Langmesser and Barrel

This was a ‘Class’ project with CGCookie

The sword is based on a German Langmesser, it looked a little lonely by itself so gave it a barrel and floor for company.

The reference images for the sword and barrel were of new objects so decided to keep them that way (instead of trying to age them), however to make the scene less pristine and add some wear and tear I've roughed up the floor a bit more and as I had enough time I added in a dented tankard.

My thinking (or story) behind the scene is that as the sword and barrel are new they probably belong to someone well off, but not too well off as the Langmesser was more a practical sword instead of a prestige one. So someone from the merchant class, this person lives in an older townhouse and over the years the floor of the cellar (where I imagine this is) has become deformed. Although a quality sword is important for when out and about or traveling, the tankard whilst dented is still functional and so does not need to be replaced. 

to add damage / deformations to the floor I decided to use nodes to add pot-mark indentations to the stones, and also used it to darken the indented areas slightly, instead of sculpting dents.

For the swords cross-guard, handle and pommel I decided to go with a cast metal look instead of hammered metal appearance, to mimic the inclusions/impurities/air pockets that might occur I used a noise texture to mask off the areas for the defects, and then a voronoi texture to create bumps/indentations. 

During one of the classes one of the node setups created an affect that reminded me of a wootz steel pattern, so as a quick experiment / side project, I made the dagger in the final gallery image below.