Yeah, so about swords...

Hey guys,

So my last post set the stage for the costume foray.  This post is going to talk about the Master Sword.

So, first, a thing about swords; I know something about them.  I've been in love with swords since before I can remember.  There are pictures of me at age 3 running around with a toy, wooden sword sticking out of the back of my shirt.  I watched He-Man religously.  I played The Legend of Zelda since the first installment.  With my first summer job, what did I buy?  My first REAL sword from Museum Replicas, Ltd. (www.museumreplicas.com - Great company, by the way).

Now, moving onto Zelda.  EVERY master sword replica out there suffers from a number of major flaws:

1.) They are resin; or stainless steel blades

2.) They have cast metal (aluminum or pewter or some other soft metal) guards, pommels and grips.

3.) They are off-balance; either very blade heavy, or overall too heavy.  Their blades tend to be false-edged and have no taper; with a hexagonal cross-section blade which, while true to the game; does not make for a practical sword of any kind (see in my previous post about game designers).

I knew right away that none of these would do.  I needed something better.  Something real.  So here's the concept: Take the distinguishing features of the sword: acorn/scent-stopper pommel, winged guard, triforce on the ricasso (or base of the face of the blade), and ensuring there is some blue on the sword somewhere (remember, Fi was blue?).  Now imagine that Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings styling of elven craftsmanship were applied.  Imagine if you will, that the same smiths who forged Glamdring or Sting were the ones to forge the Master Sword.  It should look unmistakable as the Master Sword, but with a distinctive elven styling.  I developed a concept sketch and started working with Christian Fletcher (www.christianfletcher.com) about it.

After a lot of back and forth and discussion with him; unfortunately we ran iinto a problem acquiring a blade of the right profile for what I wanted.  Long story short, I wound up moving the commission to Brendan Olszowy over at Fable Blades (www.fableblades.com).  I'm hoping to still have Christian craft the scabbard once the sword is done; his scabbard work is breathtaking.  I already have one of his swords (with scabbard)  and it is truly amazing!  I am looking forward to working with Brendan as well.  He is a super great guy (just like Christian) and he is also pretty excited about the project.  The commission there has begun and should take about 5-6 months to complete.  The guard and pommel, etc. should be done first and is roughly about 6 weeks out.  I'm working with him to hopefully get progress photos and will post them here as they come through.  The blade will have the same profile as his "Truth" sword:

(Courtesy: http://www.fableblades.com/Truth.html)



The exception will be that the fuller will start further away from the guard, making room for the triforce on the ricasso.  The hilt is a design I sketched and will look like this:

Now, you Zelda buffs will notice a few things: the grip is different than the cylindrical grip of the game-sword, the wings are more elegant and thin, there is a grip spacer, it lacks the disc looking thing that bridges the guard from the grip, and the pommel is different.  This was all intentional; this all makes for a more balanced sword (balancing is critical in a bastard sword; which is what the Master Sword really is, not to be confused with a two-handed or longsword).  This is where the "elven" styling comes into play and where some of the artistic license is.

The actual ricasso will have a triforce design like this:

(found at: http://fictivefantasies.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/triforce_ultharwe.jpg)

It will not have the lettering.






  

 Down the blade will be the following inscription:






Yeah, yeah.. it's not QUITE perfect Hylian; it should be actually be reversed as in the games, but it is using the "Twilight Princess" script (not Ancient Hylian from "Skyward Sword").  I'm not a huge fan of the reversed Hylian so it's just english transliterated into the Hylian runes.  It still looks pretty cool, so... meh.

As I said before, if I can get progress photos from Brendan along the way, I'll post them with progress.

See you next time!