Drawing Weapons, Swords And Spears

Photo Image By One Lucky Guy

Weaponry in the fantasy world are very common, in particular swords and spears are my favourites to draw.

Swords are those finely crafted decorative hilts of the sword that make them highly desirable to draw, you can have variations of the sword, Samurai, broad sword, kitana blade, machetti, bayonets to name a few hand collection of popular sword makes and blade types. most times we know that swords can be part of the characters we draw, so we tend to make them a focus, just like armour and shields, it's part of the actual characters profile and should be included in the original profile sketch.

A sword can be started off with a simple cross and then from there the exact details are brought out and a sense of depth and structure are realised to achieve the overall power of the swords blade. When I draw swords I usually tend to draw them last so that I can make a feature of the sword against the stance of the character.

The handles of the swords are often personalized or decorative too, but is often covered by the grip of the warrior or swordsman you create. But as with anything to plan the design is to draw it whenever the need arises.

Below is a quick illustration that shows you the 3 step drawing process I use to simply draw a sword, it's quick and that suits me best by finding easier ways to draw stuff is the way to go.

Spears are also very easy to draw and you can decorate them however you like. A simple pole and a spike is all that I do to draw a spear, see below.

I do also like to draw variations on the spear and not to make them the same in almost every spear design, I could alter the spear head or the handle design to suit whatever design I need to do, don't feel too rigid in ever trying to draw the same way, drawing is fun so go with whatever the mood takes you.

Below I drew a few spear variations to give you an idea, but really though weapons can either be one of two things, historically accurate or just look damn cool.

Drawing weapons of any kind is always easy if you have a reference photo on hand and something to copy to get the idea of drawing a sword or a spear and oce you've got used to drawing a weapon in general, you can get better at drawing one by adding your own designs into the mix. Go on, Try it!