So I thought I'd take a crack at creating a dynamic and fantasy sword!

Seeing as I am a fan of gizmos, gadgets, wires and mechanical things I decided to take a makeshift turn to the project. I wanted my inspiration to be mechanical along with being very makeshift. So now with that, I took to google to find some imagery that may inspire me.

Fusion Blade (Mark VI) - image 1 - student project

(really liked the katana style for the handle in this image, along with the gizmo directly above the handle. Gave me inspiration of a HUD element on the blade)

Fusion Blade (Mark VI) - image 2 - student project

(I simply could not find a more makeshift reference then this image. It is as if the parts were scrambled from things in a garage, but this was the perfect reference point for a makeshift aspect to the blade)

Fusion Blade (Mark VI) - image 3 - student project

Now for the fun part! I took to my sketchbook and started drawing shapes. While I was drawing, I started making a story up about the blade, started asking questions to myself such as who forged the weapon? why did he/she forge the blade? What is the "Power" of the blade? With the creative answers to these questions, I was able to makeshift parts together, generating answers such as "well, the top of the blade is forged from a space mineral, yet to extract its raw energy takes human enginuity, yet I am just a boy forging a sword never seen before. The handle was taken from the lost katana and the right shank was from a bull." This made the drawing stage quite fun and made the final product over the top and completely left wing from what I thought I would be generating, which is what I wanted; to try something completely new and exciting.

This ideology makes a story out of the sword and now taps directly into the fantasy element I wanted to grasp.

Fusion Blade (Mark VI) - image 4 - student project

Using this ideology, along with very detailed lighting techniques provided in this class along with some lighting techniques I experimented with, I came up with the Fusion Blade Mark VI, a blade forged of many mystical parts along with parts that one may find in a basement.

Some challenges I faced were lighting some of the the odd shapes I have created (hydrolic pumps, element in the middle of the blade (fusion reactor), but using a mixture of radial and linear gradients I was able to overcome most of the shapes. The other oddl shapes that I could not overcome, (this is where I discovered a new means of lighting) I discovered that creating "light shapes" within the shape and then using gaussian blur to create a sense of gradient would solve the problem.

All in all, a mighty fun project, and a great way to let your creativity run a little wild.

Dave Tauro

Graphic Design & Digital Arts

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