Rendering again, different stand, alpha subdivided plane menuki, separated sheath.
New render.
Damn Photobucket scaled image. Re-uploading tomorrow late afternoon…
Looking good, just work out the lighting, add a decent wood texture to the stand and it’ll be great!
its really nice…but in that position it would fall 
Anyone know how to render faster? How fast is POV-Ray? What do you recommend for the sheath? For the stand? (I already fixed the texture, it was a good one, but I scaled the UVMap too much.)
I’m gonna use a image texture for the saya, it’ll look better.
Rendering again…
New background.
Click on the thumbnail below to see the render. (RMB, open on new tab/window)
Does anyone know how to make Parallax Occlusion for Blender Internal?
Bump!
What price would you give this now?
Can’t see it. The picture’s telling me I have to login to view it!
Yeah, I’m getting the same thing.
I like the most recent render prior to that, though. It makes me think of an ancient family heirloom-weapon sitting in a room lit by a fireplace (maybe that’s just from the dim light.) I think it could maybe be a little brighter, though, since the details on the left side of the image were difficult to see. Re-upload your most recent render!
Here it is, made a Public folder.
Floor needs some work, it’s tiled but looks flat.
The blade looks a bit wierd, how much reflection did you put on it?
Stand still needs a bit of work, perhaps you should make it look like its been nailed into place or similar instead of looking like it’s balancing. Also the texture should show the wood grain a bit better.
That silver is glowing like the sun!
Metals, especially the Tsube look a bit too cartoony/animated style then down to earth. Perhaps some designs along the edge would be better. Also the texture should be so uniform and brightly coloured. Gold doesn’t look like that by the way. It shines a bit more.
Where’s the sageo and the saya is leather generally. Is it not?
Control the lighting a bit more so that the saya isn’t so lit up so you can see the details on it.
I think that’s all for now.
I think it all looks great, except that the reflection is a bit too strong on the sheath, possibly the blade as well. Still loving it, tho!
Do you mean the blade needs more or less reflection?
The highlight on the sheath is very overblown. Try toning down the specularity a lot.
Way less reflection.
It’s worth a good 5 - 6 hundred dollars.