Concept Art Project: Rapier of the Neck-Romancer
I recently completed this piece as volunteer concept work for an online modding community, as a way to practice, hone, and demonstrate my skills. This sword belongs to a mysterious and decadent vampire living deep within a frightening swamp. I wanted to capture a distinctive bug-like nature, capturing the piercing bite of a vampire in a way that deviates away from traditional vampire mythology and towards the strangeness of bugs. I settled on the scorpion motif to capitalize on that idea - golden scorpion-tail shapes curling around, with damascened scorpion tails adorning the grip. This sword is a manifestation of a vampire's sting.
Final Concept Sheet, featuring full orthographic views, material spheres, and relevant real-world material samples and explanations
Silhouettes, Iteration 1
Silhouettes, Iteration 2. Was instructed to focus on more distinctive cup and basket guards, while leaning into the bug-and-scorpion nature of some of the designs.
Silhouettes, Iteration 3. After deciding on a good silhouette from Iteration 2 to base the model off of, I iterated on the theme in a few different ways.
Lineart and Materials, basic options, Iteration 1. With the silhouette settled, I came up with a few options for what materials and other details the sword would be made from.
Settled design and materials, with orthographic view.