Innovative Designs for Latex Weapons, Props and Leather goods
Weapon Design Guide
This guide is put together to help you design your very own make-able latex weapon. It covers the basics of the areas of a sword and what you can do with them whilst drawing them up.
It's also of the assumption that you've had inspiration from the vast amount of influence material out there.
First of all you need to understand the different areas of a sword and what they’re called.
Areas of a Sword
When people talk about the areas of a sword, it’s generally broken down into two areas: the blade and the hilt.
The Hilt has aspects to it of the pommel; grip; crossguard and these elements can be changed for your design, which we will look at later in this guide.
The Blade is the striking area of a sword and is something that can be radically changed to suit each design or ‘flavour’ of a sword. It also has other elements to it which will be explored later.
Draw your design on a line
When designing a sword it’s important to remember that the sword is built around a straight core and so all the sword elements have to fit around it.
The red line represents a line drawn on a page
The best way to do this, is to draw a straight line on a page before drawing anything else, then drawing the sword design over it. That way you will instantly know if it’s a makeable design or not.
Elements of a Sword Blade
Sword Tips
A. Single Angle Edged Tip
B. Double Angle Edged Tip
C. Single Rounded Edge Tip
D. Double Rounded Edge Tip
E. No TipÂ
These are the most common tip designs. You will find most double-sided blades will have the double angled or double rounded tips as the blade edges follow though. In turn the single edged blades will follow to a single angle or rounded tip. Cleaver or executioner weapon types sometimes don’t have a tip, so they have a flat end instead. Whether you choose if tips are rounded or straight angled, it is entirely down to your own preference and doesn’t hinder the use of the sword.
The Fuller
The Fuller (illustrated here in red) is featured in lots of swords. The fuller is mainly there in real weapons for two reasons: to lighten the blade so it’s more easily wielded; to strengthen the blade in the blacksmithing process. On a latex weapon, the Fuller only really serves in an aesthetic way, so it isn’t necessary to have one. In the case of Latex Weapons, the fuller can be used to add some really lovely details into a sword design. It doesn’t need to be straight down the center, it can towards the back of the blade if it’s a single edged design and can even be used to bleed the fuller into the hilt area. The design is down to you!
The Chappe or Scabbard Lid
The Chappe is there for swords which are normally put into a protective sheath when not being used. The Chappe bridges the gap in the sheath entrance, to stop rain from getting in and rusting the blade. For latex weapons, it doesn’t have this purpose. Instead, you can use this element as an awesome excuse for adding all kinds of shapes and details. We will often use this area to add all kinds of latex details.
The Ricasso
The Ricasso was originally on swords from the medieval / renaissance times as it allowed the wielder better control of the weapon and benefited the blade strength. It was an area, which was a transition zone for the blade, preventing the wielder from cutting themselves if they grabbed hold of it. Historically, Smiths would also use this area to stamp their makers mark.
In latex weapon terms this is an epic part of a sword which you can do loads with to make it look cool. You can serrate the edge to make it look mean; you can add spikes for that extra nastiness; or just keep it plain for an additional visual element of the weapon. Whatever it’s used for, it’s a great part of a sword.
Elements of a Sword Hilt
The Crossguard
A Crossguard can change everything about a sword. Whether it’s small and simple or large and extravagant, the Crossguard can really control the flavour of how it looks. This is where research, creative magic or good planning can really make the difference. Alternatively, you could go the other way. The most aggressive weapons are considered to have no Crossguard at all, as you don’t expect to defend, only attack. Self-made or crudely fashioned swords sometimes don’t have a Crossguard in favour of showing off riveted plates or crude bindings.
A Crossguard also has another use, which is sometimes overlooked, of stopping a sword from sliding out of a scabbard!
The Handguard
Some swords look for a little bit more protection for the hand and so have a Handguard (or sometimes referred to as a Bucket Hilt if it’s particularly large). They are often seen on period military swords and characters of a more noble standing. They also offer an additional benefit of being able to block with this area without risking the hand. This making the full length of a sword a parrying surface, instead of just the blade and Crossguard protection. However, if you adopt this as part of your normal swordplay, you may find that when you use a sword without a Handguard, that you may rely on protection that isn’t there anymore and may find yourself with stingy fingers.
Grip Binding
Good grips have a leather wrap which are bound into place. Hack and Slash ones certainly do! And this is where weapon making moves away from real life weapons. It’s an opportunity to add additional detail to a sword to help give it flavour whilst remaining practical.
Standard Binding: is great if you don’t want to detract from the main body of the weapon. This can be done in two ways: Wrapping a leather strip around the grip with a small overlap or; wrapping the grip with leather and then binding the whole area with a cord.
Stitched Grip: is where the leather is wrapped around it and where the leather butts up, stitching is applied. These can be small or large stitches, depending on what the artist wants to achieve. Often another piece of leather is placed under where the stitching is done, to make sure any areas underneath are not bare material.
Cross-Binding: is achieved by wrapping the grip first in leather, then going down the grip with cord, then back up again. It’s a great way of making weapons look like they have been well made.
Random-Binding: is the ultimate bad guy grip. Again, wrapped in leather first, but then bound randomly and plenty of times. The randomness shows an almost professional evil element or a dedication to chaotically make it work.
Multi-Binding: is something rarely used. It’s a great way of adding ‘even more’ detail effortlessly to a sword, to make it even more cool.
Japanese (or Tska-ito)-Binding of the Tsuka:: This is an art form in itself. This is when a ribbon made of silk, cotton of leather, is bound around the handle with a diamond pattern to provide a non-slip grip. Insanely difficult to get right.
Don’t forget, the way it’s bound is only part of it. Choosing the right colour can also reflect the flavour of a weapon. Â
The Pommel
The pommel is the final part of the design process and it’s usually best to echo the flavour or the sword’s Crossguard into the pommel so it has continuity of design. It’s best to avoid a spiked bottom as this presents a weak point of the sword.
When you putting a sword down, you put it down pommel first to preserve the sword tip. A spike at the bottom will get destroyed just a quick as if you were putting it tip down, so it’s best avoided.
Example Design
Here’s an actual sketch of a design we did in-house. It shows how we’ve followed everything on this guide from drawing the basic shapes over a line; to the following stage of showing a bit more detail with where the blade edges would be and some shading; and the final stage of adding a bit of colour to show the kind of colours that would be used on it.
Hopefully you’ve found this tutorial informative and even learnt from it! Please feel free to keep referring to this guide and draw what’s in your mind’s eye!
A picture speaks a thousand words.
They’re also fun to do!
Why not have a go yourself?
