For my project I chose to model the Master Sword from the Legend of Zelda video game series. This was my first time ever using any modeling software so I chose blender and spent some time learning it from YouTube videos. I made my life easier by choosing a background image of the sword to use as a guideline which made sure everything looked proportional and symmetrical.

The handle was the easiest to make as all I did was extrude a cylinder along the image which was extremely simple and took about 5 minutes. After that I modeled half the blade by extruding single vertices along the background and by translating sections of different thicknesses to get the desired depth. Then I would mirror that half of the sword about the z-axis to get a perfectly symmetrical blade. I did the exact same thing for the guard except it took longer because of the more complex structure. For the triangles on the blade, all I did was make the image and have it ever so slightly sticking off the sword so I would be able to texture it and have it show.

After all the modeling was done I started to add texture to the sword using different materials to give it different colors as well as different reflective properties. For the blade I made it very shiny as well as diffuse light so it looked like a bright blade instead of a mirror, with a silvery colour. As for the handle I did pretty much the same thing as the blade except I made it appear less bright and more polished as well as gave it a navy blue colour. I did the jewel at the base of the blade as shiny as I could as to make it look like polished gold to which I got close but unfortunately I could only make it look like polished bronze instead. Lastly, for the triangle pattern on the blade I made it a solid bright yellow so it would look like it was glowing even with just a little bit of light.

For the scene I went with something simple and chose a neutral checkerboard floor without any reflectivity and I also made a simple stone pedestal to which I could rest the sword in. As for the light, I have it set up where the light source is a large light emitting plane off to the right of the scene which adds a lot of nice depth to the sword so it shows all the details and edges really well.

I would have to say that overall this was a very enjoyable project that took me about 15 hours total including learning time. Everything went quite except the couple issues I had was getting some of the materials just right and also making sure all my curved blade sections by the triangles had enough faces to make them look smooth and curved. I definitely will have to do this again in the future.