Blender: Create a stylized sword

Model a low poly sword blade in Blender to keep memory usage low and ease animation, using a stylized art style and a front-view workflow with extrusion.

Model the sword handle in Blender by starting with a centered cube, beveling and scaling, applying scale, adding edge loops, and extruding the bottom with the knife tool.

Model the 3D sword handle in blender by creating a cylinder, editing in front view, extruding, scaling, and applying a mirror modifier, then add loops and paint details.

Model the sword handle by creating a cylinder and a cuboid base, add edge loops and bevels, then mirror and join for a cloth wrap-ready handle.

Model a cloth for a stylized sword in Blender by creating and shaping a plane, applying subdivision surface and solidify modifiers, extruding edges, and preparing for UV unwrapping and textures.

Finalizing the sword teaches optimizing topology for a low-poly game model, merging redundant vertices, applying smooth and sharp shading, and preparing mirrored geometry and clean texture maps.

Learn to unwrap UV maps for a stylized sword in Blender by creating seams, using an image texture, and checking for stretching and overlaps to produce clean UV maps.

Learn how to combine UV maps by unwrapping and arranging the handle, blade, and fabric parts into a single texture map, maximizing space while avoiding overlaps.

Learn stylized texturing in Blender: paint texture maps with a diffuse shader, UV unwrap, image texture, and brushes, using tablet pressure, color variation, highlights, and shadows to create depth.

Learn texture painting for the sword in Blender by matching reference image colors, separating blade tones, and applying shadows and highlights with texture-focused techniques.

Render a final 1080 by 1080 square image of a low-poly stylized sword with a wireframe, and learn to place the model and lighting for a portfolio piece.