Blade of Sam

Recently I began work on my first sword CGI concept, it’s called the ‘Blade Of Sam’.
I want to make it look realistic enough that’ it’s very approachable, but I don’t think I’m doing it right.
Here are some of the images of the sword, arranged in order of the progress I’ve had on it





I think I couldn’t work in this light-setup. I would start with the following:

  • First load an HDRI environment map.
  • Look for PBR materials/shaders, or chocofur has good shader too. ( or watch videos from cynicatpro on youtube ).
  • Then you are ready to judge your result so far, and…
  • I think use more details in the geometry
  • Use bump-, or displacement-maps in your shader/material