Buster Sword

RNucci

Hey everyone, here's a scene I did of the buster sword sitting at the bar in 7th heaven. Critiques appreciated!

It should be noted that while its generally not efficient to do so, I tried to do the sword as one solid mesh in order to practice edge flow positioning and hiding the inevitable consolidation of extra edges that would occur as a consequence. Ultimately, I was able to keep the blade down to 3 parts; the blade/crossguard, the hilt, and the engraved section of the blade. trying to do it all as one mesh would have resulted in a ridiculously messy and heavy mesh (which it was a bit already, hence the effort to avoid getting any worse). 

Rawbert

I really like the shapes the sword has in the wireframe.
What bothers me is that the grip looks really thin compared to the sword itself and because of the thickness of the blade it doesnt feel / look dangerous.

The the main issue is the lighting in your scene.
imo the sword should be in the spotlight and right now its not.
It's too dark and most parts of the sword is unreadable.

Nuclear Angel

I did not even see that it was a sword at first. I really think you should show the entire sword, and not just a part of it. Zoom out and get a better angle, and show it in its entire glory.

Also I agree what Rawbert said, that the grip is super tiny and that the sword is too dark. 

Good luck. 

Poseidon8734

I agree with both Angel and Rawbert. I also think the whole sword should be shown or at least more. Also the contrast between the background and the sword should be greater. They kind of blend together.

RNucci

Thanks for the critique everyone. The contrast bothers me a bit as well. Moving the sword away from the grate and separating the two with the wood of the bar might help.

As for the grip, I built the sword to "specs" so I'm not sure what I would do about that part. I mean, the whole point of the buster sword is its supposed to be this enormous, unwieldy looking sword so I feel if i tried to make the grip thicker in proportion to the blade, one wouldn't be able to put their hands around it lol.

As for not showing the whole blade, again, this is a huge sword, so I kind of had to choose between showing the whole sword and being able to make out the details of it. I ultimately chose the details and built the bar around it so all the planks and the back bar only go to the end of the frame. I did end up building another scene to showcase the whole sword in all its glory, it just wasn't what I wanted to do for this scene.

the lighting is supposed to be kind of dark and drab considering the context of Midgar's slum theme. I suppose I could move the lights around to highlight the rest of the sword. it just seems counter to what I was going for. 

Anyway, thanks again for the advice and keep em coming!