Weapon Design - Tumblr Posts
Swordtember 4: Elemental I thought just drawing an elemental sword would be kinda boring so I instead made a sword based on the periodic table of elements with the ability to change forms! Obviously I decided to not make one for every element (for now) but it was really fun to come up with something for each of the four elements I picked!! This is by far the sword that I’ve put the most work into so far so I really hope you guys like it as much as I liked working on it ^w^
Swordtember 6: liquid
a modified garden hose capable of spewing an extremely thin “blade” of water so highly pressurized that it can cut through almost any material. Also great to water your plants when used with lower power settings.
Swordtember 8: veined The Twin Veins of God are two renowned legendary armaments. It is rumored that if they ever came together they’d be able to combine, forming a dull, twin bladed “sword” that oozes a liquid similar to blood, capable of acting as a perfect conduit of offensive and defensive magic alike.
Hello tumblr. Call me R-, I'm a Filipino martial artist and mechanical engineer who designs weapons (usually). Recently washed up on these shores from Twitter and I'm a little bit lost, please bear with me as I figure this out.
Peace of Mind
The Sorrow-Song Swordsman fought as he wept, wept as he sang, sang as he fought.
The tears would leak from sleepless eyes and fall into shadow and fire, dissolving in the chords of throats-cut-screaming by a blade that is a nail strumming strings.
Burning blood makes iron, and it takes more than iron to forge cutting-steel.
But a spoken word cuts deeper still.
When your words are blades, and your blade can sing, and your songs stain all your words with blood- can you find solace in your mind?
Where does a slayer find peace?
-- Slowly reposting art from my Twitter account and taking full advantage of the more relaxed text limits. This one was for a Kadungganan whose singing words could cut, from an old Gubat Banwa TTRPG campaign- esteemed warrior-braves battling across the isles inspired by classical/early colonial Southeast Asia, perpetuating a river of blood and violence, asking themselves why they fight.
-- Blade design is based on a particularly long Lumad kris, which I've been told are made from the deconstructed blades of their defeated enemies, repurposed for their own use.
Simplicity
Presence is not strength. Complexity is not intelligence, audacity is not courage, grandeur is not beauty, gentility is not virtue. A piece of steel need not be forged into anything fancy- it only has to be sharp- and thereafter the blade would hold power over life and death. Could you imagine what you might forge of your own mettle?
okay here's how you design a fantasy weapon pls like and subscribe follow me for more tips-
Kidding- but this was sent to me by Dyl just a while ago and I just had to.
I do actually love seeing these wild designs, there's more imagination in them than you can beat out of a roomful of AI "artists".
Art by Peter Andrew Jones if I'm not mistaken.
I do wish there were more of them around, just over-the-top bullshit that doesn't take itself too seriously.
This one's from The Sword and the Sorcerer (1982). It's a sword with THREE blades. Two of them shoot out of the hilt as projectiles- I love it. I would never use it.
I set out posting my art online initially to design "practical fantasy weapons", and while I haven't abandoned the "practical" part myself, going nuts on weapon designs is still just really fun to do.
Saradomin Godsword from OldSchool Runescape and the newfangled RS3 version.
Doesn't have to be "practical". Depending on the context, the looks can be more important than the functionality.
Sanderson depicts shardblades in The Stormlight Archive as being ultralight to justify their size. Fun middleground, but not always necessary.
Art by Alex Allen.
There are weapons that will forever be iconic BECAUSE they went nuts with 'em.
Of course they also went nuts with the people using them, so there's internal consistency, but the point stands.
Guts' Dragonslayer, Berserk (1989-2021) by Kentaro Miura.
Cloud Strife's Buster Sword, Final Fantasy 7 (1997) by Square Enix, image from the 2020 Remake
Moonlight Greatsword, in one of its many iterations, this time as Ludwig's Holy Blade from Bloodborne (2015) in The Old Hunters DLC by From Software
Kratos' Blades of Chaos, God of War (2005), image from their iteration in God of War (2018) by Sony's Santa Monica Studio.
Just- don't pretend you could ever use them in the real world, yourself.
Actual martial artists can already hurt themselves using tried-and-tested weapons from history (i.e. there is someone to learn how they use them from), let alone the average untrained gamer with something out of fantasy.
Doesn't stop people from trying. Baltimore Knife and Sword are among the many blacksmiths who routinely produce real world versions of fictional weaponry (look up Man at Arms: Reforged on YouTube) and recently Digitally Twisted Outlaws (also on YouTube) started training with one such giant replica Dragonslayer, and dubbed their weapon-style the "Colossus Sword Form".
Bottom line, just have fun with it. Don't get too bogged down by what's consistent with real world usage, especially when the context is fictional.
WEAPON COMMISIONS OPEN
Weapon design commissions by a martial artist and engineer! I make blueprints and weapon designs to arm you and your OCs respectively. Ever wanted to hold a sword of your own? If you live in the Philippines, I can also help you connect with local blacksmiths who can help bring your ideas to life. If you live elsewhere, you can commision me for a blueprint that you can bring to a forge near you. From the deepest reaches of untouched seas,
To the searing light of burning skies,
To the muted glow of stars beyond,
And- perhaps-
To the palm of your hand?
Your next legendary weapon awaits.
Contact me for samples and terms of service at kathang.tawen@gmail.com
Someone ordered a FishBlade, I think? I don't know I'm not caught up to the discourse.
So I just remembered I created something cursed involving that FishBlade thing that was going around
A spearwoman and a knife-dugong
Rare Tumblr post! Been working on this for a little while, and had already committed to completing it when I heard about the #MermayWarriors XP Pen challenge. Since they fit the theme of the challenge, I decided to send them as an entry.
The spearhead is a sharktooth, and the gunong that the dugong is holding is copper alloy. I wanted to pick materials that won't corrode too easily in seawater, but I didn't wanna think too hard about it (which is rare for me). I mostly wanted to redraw them because I was enamoured with the concept of Baby Dugong and wanted to draw him again.
Here's the original version. Looking at them side-by-side is kind of interesting.
I truly wasn't sure where this was gonna go when I started. This kind of stuff has always seemed a bit too far out of reach for my self-taught, weapon-designing self. I kind of pushed my anime boundaries by a lot when I drew the original (I'm still proud of it), and I wasn't sure how much further beyond I could push it at my skill level. It's not as precise as I wanted, it's not as detailed as I wanted, but I can safely say I'm proud of this one too. More importantly, I actually finished it! That's significant considering how many foolish ambitions I've put to rest in WIP limbo and never touched again. Anyway- in my head they protect giant clams. At present, giant clams in the West Philippine Sea are constantly at risk of poaching, and their habitats vulnerable to deep-sea trawling from foreign encroachment. Dugong are somewhat vulnerable as well. Their main diet is seagrass, and seagrass beds are frequently under threat of destruction from ill-advised land reclamation work, as well as well-meaning but improperly handled mangrove planting projects. Also the baby dugong is at least ten times more likely to stab someone than the spearwoman.
Seek no mercy from these eyes, they will grant you only pity.
That's all for now. Going on a short hiatus after this- not that I was very active on here to begin with. But I'll try! But I'll do that after. Have a good day folks.
Heard there were entire groups of grown adults who get really upset when things aren't straight?
I wonder why? One of my favorite blade types isn't straight, and these things fought off colonizers.
They're called kalis in certain parts of the Philippines. Here's a bunch with some pretty colors on them:
Maybe pointing these at those groups will help change their minds?
WEAPON COMMISIONS OPEN
Weapon design commissions by a martial artist and engineer! I make blueprints and weapon designs to arm you and your OCs respectively. Ever wanted to hold a sword of your own? If you live in the Philippines, I can also help you connect with local blacksmiths who can help bring your ideas to life. If you live elsewhere, you can commision me for a blueprint that you can bring to a forge near you. From the deepest reaches of untouched seas,
To the searing light of burning skies,
To the muted glow of stars beyond,
And- perhaps-
To the palm of your hand?
Your next legendary weapon awaits.
Contact me for samples and terms of service at kathang.tawen@gmail.com
Tawen
The metal fell from the space between stars, cold as the peaks on which it landed, black as the night on which it arrived.
Our finest craftsmen accepted it the same night the skies gave it birth, and labored in their cold forges in the dark under the watch of a thousand blinking eyes.
And from it, they carved out a blade, one that would serve as well in hand as it would at the tip of a spear. That could hunt to feed, that could carve to shelter, that could hack to warm, that could bleed to protect. Black and cold and smooth and glassy as a shard of frozen night.
The strangeness began when it met the light of day.
At first it was reflection- a warrior's eyes in gleaming steel.
Then refraction- the sunlight playing a finger's depth beneath the surface of a lake.
Then a glow- lights devoid of fire who dance where other secrets dwell.
The sun was slow to rise in the mist between the pines, chill and friendly winds through the terraces, clouds exploding silently above where fading stars yet twinkled. And the new creation watched, and marveled.
And forevermore, that shard of night glowed the color of a morning sky.
Moonhammer
No pretentious loretext this time. I designed this meteor-hammer belt thing a while back based on the Bakunawa, the moon-eater serpent. The look of the maw is based in part on Visayan tenegre hilts, and the moon and star are based on my uh- Idk what to call it, a brand logo I guess?
I was going to get it made for myself, then I remembered I'm not actually trained to use a meteor hammer, so-
Indeed it is!
I feel like I should add a little context for those unfamiliar.
The Bakunawa (or Bakonawa or however the spelling varies) is a giant serpent-dragon shared across several cultures in the Philippines, particularly in the Visayas area and those with whom they share close cultural ties.
It is one of several moon-eaters (alongside other giants such as the blade-feathered Minokawa of the Bagobo peoples stories), whose attempts to eat the moon have been pointed out in folklore and mythology as the cause of eclipses.
I can't say too much with confidence; I am by no means an expert on these stories, nor do I belong to the cultures that sing them. Filipino culture is anything but a monolith- it is in fact an enormous mosaic of often intersecting and overlapping cultureS (plural) that only appear to be all the same color if you're not looking closely enough. As it happens, the moon-eaters I mention here belong to cultures far away from where I can claim my own ancestry; we have stories of our own where I come from.
What I can say is that the Bakunawa tends to make an appearance on figural hilts on Philippine blades. I placed an example of a tenegre hilt in the original post, and added here some more examples of Bakunawa hilts on kampilan swords.
It may be that the figural hilts were originally meant to depict something else, or were known by other names, but blade collectors, smiths, and enthusiasts frequently refer to them as Bakunawa hilts in the present day.
Moonhammer
No pretentious loretext this time. I designed this meteor-hammer belt thing a while back based on the Bakunawa, the moon-eater serpent. The look of the maw is based in part on Visayan tenegre hilts, and the moon and star are based on my uh- Idk what to call it, a brand logo I guess?
I was going to get it made for myself, then I remembered I'm not actually trained to use a meteor hammer, so-
WEAPON COMMISIONS OPEN
Weapon design commissions by a martial artist and engineer! I make blueprints and weapon designs to arm you and your OCs respectively. Ever wanted to hold a sword of your own? If you live in the Philippines, I can also help you connect with local blacksmiths who can help bring your ideas to life. If you live elsewhere, you can commision me for a blueprint that you can bring to a forge near you. From the deepest reaches of untouched seas,
To the searing light of burning skies,
To the muted glow of stars beyond,
And- perhaps-
To the palm of your hand?
Your next legendary weapon awaits.
Contact me for samples and terms of service at kathang.tawen@gmail.com
The First Blade: Balaraw - Winged Dagger
I realize I haven't been explicit about it on here yet (mostly because I'm not the best at keeping all my social media profiles up to date), but I am involved in the development of a Tabletop Roleplaying Game It's called Gubat Banwa- a TTRPG based around tactical grid combat, contemplative war drama, and high-flying martial arts, all of which taking place in an unapologetically Southeast Asian-inspired fantasy setting, developed by @makapatag with art direction by @villain-returns. Initially I developed the script that is used in the gamebook and diegetically in the setting- called Kasuratan- but I'll talk about that elsewhere.
With the Kickstarter launch imminent, I thought I'd do a bunch of Twitter X threads on a bunch of weapons I've drawn for the game counting down the final week before the launch. Then I thought: "Why aren't I posting these on tumblr also, at least I wouldn't lose my mind over character counts over here"- so here we are. These were supposed to be posted as Swordtember drawings, but then the KS launch got moved to October. Most of these blades are of Philippine make, since that is where my knowledge-base is and what I'm comfortable enough to share knowledge about. I thought it'd be nice to share a bit of blade knowledge from some of the cultures that inspired the setting. Without further ado, let us begin with the BALARAW.
Also known as a "winged dagger", it is characterized by its unique shape, consisting of a short leaf-shaped blade driven with the tang out into a hilt with two distinct protrusions, creating three prongs on the back with the tang included.
(Photos from an exhibit at The Met)
They may be held at the hilt like a regular knife, or they may be held in a manner not too dissimilar from how our neighbors in Southeast Asia hold keris. One may imagine it like a "push dagger" for lack of other reference points. It might be likened to the katar as well, in some sense.
(Sketches by the Gubat Banwa Art Director himself) Nowadays, the blade is frequently attributed to the People of the Upstream- the Mandaya group of peoples- though they would have seen much wider use in their day, likely also spanning across what is now the Visayas region of the Philippines.
(Modern rendition by Panday Keiven Tolentino of Itak Mindoro, Photo by Ramon H. Bathan) Something I've noticed from looking at Philippine blades all the time is that symmetrical, double-edged blades like these are rare, here. Blades that lend themselves more to stabbing than anything else aren't very prevalent either, and blades that do not- at first glance- appear to be made with tool use/foliage clearing/farmwork in mind don't make up the majority of specimens. The balaraw is unique in several different respects, and any self-respecting warrior Kadungganan of Gubat Banwa's Sword Isles would do well to mind its bite. The weapon makes an appearance in Gubat Banwa in the hands of the Beast Hunter- one of the many Disciplines ("character classes") whose techniques your character can learn in-game.
The Gubat Banwa Kickstarter launches in 7 days! Check it out here:
We'd appreciate any and all help in getting the word out. Support an independent TTRPG made by a team from the global south, looking to make waves through a fantasy setting where the Southeast Asian inspirations takes center stage!
The Second Blade: Diplata - Extinct Bolo
Continuing the countdown to the launch of the Gubat Banwa Kickstarter coming up on the 10th of October- 6 days to go! Gubat Banwa is a tactical war-drama TTRPG set in the Sword Isles, a fantasy setting inspired by Southeast Asian cultures and folklore.
To promote its launch, I'll be posting some of the weapons I've been drawing for the game every day until the campaign kicks off in earnest. These were meant to be Swordtember entries, pardon the lateness I suppose. 2/7 blades so far, let me introduce you to the DIPLATA.
The diplata is a short-to-mid-length blade with a distinct handle, with most specimens sporting a horn-like protrusion facing the same side as the edge.
The blade shape itself I feel is something common across most toolblades in the Philippines, not much longer than one's forearm with a more-or-less rounded out tip- though the diplata seems a bit wider than most. I would say the most unique features definitely lie in the shape of the hilt, and the circular guard. Most Philippine blades don't have anything in the form of hand protection, so a wide guard like this stands out.
This one was a little difficult to find photo references for, as apparently they're quite rare. Some blade scholars call it an "extinct" blade, meaning those who traditionally forge authentic ones supposedly aren't around anymore.
(Photo from Victor Balaguer's museum near Barcelona; Diplata on the blades hanging on the wall, the two next to the rightmost blade) "Traditional" blades refer to those made by the same people to whose culture a blade belongs. To illustrate in the simplest terms, a katana made by a traditional Japanese swordsmith would count as a traditional blade. A messer made by a traditional German blacksmith would count as a traditional blade. I'm sure there's more internal nuance there, but that's the quickest reference point I could come up with. Take note however that the Philippines is composed of many, many different cultures who all happen to exist in the same archipelago with varying levels of overlap- there is no singular, unifying blade culture, so categorizations like "Traditional" and "Modern" (often referring to modern reproductions) aren't always as exact as convenience may demand. In particular, material exchange between cultures makes a mess of this categorization, not just because the blades themselves could get traded (or stolen or lost) and physically make their way to other places beyond the imaginary borders of their "homelands", but because the smiths themselves (or their knowledge and techniques) may travel around. Smiths in different places may also see blades from different cultures that they might feel like imitating or emulating in some way- that's how certain Philippine blades obtained D-guards- but that's a story for another time. The diplata is oft-attributed to the Aeta peoples, specifically those who come from Mt. Pinatubo in Zambales. Not much confusion as to whose culture these blades belong.
It is a little disheartening that most of the refs I could find were photos from foreign museums and loose images in books and blade forums. I will not speculate here as to how these blades ended up in these places, but it isn't hard to guess.
(Image from a Spanish museum)
(Image from Philippines, Early Collections, Museum of Ethnologie Vienna)
(Image from The Philippine Journal of Science Volume 81) I'm not a hardcore blade scholar, but even I recognize how inseparable blades are from the myriad cultures of the Philippines. I'm forever thankful to the random communities of blade enthusiasts who dedicate a not-insignificant portion of their time (and wallets) to supporting local artisan blacksmiths to grow their collections, and keeping track and tracing which blades came from which places and peoples. Our blade cultures are alive and still developing, but they could still use a little help sometimes, just so we don't lose them.
(Photo from the collection of Zel Umali) In any case- while it's not exactly a scholarly work in the academic sense- part of Gubat Banwa's violence is pushing a fantasy setting of our own making, as seen by our own eyes, as told on our own terms. This is no foreign museum; This time, SEAsian cultures take center stage.
The Gubat Banwa Kickstarter launches in 6 days! Check it out here:
It would be a huge help to this very small team from the global south if you could help us get the word out! We straight up can't afford to advertise on the same scale as bigger players in the field, so we're relying heavily on word of mouth. You can find out more about the game on its itch page.