Ah yes. One of my favorite design topics. Swords. And even more specifically, not so much Chinese Swords or Barbarian Broadswords, but Samurai Swords. To be even more specific, Long thing blades. Perhaps even just one thin string of light on a page, lightsaber style.
Let me explain something about American animation, and how it differs from Japanese animation, or anime. Up until, say, the last five to seven years or so, the way Americans drew swords in comics also, but especially animation, were short and fat. Even Samurai Jack’s usage of sword design is questionable in this respect, as Jack’s sword is not entirely thin and long. It was longer and thinner than usual, and well done, well wielded by Jack in one sense, but it wasn’t until, say, around 2006 when Avatar the Last Airbender (with the Sokka kung fu sword master-apprentice themed episode "Sokka's Master"), the Boondocks Stinkmeaner Huey Freeman Samurai dream sequence, and a few years later especially with the light saber design in Star Wars the Clone Wars, and later, various others. And some might even say some of my own sword designs I used online with Mono Jubei, my own original character, who a lot of artists took inspiration from as well. That was not an intentionally or conscious decision on my part. I just tend to like drawing my blades really long and really straight and thin or slightly curved and thin. As far as I’m concerned, a blade can never be long and/or thin and/or straight enough (your welcome). Even when it’s a katana. It just looks cool. One of the things, the main elements that make sword anime so cool, that has ALWAYS made them cool, is the fact that the Japanese ARE observant enough to draw swords like they really look. The realist sword physics approach. I guess I just kind of picked up on that from watching samurai anime, sword comics like Blade of the Immortal, and sword anime, notably Rurouni Kenshin, Jubei Chan, KARAS, Samurai Champloo, and Blood: The Last Vampire, among others.
Yeah. Swords are cool. Lesson over. Any questions?
