Minas Morgul (LOTR themed lightsaber) by e57

[eastern57]

This was a challenge project offered to me by one of my saberin' peers to make something totally off the wall from the scrap that I have laying around. So I chose a building... castle, fortress, walled-city, whatever you want to call it - Minas Morgul.

My inspiration came from this picture.


I don't remember what came first -the idea or the challenge- but once I had both, the project pretty much guided itself. I wanted to make a sword-derived hilt - basically a hilt that borrowed it's major elements from sword hilt sensibilities: slim grip, texturing, a pommel that tapered out and down, and a head big enough to stop my hand like a guard would (but without too much sticking out laterally). I also knew I wanted to have all the controls (act, aux, main power, and speaker cutoff) in the head, so the rest of the hilt, grip and all, was free from obstructions and/or accidentally hitting a button. The recharge port was simple since I opted for a main power switch, I could make a simple plug in, so I made it really small, but reversible.

Start:


Finish:


So yah, it's just another hilt made from scrap parts, but this time it (hopefully) resembles elements of Minas Morgul. Iron and metal making pretty white walls all dirty. If you want to see how I did it, scroll down for more videos.

I made a sound font called "Steel Sword II" (hats off to Novastar for creating Steel Sword one), and modified it a couple times to match the project theme. There are two variations of Steel Sword II called "Night Wraith" (for the Nazgul and Minas Morgul) and "Captain of Gondor" (to be shown off in a future project). They're fundamentally sword fonts, whooshs, clangs, etc. with movie audio to accompany the two themed variations.


Demo vid:
https://youtu.be/Y2bV0OkvaJI



Pretty pictures












Whole album:
http://s306.photobucket.com/user/eas...?sort=6&page=1


I took progress pictures and made a few how-to videos, in case anyone wanted to see how I did it.

Part 1:
https://youtu.be/J6oxGr3hDtQ
Part 2:
https://youtu.be/Nm5JENTD9L0
Part 3:
https://youtu.be/-xP9sESUd2Q

[Generic Jedi]

It looks evil...like it's cursed. Awesome work on this saber!

[Starwinder]

Very cool idea and execution as always eastern! Love it!

[darth_chasm]

Another awesome saber. This thing is wicked.

[Noyl Wendor]

Dude....that is sick I dig awesome work. Very cool

[eastern57]

Thanks, guys!

[Twigz]

I love sabers that utilize white in their main palette. The emitter is also one of the most unique I've ever been fond of!

[Ty_Bomber]

Like all your videos, I took notes on this one. This time it was the foil tape and heatshrink.

Great job. I was working on my own nazgul font for the new VV combat saber they have. I like yours quite a bit!

[eastern57]

I love sabers that utilize white in their main palette. The emitter is also one of the most unique I've ever been fond of!

Thanks! It's one of my favorite colors, and I've done a couple white hilts now. IMO, it works best with directly contrasting colors, e.g. black, red, dark browns, etc.. This one is called Pearlescent white and it mixes well with bright colors, it makes a marble-like color pattern.

Like all your videos, I took notes on this one. This time it was the foil tape and heatshrink.

Great job. I was working on my own nazgul font for the new VV combat saber they have. I like yours quite a bit!

You might want to play around with diameters. This has been called both 2" and 3" heat shrink, depending on the vendor. So I'd recommend getting 1 ft to start, and if it's right, then you can get more. The right stuff should be tight around 1.125" tube.

[CET]

I'm really liking the emitter. It's such a simple shape, and yet I hadn't considered it before.