Did this piece inspired by The Hobbit Trilogy. I used the official concept artwork created by Weta Digital for the axe.
The most challenging and fun part of this project was creating the engravings on the side and top of the axe. There were several ways it could have been done but I decided to create the engravings as a highly detailed floating geometry which was later baked on the low poly mesh. The result was satisfying and just as I had anticipated.
The whole project took about 6-7 hours to complete.
Modeled and UV's in 3ds Max
Baking and Rendering in Marmoset toolbag 4
Textured in Substance Painter