Fantasy Art School

Drawing Sword Shapes

Some Medieval Sword Shapes. This is a lesson that will help you with your basic drawing skill of seeing and understanding shapes and it will help you to understand some of the basic sword shapes as they occurred in the real world.

An important part of fantasy drawing is Research

A Little Bit about researching your subject - If you are serious about your fantasy art you should always consider doing a little bit of research for your drawings. Of course, what you are drawing is fantasy which means you can draw anything you want. But even fantasy has rules of thumb and people have certain expectations for fantasy art and drawings. It isn't too often you see a dwarf wearing a three piece suit or an elf driving a Hummer! See what I mean? Even if you are drawing a single character the way the character looks, the kinds of armor it has and the kinds of weapons it wields are important. Things have to make a certain amount of sense.

For this lesson I researched swords a bit and came up with some basic information.

SevenBasic Sword Types:

Here are seven major sword types and they are drawn in approximate relative size. From left to right they are:

• Katana (samurai) Standard weapon of the samurai warrior. Sharp only on one side
• Rapier sharp on both sides and very thin as far as swords go, good for stabbing, finding weaknesses in enemy armor and for slicing
• Scimitar - Typical middle eastern sword. Also very popular among sailors and pirates - Because of the curve and the thickness of the blade it was good for cutting ropes - this is why pirates like it
• Bronze Centurion Sword - Shorter than the average sword because of the limitations of bronze and predominantly used for stabbing - sometimes edged and used for slicing but not often
• Standard Middle Ages sword
• Two handed Sword - larger and better made -
• Flamberge - unique thing is the leather wrapped section where the wielder could choke up on it and swing it in shorter arcs.

Practice Drawing these swords - two things to think about: Think about the variety of shapes and think about the function and use of them. Try to convey how they were used and who would use them. You may want to research other weapons. Here is a nice site called the Medieval Armory; it has pictures and information about a variety of Medieval Weapons like flails, maces, polearms and more. Medieval Armory

Continue on with the Art lessons- Drawing a Knight in Full Armor

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Fantasy Art School HOME PAGE

Fantasy Art Lessons

1. lesson 1 - Holding the pencil and getting a feel for it and warming up with lines
2. lesson1c how to draw a straight line
3. lesson 2 - Drawing some simple geometric shapes
4. lesson 3 - Understanding and using Perspective
5. lesson 4- foreshortening in perspective
6. lesson 5- Drawing depth and distance
7. lesson 6-Using lines of varying thickness
8. lesson 7- drawing form and shape with a medieval mace
9. lesson 8- Drawing metal - We draw a medieval helmet
10. lesson 9- drawing our first human form
11. lesson 10- Distorting the human form to create fantasy creatures
12. lesson 11 - doodling and creativity break
13. lesson 12 - a Morning star mace - drawing textures
14. lesson 13 - how to draw chainmail
15. lesson 14 - How to convey action in your fantasy drawings
16. lesson 15 - How to draw sword shapes
17. lesson16 -draw an armored knight
18. lesson 17 - Draw a fantasy dagger using the Five-S method
19. lesson 18 - Creating space in your drawings - A Dragons Lair
20. lesson 19 - Practice by drawing dragons
21. Lesson 20 - Drawing from Memory
22. Lesson 21 -Draw a Catapult

Fantasy Art Lessons from Guest Artists

1. How to draw a magical genie using Corel and Photoshop

Art Books & Supplies

1. Art Kits
2. Art Books
3. Fantasy Art Books

Stormthecastle.com
Castlefiction.com
The Telescope Nerd
Epic Fantasy.com
The Medieval Armory
THe Fantasy Guide
The Heroic Dreams Blog Knight-Medieval.com willkalif.com
make-video-games.com

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