Skywalker Lightsaber - The Empire Strikes Back

Skywalker Lightsaber from The Empire Strikes Back
Modeled in Blender, textured with Substance Painter and Designer, Rendered in Marmoset
19k Triangles, 1 x 4k Texture

Hi everyone, I'm excited to share a new personal project that I've been working on! The Skywalker lightsaber is probably my favorite movie prop of all time. It has captured my imagination and fueled my passion for so many years. In fact, one of the very first 3D models I ever attempted to create was a version of this same lightsaber many years ago. My result did not look great lol but I loved every minute I spent trying to bring it to life. This new endeavor has been my way of revisiting something super meaningful to me while learning more about my craft along the way.

The Skywalker lightsaber is actually quite different in every movie (and sometimes it even varies from scene to scene depending on which prop they used). I chose to recreate the version of this lightsaber that Luke used in the Wampa cave on Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back. I also wanted to create a more idealized version of it, keeping it relatively clean. I imagine the Jedi regularly cleaned and repaired their weapons so I did not want to go too aggressive with the wear.

Big thanks to Ben Close, Andrew Voelkl, and Jason Bretz for their honest feedback along the way. And big thanks to The Graflex Shop and Roy's WannaWanga Saber Parts Shop for their faithful physical recreations of this prop which proved to be excellent reference for my project.

Thanks so much for taking a look!