[Craig Johnson]

Every once in a while we step outside the historically inspired items. An online series by Arcade Arms on game weapons approached us to do a couple of pieces for them and here is the end result on a piece from Final Fantasy. Quite a chunk of steel.

Arcade Arms "Gae Bolg" from Final Fantasy

[Mark T]

While I have zero interest in gaming or fantasy weapons, I really enjoyed seeing Craig in the shop, along with a cameo by Josh - and new weapons racks.

Also fun to see Craig maintain his calm, professional self in the middle of what looked like a possibly zany project and film shoot!

[Ed S.]

Now that's awesome, even though I'm not a fantasy collector.

Next up; Chrono's rainbow sword? Only acceptable if it actually leaves rainbow trails behind it when swung. Let me know.

[Jean Thibodeau]

It's really difficult to take a " Game Weapon " and try to even come close to make it usable as most game weapons are cartoony and if built to their apparent thickness and materials they would weigh 60 pounds or more !

Part of the idea is to see what the game weapons ends up looking like and performing if they where made, also this is for a
" GEEKY " program and should not be confused with a serious study of weapons.

Craig obviously tried to make it as functional as a very weird and impractical weapon could be, and like Craig said in the video the " THING " bit him back quite a few times with all those spiky edges angled in every direction possible.

I actually saw this video before Craig posted as I often visit the " Geek & Sundry " site as it's a lot of fun if one doesn't take oneself too seriously.

http://www.youtube.com/user/geekandsundry

I really enjoyed the over the top weapons of the Arcade Arms program and the " enthusiasm " of the host.

I sort of assume that after they get different makers to make reproductions of " GAME WEAPONS " made they sort of realize how ridiculous they would be if one had to use one in a real fight ..... but to me this is part of the fun of it.

The episode last week was an over the top solid bronze mace made by Jake Powning that weighed in at something like 35 pounds !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sz6CbICIIgM

I'm sort of impressed that this program managed to get some top makers to make these " weapons " for them, but that is part of the fun seeing these peoples shops and often the methods used to forge or cast the weapons.


Even if the design of the weapon Craig made is tactically impractical I did observe that he still made it structurally sound as it did seem to take some use or abuse and held up well.

Obviously the way we judge such a project is with different criteria than any historical weapons but that would be mixing apples and oranges.

[Edward Lee]

Albion made the Conan sword, I think that piece was pretty heavy too, but not 35lb heavy.

[Tom King]

Looks awesome, in the "useless gaming weapon" kinda way. I just wish they had thought of some more interesting targets to test it on

So when will we being seeing this bad boy in the A&A lineup?

[Marik C.S.]

There are a couple of shows like this on Youtube - AWE's Man-at-Arms series is somewhat similar for example - and I'm still waiting for one of them to make the Witchers silver sword.

But perhaps that would just be too normal, after all it basically is a longsword with a very fancy pommel and a very shiny blade.

I admire the craftsmanship that goes into these things, but I'm a little disappointed that - for obvious reasons, they are meant to entertain I'm just not the right target demographic - these shows always focus on the most flashy, over the top pieces rather than the few examples of Game/Movie Weaponry that would actually work.

[Tim Mathews]

Greetings all,
I had the chance to handle this thing before it shipped out ... It is a beast .Fun to look at - I cannot imagine anyone using the thing effectively ... I admit I liked it better before it was painted.

[Mark Moore]

If I see a Buster sword, I'll puke all over my keyboard.................McM

[Bryan Heff]

[Marik C.S.]

You know why it's called Bustersword, right? 'Cause you are going to bust your wrists first time you try and swing it

[Bryan Heff]

I don't know anything about this Buster sword or the video game...but I DO know that is not a sword.

[Craig Johnson]

Howdy everyone.

This was a pretty over the top piece to work on. One of the more interesting aspects to these kinds of projects is the taking a digital representation and seeing how it alters into the real world. The dimensions and structure of a lot of digital pieces are not standard. They vary to meet the needs of the game/design/art of the originators. The discussion on the length of this is a good example. We needed to create a piece that looked proportioned to the game but worked for a regular human to swing. There was mention early on in the design work of trying to create one much longer but the weight would have gone out of site and the balance would have been horrible. The 8 foot plus worked ok. It would have been a lot more cumbersome at 12 foot and down right unusable in the 18 foot range that was discussed.

Another thing about digital constraints in games is they can not really illustrate thickness in real terms. I heard this from the host of the show, that they need to have a certain dimension there to render the piece and not have it disappear when turned edge on to the screen. Same reason we tell folks to take pictures of themselves with the blade flat to the camera. If the edge is on the line of sight it can easily go invisible.

You should have seen the box we shipped this puppy in

Best
Craig

[Daniel Wallace]

[Bryan Heff]

My favorite part of the show is in the beginning when they first arrive at A&A and you see the rack in the background of real swords....and pretty much all the background shots of the shop. I also liked watching the actual weapon being made, the skill to pull that off as it's a complete fantasy weapon, the weapon is purely fantastical but watching it in use shows that it was a well thought out piece....not just some clunker for looks only.

[Lafayette C Curtis]

I'm rather curious about whether any maker would be interested in doing some of the more realistic-looking fantasy swords, like the Iron Sword or Steel Sword from Skyrim. Probably not without a commission, though.

But then, a maker good enough to tackle such swords would likely be able to come up with even better fantasy designs on their own, and I'd probably like to see that even more.

[Luka Borscak]

Are you familiar with Fable blades? http://www.fableblades.com/ Brendan specializes in exactly what you talk about, realistic and often history based fantasy swords...

[Jean Thibodeau]

Here is a follow up clip of the making of the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwHEGYrdmRI&am...OcPiwmDCkj

At the beginning there are some really nice shots of the Arms and Armour work area and weapon racks worth seeing.