one of the best pieces of advice is to pay attention to the blade, in your modeller get in real close to the edge and add a few extra edge loops to make the edge a little bit rounded, it is this that will catch specular highlights and look a hell of a lot better, also pay attention to the inner part of the sword the fuller, a LOT of models out there are very basic and dont add edge loops to this part, making it look unrealistic, again this adds the extra specular highlights,as for a material itself, my own real swords (arming sword and hand-and-a-half sword) are at a mirror finish its only the odd scratch and tiny rust bumps and dents from swords hitting it that provide any texture apart from a mirror - even when i see actual photos of my swords the mirror reflections on them look a bit strange lol so maybe a bit of artistic licence is  needed - a good looking sword and a realistic sword can be two different things :-)

 A cleaved head no longer plots.

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