WIP~Tanto Style Knife

Krazy8

I am doing a concept on a tanto style knife. I want some c&c on it. This is my first try at hand painting a knife so please tell me all my flaws. I feel the blade could be a bit more shiny but I know a lot of tactical knives like this are dull except the blade. I think it feels a bit like stone though. I went with a 550 paracord wrap on the handle. I plan on doing a 3d version of it and hand painting that as well.

KyleJensen

I think it should be decorated. It's mundane right now.

Steve Schulze

Isn't a tanto a traditional japanese parrying dagger, like a very small katana?

Krazy8

@Shad0wForce How should it be decorated? I'm going for a knife being used in the field as you could say. I do admit though it is kinda of bland I just don't know what to add.
@Jackablade Yes the Tanto is but there are knife designs available now with the tanto STYLE. It is a very popular design.

I think the one thing i can do is maybe raise the blade up and maybe add something on the top part of the knife.

Snader

I think you should go with just a wrap over the tang, and drop the darkgrey part.

you'll end up with something like this or that last ref you showed. Which are more sturdy designs, because there's less parts. You might also notice that both these refs show a lot larger angled part (over half) then your concept (about 1/5th) so maybe that's an idea.

On the concept, what's killing the metal and making it look like stone? The linework.
Your drawing is made up of many short strokes, making the edges look rough, like rock.


I smoothed the linework out a bit, as well as the blade's surface. I also added a noise layer to achieve a sandblasted look. Added a bit of environment and sky reflection on the blade and side, and a subltle shading and sheen.

Krazy8

I appreciate your paint over Snader. It really helps me out understand what I was doing wrong. I agree with dropping the dark grey and making it all the same color. I don't know why I didnt do that in the first part. How do you feel about the paracord though?

Revel

Any particular reason why you only put 2 inward curves at the handle?..I think it would be more easy to grab if there were 4 of them to match up with the 4 fingers.

The other thing that I see lack from your model is a "characteristic" of the knife itself. I agree with Shad0wForce, if you can add some carved in decoration to the blade it will looks much better, not just "another tanto style knife".

_Revel

Krazy8

Yea. I might do some nice etching in the blade. Might make a fake company or just do like Ka Bar in the blade. I went with the two dips because its more of a fighting knife. The hump will just add grip instead of 4. I will try to post a picture of my reference. I was mostly just drawing from my head though.