During my time on The Elder Scrolls Online, I was inspired every day by the work being done by the concept and modeling teams on the weapon and armor sets. This daily exposure coupled with my own roots drawing weapons and items from video games as a kid, I decided making a sword would be a fun challenge. The Sword of Dracula started in Procreate on my iPad as a bunch of symmetrical sword sketches that were narrowed to the three seen below.

Once I had decided on the center design, I took it into ZBrush and sculpted a quick blockout. I utilized dynamesh, clip brushes, and local symmetry to translate the general idea of the sketch into a 3D mesh. After a detail pass and some material lay-in, I retopologized the sword in Maya and got it ready for use in Adobe 3D Painter.

After the refined design mesh was created, I brought it into Adobe 3D Painter, set up a scene in Marmoset Toolbag, and had a lot of fun playing around with height map detailing and material work. Scrub through the gallery to see some of the different directions the sword went in.

After many nights tooling around with materials, I decided to switch directions a bit and start the process of assembling a scene to present the final design. I had an idea that Dracula would hang his bloodied sword over a chalice to allow the blood to drip down the blade and collect for later consumption. I sculpted a chalice blockout in Nomad sculpt and took that into ZBrush for refinement. I put some tests together in Maya and Marmoset to see where this would go.

After this pass, I put the project down for a while. Months went by before I picked it back up again with the intention to put this project to bed and do a render in Adobe Stager. I didn’t end up using the mesh or painter work I had done earlier on. Instead, I’d decimated the high poly sculpt and brought it right into Adobe 3D Painter, ran the auto-UV, and started another material pass.

sword of dracula - 3d printing begins

sword of dracula - Final Print

I spent some time slicing up the Sword of Dracula and getting it ready for printing. I printed the test above at 36” total length. Overall I wasn’t happy with the key setup that I did and I was also not a fan of the angled seam placement on the handguard. This is round 2 of the print.

Before printing, I took the sword back into ZBrush and booleaned 2 parallel shafts running from the handle to tip of the blade. The intention was to run 2 wooden dowels through the length of the sword for stability. I didn’t measure anything or do any math to target a specific dowel. My plan was to wing it on a giant print and take a piece to Home Depot to get the closest fit. I sliced the sword up again and then printed it at 48” total. It took 4 days to print. I took a piece to the hardware store and found a dowel that fit perfectly. I was amazed and praised the sun that I got so lucky.

I am much happier with the placement of the seams on the hand guard. It is a much cleaner look once assembled and the keying I did was superior to the prototype.

I bought this paste called 3D Gloop. It is a chemical bond that essentially is fusing the plastic parts together. I have heard great things about it so I wanted to give it a try.

Here’s a shot of the final Glooped print. I was very impressed with the bond that the Gloop made. The dowel running through the sword makes this thing incredibly stable. I’m really happy with how it turned out.

One thing I noticed about the sword design when holding it is it feels unbalanced. The hand guard area where the blade inserts is just too large for how thiin the handle feels. For my next weapon design, I’m going to print it out before the piece is done to see if making those form adjustments has an affect on the appeal of the final design. Would I respond to a thicker handle positively in the 2D image if I knew that it was balanced and felt good in the hand?