Artist: Micheal Hall
Email: infinitystudios@yahoo.com
Homepage: http://www.geocities.com/infinitystudios/

Imagine: IFW 2.0
Platform: Celeron 400 MHz, 96 MB
Renderingtime: about 10 minutes for each image

This is an image of a psuedo samarai sword I made.

The modeling took a few hours to get the right feel of it. Unfortunately, the final image in the background is NOT the final model nor are the close-ups of the handle. However, I simply ran out of time to render the scene and composite the image as I wanted.

I used various textures and brushmaps to get the effect I wanted -- I have included the brushmaps in the zip file with the object. At this point, there is no sheath, however I do plan on making one to complete the object.

The idea comes from a series of books I am reading for the third time ("The Wheel of Time" by Robert Jordan) -- a series I think is incredible. This sword is similar to my interpretation of the one that the main character, Rand Al'Thor receives in the first book from his father, Tam. However, for those of you who have read the series, there are currently no herons on the sword (there are on the final model, but they're still being tweaked) and I don't feel the pommel matches my visualization.

The model is quite polygon heavy, as I modeled this in low resolution by hand and then fractured and smoothed extensively.

The scene was traced with a soft shadow array and depth of field.

The drape in the background and on which the sword rests were again modeled by hand in low res and then fractured and smoothed to achieve a wrinkled cloth look. There is a main shadow casting light, a fill light and several accent lights for the background and the harsh sort of highlight under the blade of the sword (only somewhat visible in the composite).