Sarah Clarity Studios

Chapter 2: Proportion Templates

Created by Sarah Choi (prompt writer using ChatGPT)

Proportion Templates (Short / Arming / Great / Curved) for Weapon Concept Artists

Designing edged melee weapons is a game of relationships. Lengths, widths, thicknesses, and curves decide how a blade reads on camera, how it moves in animation, how it balances in a rig, and how it can be manufactured for a specific engine and platform. Proportion templates give you repeatable baselines so your silhouettes stay coherent across families, variants, and factions. This article focuses on short blades, arming swords, greatswords, and curved blades, with practical guidance for both concept and production artists working on swords, knives, and daggers.

Why templates matter

Templates are not rigid rules; they are tuned starting points. They help you place the balance point and center of percussion in believable zones, keep the grip long enough for intended hand counts, and size the guard so it protects without visually smothering the blade. In production, templates prevent prop creep by encoding ratios in orthos and style sheets so variants stay interchangeable with existing rigs, scabbards, and character hand sizes. Templates also translate to predictable UV allocations, LOD transitions, and physics proxies, all of which reduce last‑minute reworks.

Shared anatomy and recurring ratios

Across categories, you can think in a few recurring bands. Overall length sets the category; blade length sits as a proportion of overall; hilt length is a second lever to tune handling and silhouette; and mass distribution is signaled by distal taper and fuller depth. For readable game metrics, many pipelines stabilize the following broad bands. These are not prescriptions, but practical ranges you can scale to your world’s height archetype, camera FOV, and animation style.

For short blades and daggers, overall length commonly lands between a forearm and a full arm length, with blades occupying roughly two‑thirds to three‑quarters of the total and grips sized to a fist plus a spacer. For arming swords, the blade tends to be about three to four times the grip length, with pommels sized to appear as visual counterweights rather than oversized clubs. For greatswords and other two‑handers, overall length often spans from the ground to the wielder’s chest or shoulder in character scale, with grips long enough to show a clear two‑handed intention. Curved blades redistribute mass to the mid‑thirds, where curvature and widening toward the foible announce cutting bias.

Short blades and daggers: compact leverage and decisive reads

Short blades thrive on economy. The silhouette must communicate intent instantly: thrust bias, cut bias, or utility. As a baseline, imagine a dagger with an overall length that sits from wrist to elbow for discrete sidearms or from wrist to armpit for battlefield knives that double as tools. Let the blade take about seventy percent of that length when the design favors reach, and closer to sixty percent for stout, puncture‑first profiles. The grip should match the user’s knuckle span with a slight allowance for gloves; the guard, if present, should not exceed the blade’s ricasso width by more than a third, or else it will overpower the miniaturized silhouette.

Thickness and taper are the quiet determinants of feel. A robust spine near the guard that reduces steadily to the tip implies durability and channels reads of weight without requiring texturing. Strategic fullers on short blades can lighten the mid‑third while preserving stiffness, but keep their width under half the blade’s width to avoid hollowing the visual core. On camera, short blades benefit from bold negative space near the guard—a notched choil, a subtle step at the ricasso, or an asymmetric thumb ramp—to keep the hilt from merging visually with the hand during fast animation.

In production, short blades are ideal for shared scabbards and belt mounts. Establish consistent throat widths and mouth flares in orthos so multiple skins can dock into a single prop. For collision, a capsule that follows the blade’s centerline with a conservative radius avoids snagging in traversal states. For LOD budgets, privilege the edge profile and the ricasso break; those drive recognition more than micro‑bevel modeling once the blade is beyond an arm’s length from the camera.

Arming swords: the versatile midline

Arming swords sit at a versatile midpoint between single‑hand agility and sufficient reach. Treat the blade as the primary canvas for style language—fullers, midrib, and foible taper—while keeping the hilt visually compact. A common proportion template places the blade at roughly three and a half to four times the grip length. This frames a one‑handed intention: the pommel should complete the hand’s enclosure without forcing an exaggerated counterweight. Let the cross‑guard span approximately one‑and‑a‑half blade widths at the ricasso to provide an assertive but not theatrical line.

Balance point placement communicates handling. Position the point of balance a palm’s breadth forward of the guard to imply a neutral cut‑and‑thrust tool. Shift it closer to the guard to signal nimble fencing, or farther to imply authoritative cuts at the cost of quick redirection. Distal taper is the second lever; a noticeable reduction from base to tip will make even a visually straight sword read as quick. As you experiment with fuller length, keep it out of the final sixth of the blade to preserve a visually strong tip. If your world’s style demands wide fullers, counter with a slightly thicker midrib so the edge band retains definition after texture compression.

For production, arming swords benefit from standardized scabbard mouth and chape modules. Build orthos with repeatable ricasso widths and shoulder angles so hilts and blades can be kitbashed. In animation, arming swords form the baseline for draw and return timings; ensure the guard clears the scabbard mouth by a visually comfortable margin to avoid interpenetration at medium LOD. When authoring materials, give the fuller interiors a slightly higher roughness than the flats so lighting breaks read at gameplay distances; this keeps the blade’s center architecture visible without relying on high‑frequency normals.

Greatswords and two‑handers: reach, authority, and restraint

Greatswords are where proportion mistakes are amplified. The goal is not just length but credible leverage. Let the overall length rise to the wielder’s sternum or shoulder in your character scale while keeping the blade no longer than roughly one and a half times the distance from hip to crown. Overrun this, and the weapon will read as unwieldy or comedic unless that’s your intention. The grip should admit two hands with clear spacing; a useful template sets the grip length at about a third of the blade length, plus a pommel sized to prevent slip without becoming a mace head.

The guard on a two‑hander needs to look like a mechanical separator rather than a dramatic flourish. If you widen it excessively, the blade shrinks by comparison; if you keep it too small, the long hilt appears exposed. A balanced look sets the guard width at just under two blade widths at the ricasso. Use a mild forward cant or parrying rings to add layered reads for close‑up shots without turning the guard into the visual protagonist. On big blades, distal taper and thickness become your best friends; a strong base thickness that reduces toward the midpoint signals authority while keeping the tip believable. Consider a shallow, long fuller that terminates well before the tip to lighten the mid‑third. This fuller also gives surfacing teams a runway for material storytelling—forge weld hints, lamination seams, or faction motifs—while maintaining edge clarity at lower LODs.

In production, long weapons stress rigs and environments. State clear bounding boxes in orthos so animators know swing arcs and so level designers can set collision proxies that do not snag on door frames. Provide a secondary, thinner collision profile for sprint states if your engine permits weapon proxy swapping. For cloth or scabbard solutions, attach the scabbard lower on the back or hip and angle it to articulate with spine bones, reducing interpenetration in crouch and roll animations. When establishing LODs, keep the edge profile watertight and the fuller termination crisp; these carry the identity after silhouette simplification.

Curved blades: where geometry and leverage meet

Curvature is more than style; it is leverage written into the silhouette. Whether you are drawing a sabre, shamshir, tulwar, or a speculative sci‑fi cutter, think of curvature as the relocation of the cutting edge’s working zone into the mid‑third, where motion and edge align. A practical template sets a gentle spine arc with the deepest chord around the mid‑third, while the edge may either echo the spine or bow more aggressively to announce slice priority. The handle angle relative to the spine is the second dial. A slight negative cant can lock the wrist for draw‑cuts, while a neutral alignment helps thrusts read believably.

Blade width on curved designs should swell slightly toward the forward third to lend authority to cuts. Keep the ricasso and guard compact so the blade’s curve remains dominant. For scabbards, provide asymmetry: a flared mouth that accepts curvature without looking bulky, and a chape whose line mirrors the edge rather than the spine to keep the exit read clean in animation. In surface design, let polish gradients follow the curve; brighter edge bands on the belly and subtler reflection on the spine will explain the geometry to the player at a glance.

For production, curved blades require careful draw choreography. Present orthos with scabbard angle and character hip height so animators can plan extraction paths that clear the guard and belly. Supply an alternate scabbard attachment for heavy armor rigs whose silhouette might block the curve. Distal taper should remain readable in top‑down views; maintain a slight convexity in the flat so specular highlights travel along the curve during spins and idle cycles. Curved blades also benefit from a slightly larger UV share on the forward third, where players will fixate during attack anticipation frames.

Guards, pommels, and the language of proportion

Guards and pommels are punctuation marks in your sentences of steel. The guard should act as a visual fulcrum rather than a billboard. On short blades and many curved designs, a minimal guard keeps the form agile; on arming swords the crossbar becomes a balanced horizontal stroke; on greatswords, it separates the long grip from the long blade. Pommels announce counterweight and closure: small and solid for daggers, slightly proud on arming swords, and assertive but not oversized on two‑handers. When you enlarge a pommel for style, counteract by increasing grip length modestly so the hand still reads centered between guard and pommel.

In faction design, fix a few guard and pommel archetypes and vary their internal geometry rather than their overall scale. A faction might favor square‑section guards with chamfered ends and lenticular pommels. Another might use ring guards and scent‑stopper pommels. Your template sheet should lock the outer sizes while inviting interior motif swaps, ensuring silhouettes stay consistent while motifs tell story.

Balance point, center of percussion, and how to signal them visually

Because players and viewers cannot weigh your model, they infer weight from silhouette cues. Use blade width concentration in the forward third, fuller run lengths, and spine thickness at the base to hint at the mass distribution. A balance point near the guard will often accompany a narrower foible and a longer fuller; one set farther forward pairs with a fuller that stops earlier and a subtly thicker foible. The center of percussion, typically somewhere in the forward third, can be suggested via a change in polish, a shallow groove termination, or a gentle swelling of width. These are subtle, but they teach the eye how the weapon would feel if held.

Translating templates into production orthos

When moving from concept to production, express your template as three orthogonals—profile, plan, and section—plus a callout sheet. In profile, show overall length, blade length, grip length, guard width, and pommel diameter. In plan, reveal edge symmetry and any distal taper, which can be communicated with section ticks at base, mid, and foible. In section, draw spine thickness and edge geometry at those three stations. Give every repeated family member the same measurement stack so reviewers can compare at a glance. For variants that share scabbards, keep ricasso width, shoulder angle, and guard thickness constant.

Material callouts should align with proportion logic. If your fuller is the visual mass‑reducer, specify a slightly higher roughness and a different micro‑normal to distinguish it from the flats. Edge bands can take a crisper, lower roughness to mirror studio lighting rigs. For stylized pipelines, convert proportion ratios into shape language rules: long straight A‑curves paired with softer B‑curves for arming swords, or S‑curves that culminate near the belly for sabres. Include a rig note that states draw distance and primary camera angles so surfacing knows where to place high‑frequency detail for readability.

Animation, choreography, and how proportion drives beats

Strike timing, anticipation, and recovery are all influenced by proportion. A short blade wants quick, snappy beats with short anticipation and minimal trails. An arming sword prefers balanced arcs with readable cross‑guard silhouettes during anticipations. A greatsword relies on longer anticipations and follow‑throughs to sell momentum; ensure the long grip and guard do not occlude the face in over‑the‑shoulder cameras. Curved blades benefit from rotational accents that treat the belly as a luminous line; design curvature so speculars travel along that belly during spins. When you deviate from templates—say, a very short grip on a long blade—plan the animation grammar intentionally so the odd proportion reads as a character trait rather than an error.

Ergonomics, hands, and costume integration

Hands set hard constraints. A credible grip length must accommodate gloves, wraps, or gauntlets. For one‑handers, show a margin beyond the knuckles so the hand does not appear cramped. For two‑handers, leave spacing so the lower hand has leverage. The guard must clear the fingers in extreme wrist angles; oversize it and you lose agility, undersize it and you court pain. If characters wear capes or heavy coats, check the pommel and guard against cloak physics; proportion your protrusions to minimize snagging. Scabbards and frogs should echo the template: compact throats for short blades, modest mouths for arming swords, angled backs for greatswords, and asymmetric mouths for curved blades. Attach points should align to belt bone proxies to prevent drift.

Curating style while preserving function

Templates protect function while giving you the canvas to paint faction identity. Use them to keep the mechanical reads honest while you layer ornament, motif, and finish. If your world wants oversized guards or flamboyant pommels, keep the blade‑to‑grip ratio within a believable range so the weapon still swings in the player’s imagination. If you push curvature for style, keep the handle angle and scabbard angle practical so animation remains clean. Balance is the art: let the template carry the physics and the ornament carry the story.

Building a library and iterating intentionally

Establish a page of silhouettes for each template category, with three to five ratio variations per family. Treat this as your design dial sheet. When a brief asks for a “brutal” dagger or an “elegant” arming sword, you can choose the ratio that signals that intention before touching motifs. As you move into production, freeze proportions early and route all late changes through the template sheet so the family remains coherent. The more disciplined your templates, the freer your surface design and ornament can become.

Closing thoughts

Proportion templates are your baseline promises to the player: they tell the eye how the weapon moves, strikes, and rests. Short blades prize compact leverage and bold negative space. Arming swords live on measured balance and versatile midlines. Greatswords demand restraint to feel monumental rather than unwieldy. Curved blades let geometry and leverage conspire to sell motion. Build your templates thoughtfully, and everything downstream—rigging, animation, surfacing, and gameplay readability—gets easier, faster, and more beautiful.