Introduction

Hello!
My name is Mads, I am a 3D Artist, specializing in Game Art and I decided to make a video showcasing my workflow for one of my ongoing projects. I have been working with 3D modelling for close to 7 years now, although I did not start my education in 3D until I started at 3D College in Denmark. I hope you enjoy this first blog post, and any feedback would be greatly appreciated!

Programs Used

Blender 2.8
Affinity Photo
Substance Painter

Idea Generation & Concept Development

My workflow usually always starts out with me getting an idea in my head, and then I start looking for concepts and ideas, trying to find people who have done something similar to my idea, and if possible I try and find real life pictures too.

With this sword it started out with me just having finished re-watching Lord of the Rings and I really wanted to give a try at making something more organic, more "fluid". So I started getting the idea of a light but strong Sword, with rune inscriptions on it. I was not able to find any concept art for what I had in mind, so I opened up Photoshop and began drawing up some sketches and finally found one that I settled on.

Which was this

It is simple, but I ended up falling in love with the shape of the blade. I was really struggling with the pummel and handle, I was at a complete loss for how I wanted to do it. So I of course decided to go searching on the internet again.

When I was searching, I knew I wanted something that could look like it was from a fantasy game or movie, and I wanted it to have a big gem in the middle. Even though I had a general idea of what I wanted, I was still struggling with finding what I wanted.

But then I came across a really cool jewlery website called "Artarina". And so I started looking at their pendants and I then found one that was perfect for the sword, it had those organic touches that I wanted, it had the huge gem, and most importantly. It looked like something you could see someone wear in a fantasy game or movie.

https://artarina.com/collections/wire-wrapped-pendants/products/elegant-wire-wrapped-pendant-1 

Check them out, their pendants are really awesome and ended up giving me the inspirational boost I needed to continue with the sword.

Modelling Phase

For this sword, I decided to use box modelling (and sculpting in the next blog post, hopefully)
I imported pictures of the pendant into Blender, and started modelling from the images, using them as references, making small adjustments.

In the end I ended up with this:

I am really happy with how it turned out. I didn't try to copy the pendant exactly, but mostly used it as inspiration, and ended up doing some very minor changes when I put it on the sword.

For the sword I used the same process where I imported my drawing of the sword blade, and then started modelling from it.

In the end I ended up with this result, and made some small adjustments to the pendant.

Where I'm At

 Alrighty, so this is where I am at so far. I have made the base/highpoly mesh.
I am going to be bringing it into ZBrush where I am going to be adding some final touchups and details.

One More Thing

I of course couldn't help but texture it, to give an idea of what it's going to somewhat look like when finished.