Executioner's sword

[Killswitch (Alec)]

hello there everyone !

Just finished this project yesterday but I’ve got a bit of a problem, first off please give me some feedback!

Any help is always appreciated, the scene doesn’t have any real story. I just started with the executioner s sword and the whole thing developed from there. I used the sketchfab add-on as a way of making my job easier ,so the flowers, grass and tree that you see are unfortunately not from me.

But my big question is how could I make the blade more believable, I’m having a hard time making it look like real steel. Please note that it is a material and not an actual texture texture (Hope I explained that correctly).
And, the lighting. Lighting is what I struggle with the most. I’m looking for somewhat of a peaceful aspect, but the colours either seem bland or too vivid

Anyway, any help is appreciated ! I want to progress and I hope that some of you out there will be able to help me !

[philosopher]

A few ideas:

Delete the flowers, it kind of ruins the entire idea. Flowers represent idylism and you’re making an execution scene.

Also, you should have an executioner’s axe instead of a sword, they rarely used swords for beheadings, I think.

Thirdly I’d suggest, instead of camera from top-perspective view, having the camera on the ground looking up towards the hill (usually executions were carried out on top of a hill), also you might adjust the lighting so that the camera is facing the sun (remember the rule of the golden ratio, for both the execution place and sun). Compose it with lens flare etc. to make it more interesting. Having a gallow next to the axe might also help.