Well, I finally finished the sword part of this. The seya (scabbard) will probably take another few years, considering how sporadically I work on these things. This tachi is attempting to be more like an older era Japanese battle sword, with the longer handle, practical leather-wrapped handle, (eventually) blade-down hanging scabbard, and slightly longer blade (since the blade was bought from Atlanta Cutlery as a cheapo $30ish 440c stainless steel katana blade, I just cheated a bit and put a longer than typical habaki on it, thereby gaining an extra inch or so in effective blade length). It's not the most historically accurate, I know, but it's what came out. The handle side of the tsuba shows a samurai, searching the wilderness with a lantern. On the blade side, a skeleton can be seen, still searching. I found this fittingly symbolic of my own martial arts journey, as well as a pleasing supernatural theme for the sword, one which is continued in the other fixtures. The brass ornaments on the sides, barely visible in these pictures under the wrapping, are of a Japanese ghost woman, flying through the air, and a wraith of sorts, floating above the body of its most recent victim. On the cap of the handle is another life/death, passage of time motif, the flower, a bud on one side, an open flower on the other, (copper inlay in brass) with bare branches inbetween. The endcap features a silver skeliton, mostly buried in the copper ground but still clutching his sword even in death. The handle is redheart, the leather deerskin, the habaki copper and brass, the tsuba brass and steel.