This blade was inspired by the weapon-of-choice from a character in the Hellsing anime/manga, Father Anderson. The blade and handle are two different objects made up of sub-patched polygons I shaped from an originally flat plane. The render uses the standard 3 lights (key, fill, back). A fourth light only affects the backdrop in order to get the nice red gradient in the upper left of the picture. Finally, I used some red polygons with luminosity turned on to enhance the reflection of the blade (especially near the tip).

It took me about 5 hours from start to finish. At the highest render quality, it still took less than 2 minutes to render out the entire frame.

Modeled and Rendered in: Lightwave 8.5