The Realm of the Dark Blade

I’ve seen my fare share of funky and freakish swords, so nothing surprises me any more, but I still have to ask myself how people come up with some of the designs I see. Like this one, for instance:

Dark Dragon Blade

The loop, pommel, and black cylindrical grip is normal enough. Not great, but OK. As is the guard. Simple but effective. But then it all goes down hill from there.

I like black blades more than most, but this one looks like someone was sitting there, looking at the thorny stem of a rose, and thought to themselves… “Hey, this might make a good sword design…!” I mean seriously. Look at the point on it. Doesn’t exactly look like it was designed to be a thrusting weapon, that’s for sure. the reverse points kinda give that away.

And sure, this thing will cut, as the outer edge of each one of those “thorns” have been sharpened, but it won’t exactly allow you any long continuous cuts. just a series of short ones. Not exactly what you want out of a combat blade. Of course it may not be a combat blade. Who knows. But i’m pretty much positive this is from an anime, though I have no clue which.

If any of you do, please feel free to let me know. I’m curious to see where this came from.

Dark Dragon Blade – [True Swords]

If you’ve been reading this blog for any amount of time, you may have heard me lamenting, on many occasions, about how some sword designers tend to take the easy route with their sword designs. Specifically, they may take a blade from one sword, graft it onto a hilt from a different sword, and sell the new combination as a completely different sword.

Personally, I find sword designs passing themselves off as something they’re not, rather dishonest. It’s like a musician plagiarizing their own work and trying to sell it to you again. I can understand that they are trying to milk every last cent of revenue out of any given sword line, but sometimes it can be a bit much, like the Punisher sword fiasco I wrote about so many moons ago.

There are, however, good ways to recycle a blade design. Basing a line of blades on the same knife profile is one way to do it, and so long as they aren’t being passed off as something else, it can be done tastefully and effectively, as the examples below demonstrate:

Flaming Bowie - Spider Motif

Flaming Bowie - Scorpion Motif

Flaming Bowie - Dragon Motif

Now the above blades are examples of knives that more or less carry the same profile. The edge grinds differ a little, however from a practical perspective, these knives all carry the same basic design, with a few minor differences. The only real differences between them is how they are furnished. Quite beautiful motifs as well, I might add.

These are essentially all full tang knives, with ornately finished scales, each with a different flame embedded motif. A Spider, a scorpion, and a dragon, in cast nickel silver, partially set into the acrylic scales of each of these knives. I’m not really a big fan of flames on knives, however in this case the effect has been quite tastefully applied. Beautiful knives all around

And all three based on the same design, without any pretense of being something they are not.

How about that!

Scorpion Flaming Bowie – [eBladeStore]
Dragon Flaming Bowie – [eBladeStore]
Spider Flaming Bowie – [eBladeStore]

I was just looking through my archive wondering what to post about next, when I ran into a prop/replica of another great anime sword I’ve always found rather cool looking, if not really, really, over the top, like Clouds massive cleaver from Final Fantasy (aka Buster), or Ichigos over sized kitchen knife from Bleach (his zanpakutō Tensa Zangetsu) , or Inuyashas rather impressive doggie tooth (Tetsusaiga), or…

Well you get my point. The list of over sized anime swords is endless. You almost get the impression they are overcompensating for… Err… something. Or not. OK never mind.

Anyway, today I found another interesting example of over-the-top black smithing. This time from the anime Beserk:

Gattsus (aka Guts) Dragon Slayer

Ain’t it a beat? Now I do not remember where this pic came from, it’s been in my gallery for a while, and I thought I had even blogged about it before, but apparently not.

Basically, this thing, in the anime Beserk, is a good 6 foot or so slab of wide, massive steel with really, really sharp edges, wielded by this crazy black knight called Guts. Or Gattsu, if you want to use the Japanese pronunciation. Bad ass guy, big ass sword. And, of course,  completely and totally unusable by anyone but a fictional hero, a genetically enhanced human, or a cyborg. Or something along those lines.

And before you say “Pfft… I can wield that mate!” Let me remind you that the ability to swing a sword around is not the same as wielding a sword. This sword, like so many other anime weapons, would, in real life, wield you, not the other way around. I kid you not. Probably pop your arms out of their sockets too.

But It is still a very mean, and no nonsense looking sword. Just love it and had to share. What can I say. I have this thing for large pieces of dark, sharpened, pointy steel. Especially those with this kind of presence…

Gattsus Dragon Slayer – [Unknown]

So a while back I ran across a rather interesting polearm:

Midnight Dragon Blade

[click to view full size]

Yes. The Midnight Dragon Blade. Dunno if it was intended for hunting dragons at midnight, or is the signature weapon of the secret sect called the Midnight Dragon Corps. Personally I’d much prefer the latter. anyway, I haven’t blogged about a polearm in a while, so when found this while looking through my archives, I thought it would make for an interesting post. Expecially since this is of a rather unusual design.

Like your average polearm, this one has a suitably lengthy shaft, in sweet blackness, tipped with a silver pommel cap sporting a design I had a hard time placing. On one hand it looks like a chain mail pattern covering some kind of flowerbud, and on the other, it could be scales on the outstretched talons of a dragon. Hm. My design-fu is weak today…

Either way, it thought it was cool. Three quarters of the way up the shaft we have a silver band, and just below the head, a dragon is depicted wrapped around the shaft, looking up towards the head. Now the head of this polearm is where it gets interesting.

The flat black head of this polearm is an eclectic collection of curves, arcs, and points, which I normally love to see, except in this case, there does not seem to be much purpose behind the arrangement. However, just for giggles, I’m going to try see if I can classify it based on it’s general features.

On one side we have what looks like the outstretched wing of a black dragon, which I thought looked very cool. It’s rearward orientation would suggest that this could be used in a bill hook fashion, however billhooks generally did not have an additional large blade on the opposite side as an accoutrement.

Opposite the wing hook we have a large beautiful crescent of black steel. Almost looks like an axe head, which would put it in Bardiche or pole cleaver category, except pole cleavers are usually single edged. Not to mention the little sub crescent in the top of the curve, besides being really annoying, really kills the axe head shape. Which is possibly why I find it annoying. But I digress.

There is also no real forward point to speak of, the top of the axe head curves too far in to make a good thrusting point, so this would probably be best used as a hacking, hooking or or cutting weapon. So we are left with the generic “random blade on a long stick” polearm, AKA – the Halberd.

Halberds perhaps come in the widest variety of blade shapes and sizes, but to be honest, they also generally all have a good useable thrusting point as well, which this doesn’t have. However, since there are versions of polearms with bill hooks on one side and large axe like blades on the other, I’m gonna stick with that, as two out of three isn’t bad.

Meh. Who am I kidding… This thing is unclassifiable. It’s a fantasy weapon. They threw me for a loop by omitting “fantasy” from the name, but the “Dragon” in the nomenclature should have given it away. You’d think i would have figured all this out by now. Live an learn I guess…

It’s still a cool looking polearm, though…

Midnight Dragon Blade – [King of Swords]

Happy Halloween!!! I thought I’d end the week, and my short miniseries on well constructed replicas, with a look at an excellent fan made replica weapon sent in by reader Hector E. None other than Zar’roc from the book turned movie, Eragon:

Zar'roc

[click image to view full size]

Some of you may remember a prior post, many moons ago on another version of Zar’roc, which had a beautiful blade, but a hilt that could, at best, be described as “toylike”. Hector was kind enough to point me to a site sporting a much more accurate, custom made version.

Zar'roc

[click image to view full size]

As you can see, this ain’t no kids toy. In fact, this replica has been approved by Christopher Paolini, the author of the book Eragon, upon which the movie is based. And I can see why.

Zar'roc - Hilt Side

[click image to view full size]

If you are a fan of the book, you will notice that, in contrast to the other Zar’roc replica, this one actually has a red pommel, instead of the blue one, which, while movie accurate, is not at all true to the book.

Ok, so it’s not quite a ruby, but at the very least it is red, instead of a blue sapphire, which is a significant improvement over the movie replica. I really don’t see why the movie makers decided to take that particular kind or artistic liberty with the design, as it seems to be a trivial and unnecessary change, but I’m not a movie maker either…

Zar'roc - Red Ruby Pommel

[click image to view full size]

But there are other changes. In the book, not only did Zar’roc carry a large, tear shaped red ruby in it’s pommel, but it also sported a silver wire wrapped grip. The movie version is wrapped in black leather. The Silver wire grip is yet another feature faithfully reproduced in this replica.

Down to the guard, oh, my… what a guard it is! A beautiful organic sliver of steel tipped with a pair of downward pointing, claw like ends. Quite the menacing piece of steel.

Zar'roc - Hilt

[click image to view full size]

And then we come to the glorious red blade. Almost a candy apple red, with a short inverted spade shaped ricasso, that flows into a beautiful slim, straight, double edged sword, it’s quite the looker.

Zar'roc - Ricasso

[click image to view full size]

All of this crimson steel, eventually angles it’s way inwards to a rather keen looking, narrow wedge shaped point, at the business end of the weapon. And boy does it mean business:

Zar'roc - Crimson Sword Point

[click image to view full size]

Now this is what I call a replica. Making the vision of the original artist become reality. Absolutely all kinds of sweetness incarnate. In fact, this sword almost looks good enough to eat…

You know, drizzle a little more caramel on that blade, and… Nom…

Zar’roc – [Shur'tugal]

And no, I am not having a bad day, and my language is just fine thank you very much.

My heading refers, quite literally, to another red sword that looks for all the world like the last wielder ran their last opponent clean through with it, withdrew the weapon, threw the sword unceremoniously into the growing pool of the vanquished enemy’s blood, and just walked away…

Dragon Talon Fantasy Sword

[Click image to view full size]

So this, my friends, is the Dragon Talon Fantasy sword. And as fantasy swords go, well… I like it. It’s another one of those designs that doesn’t try to do too much, and succeeds at doing what it’s trying to do very well. That’s not to say it isn’t devoid of gimmicks. It is a “fantasy” sword after all.

And I’ve found, much to my frequent chagrin, that the word “Fantasy” in front of any weapon is usually license for the designer to engage in all manner of obscene atrocities in their design. But as gimmicks go, this sword is actually many rungs above the normal level of sacrilege I see committed in the name of “Fantasy design”.

This sword, true to it’s name, is every bit designed around the “Dragon Talon” motif. The Pommel of the sword features a set of two dragons talons, curving towards each other. Above that we have the grip, which is spiral wrapped in what looks a like a soft faux leather material. Not the best grip finish by any means, but for a wall hanger it is probably survivable.

The guard is where things begin to get interesting. True to form, the guard consists of a similar set of inward curving dragon claws, much like the pommel, but with a twist. For herein lies our gimmick of the day: a set of two small dragon headed daggers that are set into small sockets opposite each other, at the base of the grip.

These small daggers can be pulled out and used independently. I like the design of the dragon heads in them, and while they aren’t particularly large, they are very reminiscent of the Japanese practice of placing small knives, called kogatana, into pockets in the side of the saya (sheaths) of their swords.

These are even smaller than those, and might be better described as finger knives, but you could probably get a comparable level of functionality out of them, were anyone silly enough to attempt to use this sword for any practical purposes…

Anyway back to the blade. And what a distinctive blade it is! A simple, straight line, tapering blade profile, with a short ricasso, and a spear tip, painted from hilt to tip, in a deep blood red hue that transitions to an almost reddish black oxide color at the edge and tip. A rare but welcome change from the usually flashy steel I see so often.

Overall a nice design. I would not trust the grip bindings to hold up to any kind of use, nor for the little sub blades to stay in place under duress, but otherwise, I like the design and if, for some hypothetical reason, I had select any one given “Fantasy” blade to be run through with, this would be in my top 5…

What? No. No, at the moment, I can’t think of any realistic scenarios where I would get to choose the preferred weapon to be run through with. Nor, for that matter, why I would be letting someone run me through at all. But that’s just the way my mind works.

OK, I have issues, alright? Let’s just leave it at that. OK? Thank you…

Dragon Talon Fantasy Sword – [True Swords]

I posted recently about the various niches in “bladed art”, and thought this would be an interesting addition to the list of things that get a hearty “What in the name of…” from yours truly:

The Night Glider - Click to view full size

Now I found this… creature… on an Australian website while looking for something else, but it definitely caught my eye. Now I know I had mentioned before that there were quite a few crossover bladed art pieces, but this is something new…

The Night Glider - Click to view full size

The Night Glider looks to be a cross between a dragon, a greyhound, and a vengeful revenant… Except it’s limbs have been replaced by rather substantial blades. It’s arms are a set of outstretched dragon like wings, tipped with a large fore-to-aft curving blade, with a smaller sub-blade protruding backwards from where the traditional thumb joint would normally be in such winged marvels.

The Night Glider - Click to view full size

It’s upper body and head are suitably revenant like, looking like an incompletely (but symmetrically), decomposed skeleton brought back to do some… Errr unsavory task. The back half is an interesting mix of bony canine (hence the greyhound reference) and dragon, complete with pointy tail. What’s even more striking is that the rear paws of this particular canine have been replaced with a set of rather intimidating blades, which kinda raises the thorny philosophical question… How does it land?

The Night Glider

In fact, given how much of it’s extended skeleton has been converted to blades, albeit unsharpened ones, I dare say this unfortunate chap must actually fly (or glide…) continuously, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week , 365 days a year, as it appears to be ill equipped for any kind of terrestrially based activity… That’s assuming it could actually fly with metal wings.

Actually, now that I think about it, why not? It worked for Archangel didn’t it? All it would have to worry about would be sticking the landing. Or not sticking the landing. Depending on how you look at it.

Ok, I’ll stop rambling now…

• Night Glider – [eBladeStore]
• Night Glider – [Global Gear]

Today, I just so happened to run into a double bladed weapon that might actually not be bad…

Dragon Mutilator

[view full size]

Ok, yes, the knife designers went the unimaginative route and decided to go with a dragon theme. Whoopty doo. Let’s move on… Disregarding that now all too common dragon faux pas, we really have what I’d consider a creative design here. At first glance it appears to be a single weapon with two blades, and a spiked and bladed finger guard running over your precious phalanges.

The blades are a fairly curvy single edged dagger like design, with a dragon flame motif, which runs down into a dragon head transition piece that sits between the blade and the black cord wrapped grip. However there is an interesting surprise. It is in fact, it appears that this is actually constructed of two single knives, that fit together back to back, (Or actually side by side), to form this rather menacing weapon.

From what I can see, it looks like the pommels of each knife is specially designed with a ledge that fits into a recess behind the blade/grip transition area, being locked on at least one side by a special latch built into the ledge on the pommel of one of the blades.

Interestingly though, I could not find any indication of a similar latch on the other blade, so it looks like the knives are not mirror images of each other, but rather work as a primary/secondary pair. Definitely not the way I would have done it. But then I’m a fanatic about symmetry.

The from the pics, I’d guess that the primary blade, which has no latch, also gets the center spike in on the guard, as this would be the easiest way to split it. The secondary blade, would then be the one with the locking latch built into pommel, and gets short changed a spike…

Altogether not a bad idea, although i would definitely have gone for absolute symmetry, with latches on the pommels of both blades (for strength), an even number of spikes (so they could be evenly divided between each blade and therefore identical) And would perhaps have eliminated the oh, so clichéd dragon motif…

But that’s just me…

Dragon Mutilator – [Collectors Edge]

One of the unusual habits of modern day blade designers I find a bit puzzling is their penchant for questionable weapon names. Take this set of swords for example:

Dragon Slayers

[view full size] [view full size]

Now I’m not saying these aren’t cool looking swords. Because they are. Albeit perhaps a little gaudy for my taste around the cross guard area. But the point is, What we are looking at are a set of dragon themed swords, called… Dragon Slayers. Yes. Seems innocent enough, right? Except that, in the face of tradition, this name makes no sense. I’m making no sense? Ok, ok let me explain.

Traditionally, any special sword design or name would serve as an obvious indicator of either it’s use, abilities, or as a tribute to something. Look at the LOTR for example. Every weapon had a name. And each name had a significance in relation to it’s history or purpose.

Let’s take, for instance, Gandalfs Sword, Glamdring. AKA “Foe Hammer”, “Beater”, and in more contemporary works “Goblin Cleaver”. Pretty self explanatory what it’s supposed to be for. And then there are sword whose design is intended to pay homage to a creature of strength and honor, like, for instance, the Japanese Dragon Katana, where the Dragon is an honored good luck charm of strength and power, whose design has been integrated into the grip.

This weapon, on the other hand, seems confused. The design itself is actually fine, the idea of a black scimitar with a rearing dragon cross guard, black grip and dragon head pommel is ok, (though perhaps too many dragon heads for my taste) but then naming it the “Dragon Slayer”? Seems a bit contradictory to me. Either you are honoring the dragon by designing a sword around it, or you design the sword to slay it… Not both.

Perhaps I am confused about the sword naming rules, (or maybe there aren’t any…), but personally I probably would have gone for a more Dragon friendly name…

Dragon Slayers – [True Swords]

Without a doubt, I’ve blogged about my fair share of Dragon swords in the past.  Some were deserving of the title, but most were not. But every now and then I run into a design that is unique and exceptional. And today I just so happen to have run across such a weapon.

Ornate Medieval Dragon Sword

[view full size]

Now this sword is unique in more than a couple respects. Take the blade for instance. It seems to be a cross between a Japanese and European design. It is not quite as curved as a Japanese Katana, however it doesn’t appear to be completely straight either. It carries a three quarter length fuller, without which I might easily have taken this blade for a Japanese make, based on the profile of the blade point, which looks very stereotypically Japanese. If I had to classify it I’d say it was a Japanese saber, though I’d ask that you not quote me on that…

But an even more interesting aspect of the design is how the dragon theme is implemented. The scabbard employs the liberal use of a dragon coiled around the sheath as the scabbard end cap and the attachment points for chain belt hanger. Bu what is perhaps the most interesting feature on the sword is the dragon hilt design.

Unlike most other dragon swords that feature a dragon “motif” the hilt of this weapon makes extensive use of a dragon’s anatomy, rearranging it to fit the practical needs of the hilts design, rather than simply decorating a traditional design with a dragon motif.

On this weapon, just below the ricasso, you can see that the dragons wings and forelimbs have been extended to form a guard, with the dragon facing the direction of the blade. In fact the blade seems to spring from the dragons chest. Continuing down you can see that the body of the dragon is also the grip, and not content to stop there, the designers curved the ridged scaly tail of the dragon back forwards to over the grip, stopping  just in front of the outstretched front limbs to form a knuckle guard.

While I will admit to having seen a similar knife arrangement with the blade coming out of the dragons mouth, and the front limbs forming a crude guard, I don’t think I have ever seen this done in combination with outspread dragons wings forming a large guard in this way before.

All and all, quite an engaging design, worthy of the Dragon moniker…

Ornate Medieval Dragon Sword – [Tulip Collectibles]