So a friend and myself were talking about tattoo's she was planning on getting, strength and pain... and the conversation progressed over to talking about a double sided sword, one side that brought pain and the other life. Later tonight, I was looking around Google Image and happened to trip upon the energy sword from Halo, and when I saw the two blades, I immediately wanted to try to connect that with what I mentioned earlier, if for no reason but to show it to my friend and see what she thought.
A small part of me thinks that I messed up an energy sword that ended up turning out much better than I thought it would, with the extra stuff... however, I feel like I set out and accomplished the original goal I set for myself when I had the final idea in mind.
I'd love some feedback, especially since I have a little more time to work on it before I show it to her.
PS: I made the energy sword entirely from scratch, starting with a 3D model I made in 3D Studio Max.
PSS: If anyone would like to see just the energy sword by itself, I'll upload that and post it.
PSSS: You can see all the WIP shots I took as I was making it and getting feedback from friends, at my Photobucket profile:
http://s36.photobucket.com/albums/e42/GoldenSonic3000/
As a 3D model and in the way you've produced it here, it looks great. It's translation to tattoo however, will be somewhat limited in that it's a fairly basic shape and not a traditional sword with a hilt, so it may not be recognizable as a sword instantly.
I think it looks very cool, but for a tattoo design there would need to be more considered in the design, unless she's happy with just that.
I'm quite interested in tattoos, have been for years, have one myself and also with my knowledge of elements and principles of design/art, when ever I think about tattoos I instantly begin to think about two things mainly; how does it translate to ink on skin (size, level of detail, tattoo ageing)? And is the design readable, will it stand on it's own and is it's position on the body going to compliment the design and it's ideas?
My tattoo is only small but as I plan out what's going to cover my arm, these are things I consider myself when thinking about how it will mesh with my existing tattoo and what I can potentially do with the space. As a permanent piece of art, you really want to be sure it is going to look great
i dont think the point is that this is gonna be a tattoo. its that it started out as a conversation about tattoos his friend was getting and it ended up with him making this. amirite?
Haha, yeah I was actually just getting ready to post a reply about that. I appreciate the feedback, but yeah... this was just inspired by the conversation with the tattoo, she already has a bunch of designs she wants to get.
With that said, keep the feedback coming. Just keep that in mind.
It looks good but I'm unsure about it's functionality as a sword. Since both blades are next to each other and pointing the same direction wouldn't you be stabbing the person with a "pain" and "life" blade at the same time?
The blades look okay but I hope she's not considering the japanesey (or w/e) writing. That's really 1998-2001 and looks pretty damn tacky as tattoos IMO.
Well that's why I decided to do Strength and Pain instead of Life and Pain, for this particular picture.
@Adam: My explanation for the tattoo's my friend was getting was merely the story behind the reason I created the picture itself. Aside from that, this really has absolutely nothing to do with her tattoo's.
I'll get to talking about the design in a minute. Throwing around kanji as if each symbol has an exact English equivalent is a really stupid thing to do.
"tsuyosa" means strength, but it doesn't specifically mean human physical or emotional strength, which I assume is what your friend was aiming for. tsuyosa means strength, as in a measurement of how strong something is. It's the same word an engineer would use to describe the maximum load of a bridge. Imagine a Japanese person with "STRONGNESS" tattooed on their back. "chikara" (力 power) would be more appropriate because that mostly applies to human strength. Yeah, it's not such an awesome looking kanji as the one in the picture, but I guess 3000 years ago when they were making the lauguage, they didn't think that westerners would want to use it as body decoration.
The second kanji, "kutsuu" is alright gramatically, but it's very very strange to have that one as a tattoo. Do whatever you want but she can expect muffled laughter and (more likely) strange looks if she ever goes to a country where they understand it.
Anyway, nice picture. The sword texture looks a bit Photoshoppy, like it was just made with the Clouds filter and 5 others. The rest looks fine, and I like how the sword reflects the colours in the background. It seems like a little bit of a waste to have gone to the trouble of modelling the sword in 3D only to display it from a front view. Before I saw the WIP pictures I honestly thought it was just Photoshop bevel. The handle looks great, though.
Bloody hell Nim, are you a ninja? Either way, it's cool to know Japanese (or whatever language it is)! Not sure about the design though... to be honest, won't people just keep asking "what is it?" when they see it? It doesn't resemble a sword at all. We don't just want Halo geeks to know what it is, surely?
Oh okay, I was mistaken and thought it was a potential tattoo design, not just a spark of creativity.
I just thought you were creating it for her to get because you said you were working on it to show to her and that you wanted to connect it to what she had earlier said.