Help Wanted With NCO Sword Photo Reference

[Boeman]

Greetings from north of the border! Hopefully, this is the correct section for this post.

First, I want to preface my request by thanking everyone here for your service and all that you do to keep us safe in both North America and abroad. It is truly an honour to be among your company here at leatherneck.

As for myself, in addition to my regular day job, I work with virtual reality technology in my spare time (think something along the lines of Oculus Rift).

As some of you already know, the US military is one of the original pioneers of VR; with experiments going as far back as the 1980s. Yet, despite this, the US military’s contributions to what is a rapidly expanding industry in the civilian sector receives very little attention in popular social media today. Indeed, many owners of various VR headsets actually credit Facebook and Microsoft with its invention.

In an effort to educate the public on VR’s true origins, I would like to showcase America’s armed forces in a virtual reality setting (via the Unity engine); with special attention paid to the US Marine Corps and their well-known penchant for adopting new technologies.

For this non-commercial project, I am in the process of creating 3D model assets which include full-scale dress uniforms and other associated gear. The USMC NCO sword has proven exceptionally difficult to re-create. While a few moderately decent overhead views of the full length of the sword exist, I have been unable to locate any close up images of the sword’s engravings across its entire length. For me, ensuring the sword’s visually accuracy is of the utmost importance. To accomplish this however, I need good reference and this is where I need help from the Leatherneck community.

I am looking for high resolution images of the USMC NCO sword. Preferably, photos that fill the frame with the blade shot perpendicular to the camera and walks along its length in a sequence of still images. The absence of a blood groove will be a tremendous plus. I recognize that this is a pretty tall order so I will also settle for any close-up imagery available be it through web links I was unable to locate via Google, official images or even personal photos you may wish to share. My primary goal is to lay out reference suitable for tracing the patterned engravings so that they can be incorporated on the 3D sword model. The Marlow White website has an image very similar to the kind of reference I’m looking for but covers only a small area of the sword (unfortunately I cannot post links yet).

I’m grateful for any help. I will also be happy to credit your name(s) to my work should you wish. Thank you in advance!

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[Tennessee Top]

Try a GOOGLE search and click on "images".

[Boeman]

Hi Tennessee Top,

Thanks for the response.

Searches with Google image search, Lycos, Yahoo, Flickr, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest over a week period yielded no satisfactory results.

The Marlow White website came close with a flat-on camera shot clearly showing the engraved patterns on the NCO sword but it only covered a small area past the hilt. I have saved that image locally on my system in hopes of finding additional close-up photos of the rest of the blade's surface.

If you have any additional material you might have on hand that you could share, I would be eternally grateful!

[Lenny]

try sgt.grit.com

[Boeman]

try sgt.grit.com

Hi Lenny,

I had trouble resolving the address but I believe grunt.com is the site you wanted me to visit?

I had a quick look around and viewed the images for the replica NCO sword. It has one fantastic photo of the surface area near the hilt which I have saved to my computer. Thank you for that. There are some nice overview shots of the entire sword as well but unfortunately the resolution is too low to trace the patterns leading up to "United States Marines".

Hopefully, I'll be able to locate additional images in the future that will show more surface area so I can piece together the entirety of the engraving work.

[Tennessee Top]

Look at www.marineshop.net

Use your cursor to enlarge the image.

[Boeman]

Use your cursor to enlarge the image.

Thanks for the link Tennessee. I saved the image to my HD. I now have some better reference. Altogether, it's not 100% coverage of the sword but I'll try to guesstimate the rest.

I will post some progress artwork in the equipment/uniform sub-forums when I am able.

Thanks again!