MAKING A SWORD

Well this did not turn out exactly the same as the first time I made a sword (I knew I should have written it down as I went along).  Never mind, the end product is still workable and you can have some fun experimenting with different techniques to achieve the effects you desire.

PART I : THE BLADE

Step 1

Open a new canvas, 800W x 400H, 72 rgb, transparent background.  Create a new layer.  Select the rectangular marquee, mark out a selection approximately 600 wide by 60 pixels high.  Select B6B4B4 as foreground color and 514F4F as background color.  Select gradient tool and draw a linear gradient vertically across your selection.

Step 2

Duplicate the gradient layer, Edit/Transform/Flip vertically and move it down so the edges of the two layers meet, like the picture on the right.  Merge these two layers.

Step 3

Make a rectangular selection of the bottom of your gradient layer.  Bear in mind when doing this, how long you want the point of your sword to be.  Copy this selection and paste on a new layer, and delete the selection from the original layer.

Step 4

On the new layer, go to Edit/Transform/Perspective and pull the right hand ends in until the meet at the middle and form a point.

Delete the excess in the layer behind. Merge the 2 layers together.

Step 5

Go to Select/All, then Edit/Cut.  Go to channels palette and create a new channel.  Ctrl+V to paste selection. Click on the back outside of the shape with the magic wand, go to Select/Inverse.

Step 6

Click back on your layer.  Using the same colors as before, drag a Reflected Gradient from the centre of the image, up and out.

Step 7

Go to Filter/Render/Lighting Effects and follow the settings below.

Step 8

Duplicate the layer and set layer opacity at 25%.

Step 8a (Optional)

Go to Filer/Add Noise (5-10).  The go to Filter, Blur, Motion Blur, Angle 0 Distance 30.

Step 9

On a new layer, select the rectangular marquee and draw out a narrowish selection in the centre of the sword and fill it with black.

Step 10

Double click on layer to bring up styles and use the following settings.

Step 11

Should you wish to resize your sword blade at this point, copy all relevant layers, turn of eyes for original layers, and merge copy layers.  Resize as desired (I did).

PART II : SWORD HANDLE

You can either create a new canvas for the handle or simply turn off the eyes in your current canvas so you can concentrate of the handle.

Step 1

Use a horizontal guide to divide your canvas in half.  The select the pen tool and draw out the shape of your handle.  Each time you click the pen tool, an anchor point appears.  When you get all the way around and click back on your starting point, it seals the selection.

Step 2

Click on your path palette, and control click on the work path to make the handle a selection.

Step 3

Now click on your channels tab and create a new channel (Alpha 1).

Go to Blur/Gaussian Blur 10, repeat at 5, then at 2.5.  Deselect and gaussian blur at 1.

Step 4

Go to Select/Modify/Contract.  The amount you contract depends on the size of your original drawing. I used a 3 (but this could be anywhere from 5-10).  The go to Select/Feater and set it at about 3 and fill with a mid gray color (9E9C9C was used here).

Step 5

Click back on your layer.  Hit D key to make foreground black and background white.  Drag linear gradient from centre out.

Step 6

Filter/Render/Lighting Effects and use the following settings (or if you have better ones, use them).

When satisfied.  Duplicate the layer and flip the new layer vertically.  Move new layer into play to make handle (I then merged these layers).

Step 7

I applied a couple of 105mm lens flares to mine. (Tip: You can also play around with the curves under Image/Adjust for different effects).

Step 8

Create a new layer   Using rectangular marquee draw a rectangular selection similar to the one here.  Its going to site above your blade but below the handle.  Fill with a linear gradient (similar to the colors used before - remember the lightest should be in the foreground this time).  Drag the gradient from half way inside the rectangle, up and out.

Step 9

Create a new layer.  Use the rectangular marquee to draw out another selection, a button sort of shape which is going to join our handle to the blade..  Again use your gradient tool,  this time dragging it from the centre of the selection to the right (so the light falls in the middle again).  Go to Edit/Transform/Perspective and drag the top right and bottom right handles in a little to reshape.

Step 10

Create a new layer.  Using the same procedures as before, select the elliptical marquee to make a knob shape on top of your sword.  Draw this as a circle to begin with.  Filter/Render/Clouds.  Filter/Render/Lens Flare (remember tutorials on jewels??).  Filter/Distort/Spherise.

Once you have completed these steps you can scale your knob to a desired shape.

There you have it!  You can use Image/Adjust/Hue Saturation to adjust colorization of various parts of your sword.

The example immediately below was my original sword, no styles, just filters such as lighting effects, spherizing etc (the one that prompted me to try and do this tutorial).  The sword below that is the one created in this tutorial, but this time I applied a variety of styles to get decorative effects and enhance the metallic look of the sword.

 How you decorate it, is up to you ....... experiment and have fun. 

Luv & Light - Dreamcatcher