Anglo-Saxon Longsword

In this tutorial we’re going to create a traditional Anglo-Saxon longsword in Photoshop. This won’t be an entirely realistic rendering, our textures will look a little artificial, but it will be the perfect style for, say, a video game or an RPG website.

Start with a new document and create a new layer, name it “blade”. Now grab your rectangular marquee tool and create a selection the size of your blade. Fill it with a light grey (#bcbcbc).

Now grab the polygonal lasso tool and use it to create a point at one end of the blade.

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Anglo-Saxon Longsword - Fig. 1

Now double click on the layer and apply the following layer styles.

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Anglo-Saxon Longsword - Fig. 2 Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Anglo-Saxon Longsword - Fig. 3 Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Anglo-Saxon Longsword - Fig. 4

Your sword blade should now look similar to this:

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Anglo-Saxon Longsword - Fig. 5

Next, go to Edit - Transform - Perspective. Grab the top right handle and pull it straight down just a bit, tapering the end of the sword toward the tip.

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Anglo-Saxon Longsword - Fig. 6

Next, we want to create the chappe of the sword (or rain guard). To do this, create another new layer (called chappe) and make a circle (fill it with #d6c749) slightly larger than the wide end of the blade. Place it over this end of the blade, so that it covers up the left part of the blade bevel. Then delete the left half of the circle, like so.

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Anglo-Saxon Longsword - Fig. 7

Then double-click on the layer and apply the following layer styles.

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Anglo-Saxon Longsword - Fig. 8 Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Anglo-Saxon Longsword - Fig. 9 Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Anglo-Saxon Longsword - Fig. 10

Your sword should now look similar to this:

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Anglo-Saxon Longsword - Fig. 11

Next, we’ll create another new layer, call it “cross guard” and place it under the “chappe” layer. Using your rectangular marquee tool, draw a thin rectangle that extends out equally from both sides of the blade. The overall length should be about 4-5x the widest part of the blade.

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Anglo-Saxon Longsword - Fig. 12

Now, using your rectangular selection tool, select the top half of the cross guard and go to Edit - Transform - Free Transform. Grab the center point of your transform box and move it down to the bottom of the box. Then grab the top right handle and rotate the selection slightly clockwise.

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Anglo-Saxon Longsword - Fig. 13

Now do just the opposite with the bottom half of the cross guard, setting the rotation point to the top of the box and rotating slightly counter-clockwise.

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Anglo-Saxon Longsword - Fig. 14

Next, we need to apply the following styles to the cross guard layer.

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Anglo-Saxon Longsword - Fig. 15 Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Anglo-Saxon Longsword - Fig. 16 Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Anglo-Saxon Longsword - Fig. 17

Your finished cross guard should now look like this (note: I’ve moved the entire layer a couple of pixels to the left, which you may need to do also).

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Anglo-Saxon Longsword - Fig. 18

Next, we need to do the grip. We’re going to place this layer under the cross guard.

To start out, we need to make a series of small rectangles to the left of the cross guard, extending to create the full length of our handle. It’s very important to note here that each section needs to be on its own layer.

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Anglo-Saxon Longsword - Fig. 19

We have all kinds of options for the type of finish we’d like to have on our grip. I’m going for a polished red grip, personally. To do this, apply the following layer styles to each section of the grip. Note that you can greatly speed up this process by copying/pasting the layer style (right-click on the layer style icon next to your in the layers palette and select “copy layer style” or “paste layer style”.

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Anglo-Saxon Longsword - Fig. 20 Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Anglo-Saxon Longsword - Fig. 21 Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Anglo-Saxon Longsword - Fig. 22

Once completed, your sword should now look like this.

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Anglo-Saxon Longsword - Fig. 23

We’re almost done. We just need to do the pommel of the sword and the fuller. Let’s start with he pommel. I’m not going to do anything fancy here, though you certainly could.

Shape your pommel however you’d like. It should be relatively small, about the width of the chappe. Once you’ve gotten the basic shape laid out, fill it with he same color (#d6c749) and style as the chappe.

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Anglo-Saxon Longsword - Fig. 24

Now all we have left to do is the fuller. Create a new layer and make a small oval that extends out from the right of the rain guard, up about 1/4 the length of the sword blade. Fill it with white.

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Anglo-Saxon Longsword - Fig. 25

Finish out the sword by giving it the following layer styles.

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Anglo-Saxon Longsword - Fig. 26 Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Anglo-Saxon Longsword - Fig. 27 Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Anglo-Saxon Longsword - Fig. 28

And here’s the finished sword.

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Anglo-Saxon Longsword - Fig. 29

Personally, I really like the way it looks on a dark background. It would be great in a sig or banner.

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Anglo-Saxon Longsword - Fig. 30

I hope you enjoyed the tutorial. If you like, you can also download the PSD file.

Added Saturday, July 22nd, 2006 at 7:14 pm under Drawing & Painting.