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https://reddit.com/link/mtj8nk/video/bmt959rkdzt61/player

This was made in Blender and rendered in cycles. All of the models and textures were made by me.

I've made BFK concepts like this before (Reaver and Glitchpop) using some of the existing models from the game and editing them slightly, or taking ideas from existing melees and using them in my BFK concepts. However, with this, I had to do the entire process from scratch, which proved to be much harder than originally anticipated. I had a rough idea of what I wanted - featuring the classic Sakura Cherry Blossom tree, and the circular pattern from the handles of the weapons in the first collection on the blade. Additionally, the Sakura tree originates in Eastern Asia, so I decided to use more of a traditional balisong design. I spent some time figuring out the blade and handle form in Photoshop, as well as the textures I would end up putting on the knife. I created the 3d models in Blender off these references, which proved to be a somewhat simple task. Texturing was much harder. Finding ways to incorporate the leaves in the tree was incredibly difficult and required testing multiple different strategies. I ended up settling on a noise texture plugged into a color ramp, which I think gives a pretty good illusion of the blossoms. The mountains just used an image texture and some UV mapping. The blade texture also used an image texture plugged into a bump node for normal mapping, keeping the overall poly count of the knife low. The screws holding the handles and the blade together are supposed to be in the shape of cherry blossoms, although I don't really think it ended up looking quite as intended. Finally, by far the hardest part of the design was the particles around the blade. Ever since the original Sakura collection, I felt that the overall design could've been much cooler with VFX. The particles emanating from the blade took a long time to figure out - I experimented with all different sorts of solutions. In the end, I settled on a particle system that instanced icospheres with an emitting shader. They use physics to float around in the air. The VFX itself is quite rudimentary, and a concept with more thought put into it could definitely have more advanced effects. While the final product is by no means perfect, I think the concept itself is conveyed well through the design. The design, modeling, and texturing were a fun process along my journey to get better at working in the 3d space.

Hope you enjoy it! ^^