Honours Project 3 - Jian Sword

This week was the third week of my Jian Sword project. This week I finished the texturing the sword and created a simple stand for the sword to be displayed on. I kept the stand simple as I didn't want to draw too much attention away from the sword as it is the main focal point. The stand was easy to create as it wasn't very complicated and I had already created a wood texture for the sword handle and sheath. I made this texture into a smart material, changed the colours and roughness and added some wear to the edges. At the beginning of the week, I received some feedback that the wood texture I created would look better smoother as I was going for a clean and maintained look for the asset. This was a simple change as I removed some of the added detail, altered the height of various layers, and adjusted the roughness of the wood. This improved the look of the asset and added a polish to it. Whilst I was altering the texture of the weapon I had the idea to add a mark/brand to th...

This week was the second week of my Jian Sword project. So far the project has been progressing smoothly. Carrying on from last week I finished modelling my sword and have been texturing it. I received some feedback, from my tutors, at the start of the week. It was mentioned that the handle wasn't looking right. I agreed and started to check and compare it to swords similar to the one I'm creating. I was using a cylinder for the handle and its radius was quite circular which ended up being the reason the sword wasn't looking correct. The handles of real Jian swords have a more oval radius, like they've been squashed to fit the users hand. This was a quick fix as I only needed to squeeze the handle and then adjust the guard and pommel to fit. Another piece of feedback that I received was that I could make a stand for my sword to sit on. I agreed with this as I believe it would be more visually appealing when compared to having the sword floating in the air or laid on a f...

This week was the start of my third project for my honours module at UCLAN. For this project I have decided to create a Jian sword. The Jian sword is a double-edged straight sword that originated in ancient China. It is known as the 'Gentleman's sword' due to its design and what it represents. I decided to make this sword because recently I have been enjoying wuxia novels. Wuxia novels are stories of fiction that follow warriors in ancient China, in these novels the Jian sword is quite a prominent and powerful weapon. This week I have been gathering research on the Jian sword so that I could properly understand its cultural importance, uses, and the way it is/was crafted. Once I believed that I properly understood the history and structure of the sword, I gathered various images, of the type of sword I wanted to create, that I then analysed. You can see this below:  I also made a list of links to websites that contain information which I believe will be useful when modellin...