Dune Saber 2020 – Built in Blender 3D

Hello Everybody, today we travel from one desert planet to another and from one galaxy to another. We travel from the world of George Lucas’ Star Wars over to the sands of Frank Herbert’s Dune! Photos of a new remake of the Herbert classic story have dropped in Vanity Fair magazine and as I had made a few Dune inspired hilts before (click HERE to view them) I felt I needed to make some updates too. So I have built a new saber for House Atreides, the noble family that is in conflict with the House Harkonnen over the control of a planet named Arrakis…or the Spice Planet…or just known as Dune! On this barren planet a special substance named Melange or Spice can be found and upon digesting it can give the person taking it the ability to navigate and control space itself making travel over vast distances possible and almost instant. This Spice therefore is a valuable commodity and whoever controls Dune, controls the Spice and so controls the universe.

Paul Atreides, aka Muad’dib

The two warring families have vast armies, the Atreides army being headed by Paul Atreides son of Duke Leto Atreides (played by Kyle MacClachlan in the original 1984 film and by Timothee Chalamet in the 2020 remake), whilst the Harkonnen army has Fayd Rautha Harkonnen at it’s command. Fayd is the cruel nephew of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen. The story evolves and tells how the Harkonnen family begin to take over and Paul finds himself stranded on the planet Dune and reluctantly becomes the leader of a religious group of sand dwellers known as the Fremen. Paul teaches them warcraft and sorcery from his family connections with the Witches known as the Bene Gesserit. Paul is a Bene Gesserit by birth, his mother was Jessica who was part of a breeding program to provide a daughter who would then be bred with Fayd Harkonnen. Jessica however falls in love with Duke Leto and promises him a son….Paul. Complicated I know, the film was nearly 7 hours long uncut. However you are here to see a saber and I’m afraid I have been hit by technical issues once more so have struggled to get these images rendered but I think they turned out ok.

Dune Saber 2020 pic 1

Dune Saber 2020 pic 2

Dune Saber 2020 pic 3

Dune Saber 2020 pic 4

Dune Saber 2020 pic 5

 

This saber was based on the bladed weapons seen hanging on the belts of Oscar Isaacs and Josh Brolin in the recently released photoshoot images. Oscar plays Duke Leto and Josh portrays the man-at-arms Gurney Halleck. Well the weapon had a Katana style leather wrapped Tsuka-Ito handgrip which I attempted to recreate with the metallic criss-crossed motifs down each side of the saber. The pommel has the House Atreides family emblem on it and that logo I also used as the activation switch. The emitter is supported by four gold coloured support rods. The emitter itself is a little bit different as it is in fact made by solidifying a letter “D” taken from the TrueTypeFont known as “Android” and creating a 3D object. I then gave the shape a golden inlay to make the “D” stand out (you can see this in the title image above were I use the emitter to spell the word Dune!) Finally there is the very special blade of this saber and it combines two elements, Water and Light. The water is special to the story of Dune as Paul Atreides has to find a way to bring water to Arrakis to enable him to control the Spice. And the Light which is special to lightsabers….is used here to contain the watery core of the blade…and if you zoom in closely you can see ripples in the water!

I have nearly finished this….wait! I nearly forgot something…sabers are known to have Kyber Crystals to help power them right? Well this saber has a “Water Pearl” to help power and focus the blade, wanna see it?….

There it is in it’s own little protective cradle! You can clearly see the ripples inside this droplet. Now as I mentioned before I am still having tech issues (I hope a new version of Windows due out in May will solve my problems) so I couldn’t produce a full gallery but here are a few of the images from Vanity Fair magazine that triggered my imagination…look out for the dagger handles….

Duke Leto Atreides (Oscar Isaac)

Gurney Halleck (Josh Brolin)

Paul Atreides (Timothee Chalamet)

Ok this time it is the end of the post but as always and in these difficult times I want to say a big thank you to you my friends, viewers and followers. You have supported me over three years now and I have broken the 19000 views milestone so thank you so much for taking time to support me and FTSabersite. It is much appreciated. I hope you will return to see what else I can come up with (I do have more designs I just have to get them polished up). Till next time…..stay safe and well!

“Dune Saber 2020” is a For Tyeth Editions design and is Copyright of For Tyeth/FTSabersite 2020. Dune was written by Frank Herbert. The new Dune 2020 movie and all images are Copyright of Legendary Productions/Villeneuve Films/Warner Bros Pictures and Vanity Fair Magazine.

 

“Montoya Saber” – Inspired by Inigo

Hello Everybody, today I bring you my second Rapier style lightsaber which is a inspired by a character from the 1987 hit film “The Princess Bride”. “Inconceivable!” you can’t make a saber made of light! Well, I proved last week that it is possible with my “Master Z” saber for Zorro, so I have built one for “My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father….prepare to die!”. Technically this saber is just an inspired by version of his rapier as I am working on a more accurate version (coming soon I hope but it is complex, very complex). But this saber is quite complex itself and to show you I have a couple of wireframe pictures for you to take a look at…

“Montoya Saber” Wireframe 1

“Montoya Saber” Wireframe 2

I can now make much more complicated objects now I have an I5 processor powered laptop. It can compute all the data for the polygons and the texturing which makes the models look so much more realistic. As you can see in the picture the handguard is in fact a wire basket and Blender/my laptop has to map out the position, size and shape of each little strut within that basket, hence the big strain on the computer and software! Luckily Blender has some clever tricks called “Modifiers” used to make modelling easier and one is called “Wireframe Modifier”. I have used this technique before on my “Spidey Saber” to make the web like shrouds, but it was perfect for this saber too to make the basket shaped guard. The wireframe modifier turned the bowl shaped part into a wire framework – a bit like early 3D computer game graphics – and allows me to alter the thickness of each strut to make the frame look “solid”. The ornamental globes on the pommel and at each end of the Quillon bar are also Wireframes but have a set of panels beneath the wires to fill in the gaps. I can make the struts one colour but the panels can be coloured differently giving the globes that Faberge like look! And speaking of coloured pictures I think it’s time to show you the Glamour Shot gallery…enjoy….

“Montoya Saber” emitter/handguard 1

“Montoya Saber” Handgrip and handguard 2

“Montoya Saber” Top down view 3

“Montoya Saber” User’s viewpoint 4

“Montoya Saber” the view your opponent might have! 5

I decided to go with a regal black and gold colour scheme with an amber/gold blade. Now I have added the texture graphics you can see the complexity of the struts making the basket handguard. I was able to select certain rows of struts and rotate them clockwise around the saber, then selected a second set of struts and rotated those counter-clockwise to create a zig-zagged pattern or swirl effect. I can just imagine my old (but much loved) previous laptop being asked to model this and it saying, “Please don’t make me try and build this!”

I also decided that as “The Princess Bride” became such a classic cult film I would make a few posters for this hilt…

“Montoya Saber” poster 1

“Montoya Saber” poster 2

These are nothing too fancy just some toying around with object placement and lighting. Also, I normally add the lettering and text in a photo-editing package known as GIMP (which stands for Gnu Image Manipulation Program), but Blender can also add text as a 2D layer in Compositing Mode (where you build images/videos in layers) or as in this case, I added a 3D model of the text! Blender even allows you to type a word or text, then convert it into a 3D model which you can edit, morph and add textures. This now means I only need to fire up Blender to do all my workload to create my designs and images.

And finally, as I mentioned above this is just an “inspired by” version of Inigo Montoya’s hilt – I am working on building something that looks a lot closer to the real thing for a future post – however it is very, very complex and I am working hard on it…this is the real prop I am hoping to recreate…wish me luck!

The real Inigo Montoya Rapier hilt (as seen in The Princess Bride 1987)

I think that just about wraps up this post and design. I will be working on the proper Montoya hilt and will post it as soon as possible but in the meantime I have a few other new things to post for you. These include Darth Maul’s new saberstaff from the new Clone Wars season 7, a whole new collection of original For Tyeth designs and as Disney/Lucasfilm has announced a new project named “The High Republic” which is set 200 years before The Phantom Menace I am going to attempt designing some sabers for the new sagas to come! I hope you will call back to FTSabersite to see those. I want to say a big thank you to all who visit and support me and FTSabersite, especially the viewer who logged in from New Caledonia! Thank you whoever you are and I hope you liked what you saw. Whether a new or regular visitor/supporter, thank you – you’re much appreciated and are what keeps me designing! Till next time….

“Montoya Saber” is a For Tyeth Editions design and is ©Copyright of For Tyeth/FTSabersite 2020. It is inspired by the sword seen in the movie “The Princess Bride” and all names, quotes, images or related material are Trademarked/©Copyright of Act III Communications, Buttercup Films Ltd and The Princess Bride Ltd. 1987-2020.

Master Z Lightsaber – Don Diego de la Vega’s saber

Hello Everybody, a week or two back I posted a design inspired by the new Disney live action movie of Mulan – and the beautiful Katana sword featured in it. Well I seem to have caught a bug and have started modelling hilts based on real world swords and sabers….and in this case a sword that was made famous by Don Diego de la Vega – aka ZORRO! Vega/Zorro was a gentleman vigilante of the California regions who fought the oppressive authorities and tyrants that made the lives of the poor downtrodden folks hell. Don Diego was the son of a wealthy landowner and couldn’t be seen as such to be fighting the local authority so adopted a disguise of a black costume and cape, a sombrero cordobés hat and a famous face mask. In this disguise Don Diego became Zorro and using his fencing skills learnt in Spain he battled for the local townsfolk. Zorro also used a pistol now and then, had a knife in his boot and rode a horse named Tornado…but it was his sword he was most famous for. The weapon was a thin bladed sword with an ornate cup shaped handguard known as a Rapier (one of four types of fencing swords – the others being the Foil, Épée and Sabre). With this weapon he would out-skill the bounty hunters and militia that were sent out too stop the vigilante and as a way to humiliate his opponents he would famously “carve” his initial Z into their clothing using three quick strokes of his blade. Now I build lightsabers, so how could I build a Zorro inspired hilt? Well here are a couple of studio wireframe images to show you what I came up with…

Master Z Wireframe Image 1

Master Z Wireframe Image 2

The saber has a very distinct “Pirates” look to it too and you could imagine Douglas Fairbanks, Tyrone Powers or Duncan Regehr wielding this hilt (they all portrayed Zorro in movies or TV shows – Duncan Regehr is the Zorro seen in the title image above ^^). It has a regular “lightsaber blade” but that is just so I get the usual lightsaber look to the blade, otherwise I would have made the blade slightly thinner. There is the bowl shaped handguard and I even added ornaments such as the Quillons (the bar with the spherical ends) and the curved bar known as a Sweeping or Knuckle Guard. To finish the fancy stuff I added a high polished spherical pommel to act as a counterweight. However you won’t see the pretty polished look in a wireframe image so I think it’s about time for some Glamour Shots….

Master Z Saber picture 1

Master Z Saber picture 2

Master Z handgrip, guard and Quillons

Master Z user’s view of hilt.

Master Z – you don’t want to be on the recieving end of this!

I am really pleased how this hilt turned out as I used to have problems before creating curved parts in Blender let alone a curved part made of a high polished material. My old laptop couldn’t handle the number of polygons (modelling units) and the graphics required to recreate such complex pieces, but my new laptop can! And I have gone to town with my second Rapier saber which should appear in next week’s post.

To wrap up this post I will just give a shout out to Johnston McCulley, the creator of Zorro, who wrote the original story way back in 1919 so Don Diego is actually 101 years old! The character of Don Diego/Zorro first appeared in a novel named “The Curse of Capistrano” which was serialised in five parts in the pulp magazine “All -Story Weekly”. Since then there has been over FORTY Zorro films, countless books, comics, plays, computer games and even a musical starring the masked man.

I will also mention that Zorro and it’s associated names and intellectual properties allegedly belong to a company named Zorro Productions Inc, but there are/have been disputes about who owns the rights. However I have mentioned them so I don’t have to worry about “infringing copyright” or other people’s work….this is a tribute!

That does wrap things up for this design and I hope you liked it. It was fun to build as I even got to visit the pueblo of Los Angeles for the Glamour Shots (just kidding!). I have another Rapier inspired hilt you may have seen in my sneak peek I posted yesterday coming up next week and it was inspired by the biggest swashbuckling film of the 80’s. I hope you will return to see that one as there are some memorable quotes to go with it. Thank you for checking out Master Z today, whether this is your first visit or you are a regular viewer/reader of my site thank you for the support, you are much appreciated. Till next time….

“Master Z” Lightsaber is a For Tyeth Editions design and is ©Copyright of For Tyeth/FTSabersite 2020. “Zorro” and all other names, logos, images and related materials are Trademark/©Copyright of Zorro Productions Inc.

Crusader Saber – Inspired by Knightfall

Hello Everybody, today I get back to displaying sabers after my little acceptance speech I had to post last week – thank you Annlyel. And today I have a very new design I have come up with based on a History Channel TV show I have recently started watching. That show is, as the title says, Knightfall which tells the stories of The Knights Templar of the 1300’s. The show is a fictional story about a Knight Templar named Landry de Lauzon and his fall from grace from the order and his attempt to rebuild his life and reputation. During the Crusades the Templars lost the battle in the Holy Land and “The Holy Grail” to the Saracens and it took fifteen years for the Grail to resurface in France. Lauzon had in the interim been made commander of the Paris Temple and saw this as an opportunity to reclaim the Grail and solve the mystery surrounding the death of his mentor. However this course of action by the Templars resulted in some very powerful enemies to spring up.

Lauzon, in the second season of the show has to prove himself once more to be worthy of being a Knight Templar….and he has to pass the tests set by his new teacher, Master Talus the Initiate Master. The Initiate Master is a wise battle hardened instructor and just happens to be portrayed by….Mark Hamill!

Luke?Mark? Ah! Master Talus.

Yes! Luke…I mean Mark Hamill plays Master Talus so I had to make a lightsaber based weapon based on this show knowing that. So I set to work. However there is a bit of a difference with this hilt as I modified an existing design from Ultrasabers, the Texas based custom saber manufacturer. I will show you the studio work in progress shot that I have (sorry it is only one but I modelled this so quickly so as to get it published I got carried away and only snapped one pic!)…

I will be honest I haven’t really done too much to this design, structurally I just added the crossguard pieces and gave it some colours (which you’ll see in the Glamour Shots). The saber I used as the basis for this design is the Ultrasabers Initiate and as Master Talus is the Initiate Master hence my choice of base model. The saber is available at Ultrasabers and you can find the Initiate model on this PAGE.

I WILL TAKE THIS OPPORTUNITY TO POINT OUT I AM NOT AFFILIATED WITH ULTRASABERS IN ANY CAPACITY AND AM NOT BEING PAID BUT I AM A MEMBER OF THEIR FORUM – Ultrasabers don’t even know I have modified/created this design yet!

Now the legal bit has been covered how about some “Glamour Shots”? Ok here you go…

“Crusader Saber” 1

“Crusader Saber” 2

“Crusader Saber” 3

“Crusader Saber” 4

“Crusader Saber” 5

I gave the hilt a new set of crossguard pieces to recreate a cruciform shape to resemble the famous red cross on the Templar’s shields and battle tunics. The red powder coating is actually inlaid into the metal and there is a matching band of colour around the edges. The emitter and pommel have a band of red powder coat while the handgrip has two bands of gold to accent that section. I kept with a silver base coat as white wouldn’t work as well, making the hilt look plastic rather than metal as it should be. Because I did minimal work on the saber handle I needed to do something different to add my touch to the design…so I designed a custom belt clip and hanger for the hilt. Here are a few more pictures of the hilt and beltclip combo….

“Crusader Saber” Beltclip 1

“Crusader Saber” Beltclip 2

“Crusader Saber” Beltclip 3

“Crusader Saber” Beltclip 4

I did attempt to create a sheath/beltclip made with a texture to look like leather but I am still struggling to make realistic looking materials. I tried to make the beltclip look like leather but when I added the grain effect it looked more wooden, but there was one good thing – the clip can also double as a display stand! You could unscrew the belt loop from the bottom and then you could have a free standing display plinth…or hang it on a wall. And as a final touch I added another Templar cross insignia on the top panel.

Now I think that just about wraps up this design, and I hope Ultrasabers don’t mind my little modification to their design but I think it worked quite well. If you want to watch Knightfall it is on the History Channel in the UK. Thank you all for looking in on this design and for all the fabulous support you give me, it really is appreciated. Just before I go I have news of a bit of an expansion as I have been introduced to a very talented artist who sketches saber designs and he will be featured in my “Guest Designer Gallery” very soon, so please call back to see that and more in future posts. Till next time….

Oh and just in case you wondered what I’d look like in armour here you go….

“Crusader Saber” is a For Tyeth Editions concept inspired by the TV show “Knightfall” produced by The History Channel and A+E Studios. It is also based on the Ultrasabers Initiate V4 saber which is a Trademark/©Copyrighted design of Ultrasabers llc. FTSabersite and all it’s contents are ©Copyright of For Tyeth/FTSabersite 2016-2019.

New Asguard “Phoenix” inspired by Marvel’s Thor

Hello Everybody, I have had a few pleasant surprises this week, one involving my design known as “New Asguard Saber”and a personal accolade that I have been honoured with. I will tell you more about the personal accolade later but first I have a funny story about my Asguard hilts. As many of you will know I had a design inspired by Thor which I was going to post back in January but “lost” the files when my laptop glitched whilst saving them to a backup drive. It wiped ALL the files and folders associated with the saber so I had to rebuild it from memory as the screenshots I took of the hilt were also deleted. However you will also be aware that I did rebuild the hilt and it triggered a few new variants including “Asguard One” the single bladed shoto version. Then whilst remodelling the design I imagined that I was pulling the saber out of the “fire of destruction” and wondered how it would look if charred and scorched. This led to me modifying the hilt so it had a dark grey coating to create a dark version hilt. And this is that dark version and I named it New Asguard Phoenix”…

New Asguard Phoenix saber 1

New Asguard Phoenix saber 2

New Asguard Phoenix One switch 1

New Asguard Phoenix One 2

New Asguard Phoenix One 3

New Asguard Phoenix One 4

New Asguard Phoenix One 5

The hilts are the same as New Asguard but just have a new colour scheme which makes the hilt look a bit more regal in a way. I have found black and gold work well together as a lot of members of the forum I frequent have commented they like that combination too. And the blades I gave a “fire orange” colour to represent the flames of destruction the saber escaped from. I think there must really be some Force or Magic connected to this hilt so I also produced a version with the Thor lightning blue colour too and here is that version…

New Asguard Phoenix Blue

New Asguard Phoenix Blue 2

New Asguard Phoenix Blue 3

New Asguard Phoenix Blue 4

New Asguard Phoenix Blue 5

New Asguard Phoenix Blue 6

New Asguard Phoenix Blue 7

Now so far this story hasn’t been that funny, well recently I started having issues with my email notifications from WordPress, they were being deleted as trash by my email host and I decided I needed to go through some old emails and delete them to see if that helped. Now this is where the magic comes in…whilst scrolling through the emails I found a message I sent to a very good friend and there was an attachment on it. I used to send this person sneak peeks of my upcoming hilts (as he helped critique them when I first started out designing) and low and behold the attachment was a picture of …Asguard Saber the ORIGINAL! I didn’t realise my email host archived the attachments and I forgot I had sent the picture but there it was staring back at me. So now I have a treat for you all, here is the ORIGINAL version of New Asguard so you can compare and see how well I reconstructed it…

Original Asguard Saber

“New Asguard Saber” hilt 1

This was the hilt I was so sad about losing but at least I now have a picture of it to keep. As you can see the basic shapes are very similar but I did lose the original pommel as I couldn’t remember the steps I took to make it. However I kinda like both versions, and to be honest I was able to do a much better job on the scroll work etching on New Asguard.

And as if that wasn’t enough of a surprise I found a notification in my email host telling me WordPress had a private message for me that needed moderating. WordPress never sent me a notification with the little bell function in the menu above. It is a good job that I checked it out as I have discovered I have been nominated for a blogging award! So next week I hope to post an acceptance post on Wednesday and I’ll have another new saber design for the weekend….I’m going to be busy!

So I think that just about wraps up this offering, I hope you enjoyed seeing the “Original” Asguard.  Please call back to FTSabersite next week for more new sabers and as always thank you everyone for your support today. It is much appreciated, Till next time….

“New Asguard Saber” and “New Asguard Phoenix” and it’s variants are original designs by For Tyeth. They are ©Copyright of For Tyeth/FTSabersite 2016-2019.

“New Asguard Saber” inspired by Marvel’s Thor

Hello Everybody, I cannot contain my excitement for todays offering… It is one of my favourite (if not the favourite) hilts I have built. And I have sort of built it twice! Twice! Let me explain…way back in January you may recall I teased a hilt for Thor, where I described it as a “crossguard” design. This first design sat on my computer system for a while as I had a backlog of other hilts I had to post first but I was straining not to post it straight away. Unfortunately I should have because whilst producing some images for this post my laptop and external memory card glitched and because the folder where the saber files were saved was open, the glitch erased that folder! All my work vanished as if it fell through the Bifrost Bridge when Thor destroyed the bridge in the movie. My original design looked a little like this as seen in the teaser images I had uploaded to WordPress…

The saber in a lump of rock.

I even made a poster featuring it.

The first was a picture of the saber embedded in a lump of rock to mirror the events of the film where Thor’s hammer, Mjölnir, fell to Earth and landed in a piece of rock in  New Mexico. The saber landed in the field outside my cave workshop 😀  The second was an edit of a screenshot showing Thor holding my saber. But alas this saber died when my laptop crashed. However I wanted to test myself and see if I was a worthy saber designer and attempted to recreate it, or even dare I say make it better. Here are a few work in progress pictures..(not many as I didn’t want to risk losing these too)…

“New Asguard Saber” in the studio.

“New Asguard Saber” texture test 1

“New Asguard Saber” texture test 2

Viewers with a keen eye will spot this new saber is again a “crossguard” but it is now a little more streamlined as the first iteration was a fraction large. But Thor is big so I didn’t reduce the dimensions too much. As this was a saber for the son of a God I had to make it special so this hilt was to feature an etching to give it a regal decoration befitting his stature and position. And this etching pattern can be seen in the second and third test pictures where I tried the textures out. The pattern caused me all sorts of problems getting the design to line up with parts of the hilt. But worse was trying to find the right image to print into the handle…I spent many hours looking through wallpaper patterns on many home décor websites to find a Damask wallpaper. So much was the effort I developed Migraines for while afterwards! I then added gold accent parts around the emitters, the body of the hilt and on the pommel. These were to represent the architecture of the world of Asgard, Thor’s homeworld. A Celtic Asgardian Knot is used as the activation switch and is modelled in a matching gold. Phew! Enough talk, how about some Glamour shots? Here you go..

“New Asguard Saber” hilt 1

“New Asguard Saber” hilt 2

“New Asguard Saber” hilt 3

“New Asguard Saber” hilt ignited.

“New Asguard Saber” hilt pommel end!

“New Asguard Saber” hilt business end!

From these pictures you can see the etching covers about 85% of the hilt and my eyes really hurt when I finally finished lining all of it up, but it was worth it. But I haven’t finished yet…OH there’s more to this design yet! Being late giving a God a gift would normally be a bad thing so I needed to make up for the delay…so I didn’t just give Thor one hilt…I have a second complementary hilt to make a matching pair. And here is the matching hilt…

“New Asguard Saber Shoto”

“New Asguard Saber Shoto” 2

“New Asguard Saber Shoto” 3

“New Asguard Saber Shoto” 4

“New Asguard Saber and Shoto”

“New Asguard Saber and Shoto” ignited.

A Shoto is a smaller saber held in the warrior’s non dominant (or weaker) hand and is used primarily for defence, so you would block an attack with the Shoto while using your main weapon to attack your opponent in reply. But having two sabers mean you can have a nice pair of weapons which hopefully look beautiful. I hope I have appeased Thor and built something really beautiful. I will let Thor and you my loyal readers/viewers/followers decide.

Thor is about to star in the final instalment of the Avengers series of films, the film is called “Avengers: Endgame” and is released on the 25th April in the UK and around the globe soon after. The film also features Iron Man!

WOW! That was a very heavy,long post, sorry! But I really hope you liked the design. I learnt a lot in creating this hilt and I won’t make the same mistakes of forgetting to back up my data again. I need to thank you all for checking this hilt out and for your support, you kept me going when I was feeling down when I lost the original saber. I hope you will return to FTSabersite for future posts where I will be returning to the world of Star Wars and go space mining with Red Dwarf! Till next time…

“Tyeth! Before you go…Thank you my friend!” – Image Copyright Marvel – edit by For Tyeth

“New Asguard Saber” and “New Asguard Saber Shoto” are For Tyeth Editions and are ©Copyright of For Tyeth/FTSabersite 2016-2019. They were inspired by “Thor” who appears in the Marvel Comics Universe (MCU) and was created by Stan Lee, Larry Leiber and Jack Kirby. “Thor”, “Mjölnir” and all other names, logos and related material is Trademark/Copyright of Marvel Studios and Paramount Pictures 2011-2019.

 

Barad-Dûr Saber – Inspired by Lord of the Rings

Hello Everybody, today I take inspiration from an absolute classic story, the story being the Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien. I have been designing sabers for over three years but never ventured into this fantasy realm as a few other Sabersmiths had done LOTR inspired hilts. However during a conversation on the Ultrasabers forum several members commented they would like to see what I could come up with. I had recently been experimenting with new modelling techniques to create more organic shaped parts such as claws. I came up with a design based on the famous dragon creatures from Star Wars (called a Krayt Dragon) but it seemed to lack something as you can see in this picture…

It has a texture to make it look like it is made of bone, it also has bony claws and hammered copper/gold bands. But I didn’t like the pommel, it literally just tailed off and I thought I could improve on this. When the members mentioned LOTR I realised this was my opportunity to tweak this design. I set to work. I felt that the shape was something you might see in the land of Middle Earth, maybe a weapon an Orc might carry or maybe a wand like object that the wizard Gandalf might own. No, this hilt needed to be big and there was a very big object in Middle Earth and it was Barad-Dûr, or the Dark Tower so I based my new hilt on that edifice. Here are a few work in progress pictures…

The claws mirrored.

The new pommel

The pommel stood upright.

The pommel with texture and crystal.

The pictures above show how I used the “Mirror” function to create the pair of claws. I created a tube and stretched it along a curved line. By varying the thickness I was able to create the “joints” then taper the tube to a point. The mirror function ensured both claws were identical. Then I needed to work on the pommel, and this is where I think I nailed the look I was after. In the “second age” of Middle Earth the evil warlock Sauron built the Dark Tower in Mordor and atop the tower was a large glowing orb known as the “Eye of Sauron” and I rebuilt a replica of the tower ornament. I created two intersecting hollows to form a pair of “horns” between which I suspended a glowing crystal shape to form the “Eye” itself. The “bone saber” above was too light in colour and had the wrong texture so that had to change. The Dark Tower was made from black rock like Onyx or Obsidian, so by tweaking the material the saber was coated with I found a pattern that replicated cracked rock. All these details combined resulted in the hilt Barad-Dûr and here are a few Glamour Shots…

Barad-Dûr Saber Emitter

Barad-Dûr Saber Emitter 2

Barad-Dûr Saber full length 1

Barad-Dûr Saber full length 2

Barad-Dûr Saber Pommel

Barad-Dûr Saber

Hopefully this design is a good homage to the fantasy of Tolkien’s imagination. I think the rock texture sets the dark theme contrasting nicely with the gold bands. The orange/amber crystal has a similar fiery glow as “Sauron’s Eye” and illuminates the hollowed pommel nicely highlighting the cracked rock. I am pleased how this design developed from my initial build, it just needed a great source of inspiration.

I haven’t covered the story of the LOTR trilogy as there is too much information to relay but I highly recommend reading the books (as I did as a youngling) or watch the Peter Jackson on screen version (if you haven’t already!). I think this just about wraps up this design and post and I really hope you liked it. It made a real change for me to try a different genre. As always I haven’t stopped here and still have around ten more new designs to share in upcoming posts. I hope you will return for those (I promise the Norse God will get his saber soon!) but for now I have to say a big thank you to all of you for visiting FTSabersite today. Whether you are visiting for the first time or are a regular follower, you are all appreciated. Till next time….

“Barad-Dûr Saber” is a For Tyeth Edition design inspired by the work of J.R.R. Tolkien and the subsequent movie trilogy. “The Lord of the Rings” is Trademark/©Copyright of the Tolkien Estate. Movie credits: Production Companies: WingNut Films and The Saul Zaentz Company. Distributed by New Line Cinema.

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.

Glaive Saber – Inspired by Krull

Hello Everybody, today we travel to 1983 and the planet named KRULL! I regularly visit another blogsite, The Vintage Toy Advertiser where TVTA and his trusty sidekick Wooof the Cat, display wonderful images of old toy adverts found in magazines and catalogues. But now and then TVTA also posts images related to toys based on old movies such as the classic “The Black Hole” (you can find the posts HERE and HERE) Well it reminded me of another classic sci-fi/fantasy film from 1983 named Krull. Where a warring planet has a final hope for peace as Prince Colwyn and Princess Lyssa were to marry in the hope that their union would mend the rift between their two families (and the other warring factions on the planet). But as with all good plans, it was dashed as an intergalactic being called “The Beast” landed on Krull with his army of Slayers, intent on taking control. “The Beast” had the two kings killed and kidnapped Princess Lyssa, holding her in his mountain shaped spaceship, the Black Fortress. Prince Colwyn survived the onslaught and began an adventure to rescue the Princess, slay the Beast and save the day. Well this film inspired me to produce a design and here it is, this is Glaive Saber….

Glaive Saber Hilt

Glaive Saber Emitter

Glaive Saber Emitter 2

Glaive Saber Switch

Glaive Saber Body

Glaive Saber Pommel

Glaive Saber Pommel 2

Glaive Saber Vertical Up

Glaive Saber Horizontal

This saber I based on the weapons used by the guards in the Black Fortress. The original hilts were a type of rapier style sword with a handguard so I used a Katana emitter with a hexagonal guard. I “powdercoated” the guard gold along with accent parts on the pommel to replicate an antique look. The switch section flows nicely between the hand grip near the emitter and the lower handgrip on the body. The body part is black to look like it is leather wrapped. As mentioned the pommel has golden accents to give a nice antique look to fit in with the swords and sorcery fantasy theme. And here are two pictures to show my inspiration for this design, one is the original where you can see the guard on the left holding the hilt I based this saber on and in the second picture I edited it to have a lightsaber blade…

Black Fortress Guard (see the hil)

Black Fortress Guard (edited blade)

And observant viewers may recognise Lysette Anthony as the Princess in peril, but she wasn’t the only Big Name who starred in the film. A future Jedi Master also appeared, but I don’t think Prince Colwyn believes him…

Yes Liam Neeson also appeared in this film, so there is a Star Wars link to this design too.

Unfortunately for Prince Colwyn, the Black Fortress would dematerialize at sunset and reappear in another location the next day making it difficult to find. And sadly I will have to disappear shortly as this post is getting near it’s sunset, but first the thank yous. Thanks to TVTA (check out his site by clicking HERE) for the great posts and images he and Wooof share, they bring back fantastic memories, and as always a big thank you to my viewers and followers for your continued support. It is much appreciated. I hope you will all return for upcoming posts featuring designs for a classic 80’s cartoon series. Till next time.

“Krull”, “Prince Colwyn”, “Princess Lyssa” and all other names logos, images and related material are Trademark/©Copyright of Barclays Mercantile Industrial Finance and Columbia Pictures. “Glaive Saber” is a For Tyeth Edition design and is ©Copyright of For Tyeth/FTSabersite 2018.

Abietes Conum Lightsaber – Recast!

Hello Everybody, this post is a little early for a change but for good reason. Firstly as I have had a hectic time the past two weeks, I am going to have a weekend off and go and see the fantastic music band I saw last year as a treat. Second I found out one of my posts was missing! Kathleen at Graphic Novelty2 posted about an upcoming Harry Potter computer game and I was about to leave a comment and a link to my HP themed hilts and in particular one called Abietes Conum. Well to my surprise Abietes Conum had vanished! The youngling versions were still there but the main hilt had gone so I will recast it here. Here is Abietes Conum (again!)…

Abietes Conum Hilt

Abietes Conum Plug

Abietes Conum Cast a Spell

Abietes Conum Emitter

Abietes Conum Body

Abietes Conum Switch

Abietes Conum Pommel

Abietes Conum Vertical Up

Abietes Conum Vertical Down

Now I will chat about the hilt, firstly as I mentioned in my original post, making metal parts look like wood is difficult. When I first posted this design Powder Coat/paint options weren’t available so I had to get creative. I thought about it and I realised that there are other parts to a tree and I noticed that the ridged parts on the body resembled an Abietes Conum…or for non Latin speakers a Fir Cone! So I created a fir cone based hilt/wand! The purple blade I thought looked a bit like a bolt of lightning or even better a Spell projecting from the emitter. The body is made of several connectors called couplers and have ridges/blocks that look like the segments of a fir cone that open to release it’s seeds. The switch and pommel I selected just help give the wand/saber a bulbous end to further enhance the look of a cone. The hilt is finished in a weathered coating to make it appear wooden (as much as possible) and covered in woodland grime!

The hilt also comes in a clean black version, a regular metallic saber and for the rich wizards there is a solid silver version so here is a little slideshow to display those too..

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So that was Abietes Conum Lightsaber recast, I hope you liked it! I never knew I was so magical as to be able to design a hilt that could actually vanish. And speaking of vanishing I am afraid I will have to bring this post to an end and disappear myself. I have to prepare for my journey to the concert (I can’t fly there in my Jedi Interceptor so have to use a train!). I won’t be able to reply to comments etc until I get back but don’t worry I will reply to any words left as soon as I get back to my workshop!

So thank you all for looking in on this design, your support is always appreciated. Hopefully I should have “new” designs in my upcoming posts so I hope you will return to see them. Till next time!

“Abietes Conum Lightsaber” is a For Tyeth Edition design and is ©Copyright of For Tyeth/FTSabersite 2018. “Harry Potter” was created by J.K. Rowling and is Trademark/©Copyright of J.K. Rowling and Warner Bros Entertainment.