Sword not so Swordy

[Exfyre]

Made this from scratch using Photoshop. To me it looks like a sword, but to everyone I show it to they say, "oh, that's a nice horn."

What can I do to make it look more swordy and less... horny?

What I made:

Adding random stuff:

Spoiler

I was originally going to make this into a warcraft icon, but it looked ugly @ 64x64, so I didn't.

 

[Azlier]

Reminds me of a feather duster, honestly.

 

[Genkora]

Well, for one thing the value is too gradual. For shiny metal (like that of a sword), you want value to go from dark to light very quickly, you need extremely contrasting value to get that shine. Really bright brights, really dark darks.

 

[BANANAMAN]

looks more like a reaper's scythe

 

[13lade619]

too much perspective. try to reduce the angle.. the handle appears too small.

 

[BANANAMAN]

wait i think he's trying to draw a sword moving through the air.

 

[monoVertex]

No, he tried to draw a sword like it was pointed at your nose. It looks like a sword to me, but only because I've seen a very similar thing before . It is too blurry and the outline is too thick.

 

[Whitesock]

Way way too thick of an outline first off. Also I think the sharp bend on the bottom left is a bit too pointy. I would recommend using a reference. If you did use a ref, then I would recomment posting it here also so we can help you see where in the process you deviated too much from the ref.

 

[Exfyre]

This was the image I focused on, but i last saw it about a year ago. It took me a while to find this today.

looking at it now, I can see a lot of what's wrong.

@Genkora, I will try to make a quicker transition from white->black, seems that you're right.
@13ade619, what do you mean by reducing the angle
@BANANAMAN, Nuh uh.
@Smith_S9, yeah. I was trying to draw it pointing outward and the lines are too thick
@Whitesock, Image above. I wasn't exactly looking at it as I did the ps work, but that is where I got most of what I did.

 

[Whitesock]

Here's your problem.

Angles are different just like what blade said, but the sharp corner is the same. It should be more smooth.

 

[monoVertex]

That's the exact image that came into my mind and made me think it was a sword . I recently read the Shaman King manga .

 

[Jimpy]

I agree with much of the above said, black outlines are like 10X too thick, perspective is a bit odd, its very blurry, the gradients/colour changes should be somewhat quick, then with little imperfections in it (IE scratch marks and whatnot).

I think this would benefit alot from having the lines not drawn free-hand, the bottom right side of the sword (from the viewers perspective) should be straight but instead it has 2 sort of angle changes. Use a ruler/line tool for that bit. Maybe use guides for the curvey edges.

 

[Exfyre]

Alright. Thanks to all who helped. I'll retry the pic when I have enough free time. I learned much .