I’ve been feeling pretty lethargic and unmotivated lately, but I have been working on redesigning the Nagamaki/bow weapon that I had been thinking about so that it’s actually kind of functional? Instead of whatever weird nonsense I came up with initially.

I had tried to give it a dragon-head ornamentation that the bow would fire through, but I wasn’t able to get it looking how I wanted it to without the weapon being ludicrously broad. So I gave up, like I do.

Let’s compile some of the messy notes in the images:

• The blade slides in and out of the weapon casing on some manner of continuous chain or tank tread-like thing.
• A shallow channel along the length of the blade keeps the blade aligned and from sliding out of the casing completely.
• The blade can extend out of either side of the casing.
• The blade is about 12 separate blade pieces which are connected by numerous steel cords to maintain structural integrity.
  • While in bow form, half of the blade protrudes from either side with all 6 pieces separated slightly to provide the give of a standard bow body/shaft/whatever.
• Part of the casing on both sides can slide out slightly to allow the bowstring to be drawn.
• The bowstring is made out of the same steel cord as the core of the blade; the “arrow” is formed of, like, electricity or sunlight or whatever.
  • I’ll need to do some modifications on the casing to allow for firing the arrow. Probably some sort of focusing lens, since the concept this weapon belongs to is heavily solarpunk.

Oh, up in that first image is a rough, cludgy sketch of the weapon that I drew inspiration from while redesigning the Nagamaki/bow: La Guillotine/Le Sursis from Monster Hunter Generations. I still need to break my Hunter Rank with that final Nakarkos hunt…