will be a serious BIG shout-out and thank you post to reveal it. Thank you to all for visiting and supporting me and FTSabersite, it is absolutely appreciated. Till next time…..

“InVader X-1 Saber” is a “For Tyeth Editions” design and was modelled and rendered in Blender 3D by For Tyeth. The model, design and renders are ©Copyright of For Tyeth/FTSabersite 2016-2022. The saber is inspired by the starfighter seen in Star Wars (A New Hope) 1977 and the “TIE Advanced X1″design and all the names, images and related material are Trademark/©Copyright of Disney/Lucasfilm Ltd.

Building Storm Katana – For Cobra’s Ninja Assassin, Storm Shadow

Hello Everybody, today I return to the comic book world of the G.I. Joes and to a story between two “brothers”. The brothers were Snake Eyes who I re-introduced you to a few posts back and the Ninja assassin named Storm Shadow. Both Snake and Shadow had originally served in the US military operating in southeast Asia. They were members of a LRRP or “Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol” with another team member who would later become the G.I. Joe named Stalker, You may recall I mentioned that Snake Eyes was rescued from the field of battle when he was injured, by a soldier of Japanese descent and that soldier turned out to be Thomas S. Arashikage or “Storm Shadow” – his Ninja clan name. After the war both men returned to normal life, Shadow to Japan and Snake to the US where he learnt his family had perished in an automobile accident. Having nothing to keep him in the US Snake travelled to stay with the one last person he considered family…Storm Shadow. Below are pictures of Hasbro’s “Storm Shadow ” action figure promo poster and my 2017 lightsaber Katana I created for Shadow,

However, things didn’t run smoothly as Snake became a member of the Arashikage clan and studied martial arts under Shadow’s uncle, the Hard Master. Snake excelled and surpassed Shadow becoming the clan leader elect causing tension. Then an assassination attempt on Snake’s life failed disastrously. The crime group Cobra and it’s leader Cobra Commander sent an assassin to kill Snake in revenge for Snake killing a member of the Commander’s family. Complicated? Well sadly the Hard Master died and was shot by an arrow that belonged to Storm Shadow and the assailant fled unseen escaping in a mini helicopter. Shadow was blamed and he fled also, later joining Cobra itself to try and discover the real killer. Whew! Ok enough talk, it’s about time I show you Gallery one of “Building Storm Katana”….

This is a no-nonsense lightsaber katana, just right for a silent, deadly Ninja assassin such as Storm Shadow. However even though Snake Eyes and Shadow seem to be on differing sides, this hilt is similar to that of his “brother” Snake’s Katana. Shadow is a traditional trained Ninja and as such would probably only use this weapon if it were to give him an edge in combat. Therefore I removed the Arashikage clan logo from the blade as this emits way too much light for it to be stealthy weapon. I did leave the logo on the pommel as this also acts as the on/off switch. The Tsuba handguard and pommel feature the same etching marks that resemble waves and currents – the elements of a storm. This katana also features a metal hilt body rather than a sword with a wooden core (called a Tang) in the handgrip – but the hilt is wrapped in a matching off white leather Tsuka Ito grip wrap that allows the alloy handle to show through. Ok then, again I am chatting too much so I had best showcase the detailed glamour shots in Gallery Two…

Just a few pictures to show off the details and in the last two shots you can see the Clan logo activation switch again but I also varied the angle the picture was taken from to show that the metallic hilt doesn’t stand out too much by shining, which is useful because Shadow can still use it to reflect light to distract an opponent – or sneakily momentarily blinding them! He is a Ninja after all.

Shadow and Snake obviously go their separate ways with Snake returning to the US and joining the special elite corps known as G.I.Joe, whilst Shadow (as I mention above) joined Cobra, the shadowy criminal organisation hoping to discover who killed his uncle and framed him. The two would eventually join forces when Shadow joins the Joes but it didn’t last long. As to what happened next depends on which movies or comic books you read as there are a few different strands of canon/lore (the Marvel comic timeline and the later reboot and G.I. Joe movies).

“Storm Shadow”

And that just about Tsuka Ito wraps up this saber offering (sorry bad pun but I’ve been holding off from saying it, honest!) Thank you so much for checking this one out and I hope you enjoyed it and the backstory, You will be pleased to know the next post will be planted firmly back in Star Wars territory with another “Starfighter Saber” inspired by a famous ship seen in the films. I still have a few more Power Rangers katanas but this past week I have worked on something I hope is really cool, when I saw what I had modelled I said…..”Hello there!”……that was a little hint.

Anyhoo, thanks for he support, be it from new visitors or my regular viewers it keeps me posting and please call back for upcoming posts. Till next time…..

“Building Storm Katana” is a For Tyeth Editions design, modelled and rendered in Blender 3D by For Tyeth/FTSabersite. It is ©Copyright of For Tyeth/FTSabersite 2016-2022. “Storm Shadow” was created by Larry Hama and is ©Copyright of Hasbro Toys.