Hello Everybody, another week has passed (how quick has this year flown by so far?) and I realised “Wow I haven’t posted a Guest Designer hilt for a while – I better fix that”. Well today I have a hilt I modelled for a member of the forum I belong to, who had come up with a saber idea based on an old medieval weapon. The weapon is a mix between a mid European Halberd and a Battleaxe. The Halberd was used in the 15,16 and 17th centuries and consisted of a shaft handle with an axe style blade mounted at 90 degrees to the handle and atop the shaft there was usually a short pointed blade like a spear. These things were vicious but my friend DarthProdigal from the forum took the idea and gave the Halberd double axe blades and removed the spear blade. It looked a bit more like a European double blade Battleaxe – but there was a surprise! It also featured a smaller bladed weapon connected to the pommel end instead. DarthProdigal posted a sketch on the forum and as usual members chatted about “I wonder how this would look like this or that” etc so I decided to model it in Blender but first here is Prodigal’s sketch…

This was the picture Prodigal posted and it was interesting! I’ll be honest and say the first thing I saw was Spiderman’s chest logo but after a few seconds of scrutiny I realised this was a nice design that had some thought put into it. There were the two axe blades – very functional should the lightsaber blade fail- then a nice wrapped handgrip. There was also a second shorter “Shoto” (a small defensive blade used in your non dominant hand as a sort of shield) style blade too with a crescent moon claw shaped emitter. I liked this even more. Prodigal explained that the Shoto connected somehow onto the pommel endcap of the main axe weapon making it double bladed like a staff lightsaber. Knowing this I set to work in Blender…

This is the wireframe view of what I thought a fully manufactured Halberd might look like. You can see it is fairly complex and I have added a few minor details to just adorn it here and there (though the additions do serve a purpose). I think I have chatted enough and it’s time for a few Glamour Shots…here’s Gallery One….






I don’t know if I’d want to face up against one of these! I have faced some formidable weapons in my battles but none quite like this. The hilt I built using two cylinders, one for the regular hilt handle and a second “pancaked” cylinder which I modified to give it a “sharp” edge for the blades. I cut out segments to create the trusses holding the blades to the central plate of the axe head, I gave the blades a contrasting colour to make them stand out. For extra detail I added bolts/screws to hold the sections of the hilt together (you can see the hex bolts on the ferrule sections and pommel). The pommel features a connector to attach the Shoto blade allowing the user to form the double blade staff – the connector uses a twist-lock cog) The activation switch is custom made to represent a faction of religious believers in Star Wars known as the Sith Empire – these were a group of fanatics that promote the Sith and some even helped Emperor Palpatine come back from the dead to carry out his plan in The Rise of Skywalker. These fanatics had an emblem which consisted of a “Black Sun” – the switch represents a sun and it’s rays (not Reys 🤣). And on that bad joke I should post the second gallery as an apology…here’s Gallery Two…



Having learnt of the significance of the Black Sun and from what DarthProdigal told me I realised I needed to model the emblem and incorporate it somewhere on the weapon. It turns out that the central hub of the axe head structure provided a perfect place to fit the emblem onto! I modelled the emblem the same way that I created the Jedi logo on my High Republic hilt last week – I took an image of the logo and triggered Blender to convert the image into a flat outline object which I could then apply a thickness to, making the object a fully 3D mesh. I stuck to the red and black colour scheme of the weapon so the Sun is also red. You will see that I had to adjust the shape of the emblem slightly so it was visible over the curvature of the axe head and shaft but I think it looked perfect in position.

Just before I go I would really like to thank DarthProdigal for allowing me to recreate his idea in 3D for him and to display it here. Prodigal has been very supportive of my designing and gives me great feedback when I post on the forum so it is fitting that I induct him into my Guest Designer gallery! Thanks again Prodigal,
And to you my friends and viewers, thank you also! Your support is much appreciated and all your comments, likes and and follows mean a lot to me and the running of FTSabersite. I hope you will all return to see future upcoming posts as I have more High Republic era hilts to showcase along with a few SW Resistance themed designs as well as a range of NERF inspired sabers! Till next time….
“Prodigal” Halberd is a DarthProdigal design and is ©Copyright of DarthProdigal. The 3D model and renders were created by me, For Tyeth and are ©Copyright of For Tyeth/FTSabersite 2016-2021.