Heavenly Sword (aka Nariko's Sword) - Finally finished

[CynderBloc]

Ok, I really didn't want to post this until completion. It's a birthday present for a good mate and I was worried he might see it on here before it was done.....but he's seen where it's at now anyway.

This is my Everest, ever since the game came out I've wanted to build this. I've had multiple attempts, but putting it lightly, I'm a bit of a perfectionist and lack of good reference pictures have forced me to scrap about 4 of these.

Finally found some hi res pics about 2 months ago, and I got to work. I didn't take any pictures for the first few weeks and I haven't done much in the last few weeks due to some half decent weather (Half decent weather = golf time), but I'm really happy how it's going.

 

[StarKill3r]

Re: Heavenly Sword - almost there but not quite yet

Now that is a heavenly sword. Nice work and attention to detail.

 

[CynderBloc]

Re: Heavenly Sword

Back working on this, since everything else is done.

Just doing little bits of milliput work here and there, what's really slowing me down though is that the engraving is all going to have to be done by hand, started doing it with my dremel but I can't get the control I need.

You can see the difference with how much sharper the engraving near the leading edge is compared to the stuff near the top of the blade. It's just incredibly time consuming and annoying.

 

[CynderBloc]

Re: Heavenly Sword

Figured it was time to prove that I haven't forgotten about this. Most of the engraving on the first blade is done

Should have it primed and first coats soon, then onto finishing the second blade

By the way, for those who aren't sure what this sword is (to be fair it's not a very popular game), it's from the game of the same name. Here's some concept art

 

[CynderBloc]

Re: Heavenly Sword

Engraving on blade #1 is done, and although it still needs some tidying up, I couldn't help firing some paint on it to have a rough idea of what it will look like.

The hue of the darker parts is off though, I'm not honestly sure how to replicate it.

Any paint gurus want to throw in their $0.02?

This is what it should look like

It seems to me that there is a bit of blue and red (aside from the filigree) in it, almost like it's a very dark purple?

 

[FSURobbie]

Re: Heavenly Sword

Wow, looks great. I also agree about the shades of red/blue in the source image. Looks like the red sticks more to the recesses and engravings with the blue kind of sticking to the higher surfaces.

I'm not a painting guru, but perhaps you could do an acrylic wash with a deep red to fill the crevices and engravings and then do the same with the blue? Airbrush would probably work great as well, but I have so little experience with it I have to stick to good ole brushes personally...

Either way, great build, it looks spot on.

 

[TLL]

Re: Heavenly Sword

I'm still terrible at painting, but what FSURobbie said sounds like a good idea, with the red and blue washes and all.

Anyway, looks amazing and I'm digging this a lot!

 

[CynderBloc]

Re: Heavenly Sword

Wow, looks great. I also agree about the shades of red/blue in the source image. Looks like the red sticks more to the recesses and engravings with the blue kind of sticking to the higher surfaces.

I'm not a painting guru, but perhaps you could do an acrylic wash with a deep red to fill the crevices and engravings and then do the same with the blue? Airbrush would probably work great as well, but I have so little experience with it I have to stick to good ole brushes personally...

Either way, great build, it looks spot on.

Cheers,

Yeah, my original plan was to paint the entire thing silver, paint the darker parts and rub it back to get the highlights, then fill the red last.

I'm liking the airbrush though. Haven't got one myself, but a friend got one a few months back and loves it. Might have to invest in one myself

 

[Sean]

Re: Heavenly Sword

WOW! how do you get your blade points to look so much like real steel?
looks awesome....

 

[CynderBloc]

Re: Heavenly Sword

WOW! how do you get your blade points to look so much like real steel?
looks awesome....

Cheers,

It's just a flat coat of silver at the minute, maybe the camera is making it look better?

What I will do when finishing it is lightly brush over the paint with a brass wire brush. Gives it a really cool brushed metal look. Brushing the leading edge in a different direction to the rest of it gives the effect of a temper line too, which is a nice effect

 

[Zendragon]

Re: Heavenly Sword

Damn that's cool!

 

[Nerfenstein]

Re: Heavenly Sword

One of the best games of PS3 imho, so glad someone has taken the time to do this... amazing build for an amazing game. I've got a picture of Nariko up here in my office, one of my favorite gaming characters

 

[CynderBloc]

Re: Heavenly Sword

Thanks to everyone who I haven't already thanked, appreciation does wonders as a motivational tool

Anyway, a few people have asked me about the size of this thing, so I figured I'd just upload a photo here, so you guys can see too.

By my maths, it's roughly about 7/8ths scale. I estimated Nariko's height at somewhere between 5'8"-6', and using wrist-to-floor height as a guide, worked out that the main blade should be about 3 1/2', and the extension just over 3'. Total length should be somewhere in the region of 5'3"

My blades are 3'4" (although I extended the hilt by a few inches, it was difficult to get two hands on it and it's damn heavy) and the other is 2'10". Total length is 4'6".

My reasoning behind this was simply for portability, I sketched it out at full scale before I started and it was massive. Not to mention it would have been incredibly heavy. It's hard enough to hold the entire thing outright by the handle as it is.

Also, the observant will have noticed the missing tip on the 2nd blade. Yes, I dropped it. I haven't fixed it yet for fear of dropping it again

 

[Nerfenstein]

Re: Heavenly Sword

Still following you're amazing work here... praise praise praise <- will that help you finish this beautiful thing lol

Anna Torv is stated as being 1.73m tall, so that is indeed around 5'8"

 

[CynderBloc]

Re: Heavenly Sword

Still following you're amazing work here... praise praise praise <- will that help you finish this beautiful thing lol

Anna Torv is stated as being 1.73m tall, so that is indeed around 5'8"

Lol, sorry, I know it's taking forever. I'm busting to see it finished too. Keep an eye out tomorrow, should have a fairly big update by the evening.

Never even occurred to me to check Anna Torv's height. I got lucky then

 

[CynderBloc]

Re: Heavenly Sword

Minecraft, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

Anyway, finally starting to look like it's supposed to. I've stripped and reapplyed the paint on this more times than I care to count, but I'm happy enough now

Finish filling the red engraving, couple of blue washes, dirty it up and that'll be one done at least. Other one's not a million miles away, but coming up fast on deadline

 

[Katarnar]

Re: Heavenly Sword

Holy BEEEP! thats cool! love the design

 

[Wes R]

Re: Heavenly Sword

That's some amazing detail work.

 

[CynderBloc]

Re: Heavenly Sword

Tiny update, the engraving on the second blade is underway, and going a lot faster than the first.

However, I am an idiot, and jump headfirst into everything. I had slathered milliput all over the inner side to cover the magnets ages ago without moulding the detail. This side is going to take a while if the last few days are anything to go by.

Soldiering on....

 

[Freya Willia]

Re: Heavenly Sword

This is really lovely carving.

Btw, if you don't have an airbrush and you are using acrylic paint, you can use glazes to get the same effect. Glaze is just clear polymer that thins pigment, so you can layer it, and get tones. You can put down a glaze layer, rub some of it off, let it dry, and do that a couple of times (if done carefully, you wont be able to see where the rub-streaks are because the layers diffuse the pigment).