heres something im working on...[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/simages2/104_wireframeL.jpg[/img]
Looks pretty sweet. Be good to see it textured. If you are aiming for historical accuracy, I would make that sword a fair bit smaller.Katana's generally had only a couple of feet of steel (you'd have to make the hilt shorter too). If you're going for what looks cool - keep it the way it is. Sephiroth and Cloud's swords hardly make for easy carrying!
There's a few spots where you could use texture rather than polys to define geometry, and you could save a few polys by using an opacity map for the shape of the crest rather than modelling it. But that's just IMHO, and I don't actually know what you're gonna do with it. You've got to animate those tassels, they'll look awesome.
Like the last model his legs are to short. Fingertips are 1 hand length from knees on average. Yours come to the knees.
Head to groin is the same distance as groin to feet in proportions.
Have you made the crest piece one plane yet?
I dont know about the rope, you could free up those polys maybe use flat planes alpha mapped to do the same thing? If not hope its only 3 sided.
looking good Idaho, love the tassles :)
keep us posted with your progress.