It's been a while again . . .

I've missed the last couple of ~weaponry-guild's contests, so I was adamant that I would submit something this time around.

To sum up, the contest is a future/fantasy weapon -- not particularly specific.

This is the first one -- I'm still working on the other one.

Anyhoo -- this is a bit of a departure from my usual line of work, but gotta try new things, right?

That being said I don't really know the sensibility that I can apply so easily to firearm designs. In addition, I'm probably going to mangle the jargon, so bare with me.

The blade is a futuristic sword -- or at least in the same types of mixed futurism seen in the things like the Final Fantasy series.

We've got a big, thick blade like (among other things) the Buster sword and other fantasy weapons of the genre. However, I wanted to add the ability to increase the swords attack power. The first ideas involved some kind of springs, which would have replaced the spacers in the final design, but I didn't think it would work. I then came across a concept utilized in none other than the guild master =malmida's Angel Blade.

He used some kind of piston to change the weapon's center of gravity and add some additional force to the weapon's impact -- or something to that effect

So, after getting his kind permission, I went and tried my own version.
It wasn't really mentioned what kind of power moved the piston, but I wasn't sure if the usual methods (hydraulic, springs, or pneumatic) might not cut it, or if they did, it might not retract as well.

So, the solution I came across was electro magnets. Housed inside the blades are magnetic coils that are plugged into the over-sized batteries/capacitors in the hilt. So the weight is accelerated down the the channel between the blades ala a railgun -- that way reversing the charge should pull the weight back to the hilt (in theory -- the technology is somewhat over my head at this point)

Firing the weight is activated by pulling a safety ring and then twisting a piece where the hilt meets the handle. Flipping it back returns the weight.

Being a fantasy weapon, the round socket in the accelerator allows different mana capsules to be inserted (not unlike the materia sockets in FF). This would give further punch to the weapon (needless to say, getting stabbed would suck).

Also, if an opponent's weapon is trapped between the spacers/supports, it can then be broken by firing the accelerator (or just by twisting -- how ever real sword breakers are supposed to work)

A lot of different inspirations in this design . . .

Modeled in Maya 8