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Tony Swatton is a British-American blacksmith and gemcutter from Hammersmith, London, England. He is best known for creating props for films and television programmes. He was also the host of the popular webseries, Man at Arms.

Biography

Swatton is a self-educated blacksmith and a trained jeweller. When he was young, he used to cut gems and later expanded his skillset to include silversmithing. When he was 15, he met Jody Samson who had worked on the Conan the Barbarian film, and started to swap gems with Samson for knives. Unable to afford a knife, Swatton made one out of a file and showed it to Samson. Samson told him that it would break easily, as he hadn't used the right metal or type of treatment.

When he was 17, Swatton attended a renaissance fair where he observed another blacksmith making armour. Swatton then made copies of the blacksmith's equipment and used them to make his own helmet. When he was 26, he opened his first shop in North Hollywood called Sword and Stone where he sold products to Euro Disney and Michael Jackson. In 1991, he was employed to do his first film work on Hook. Between 1994 and 1998, Samson worked in Swatton's shop.

Webseries

Swatton was involved in Man at Arms after he was approached by the director. The director was looking for a blacksmith who could create twelve particular weapons and approached Swatton. Swatton accepted as he had previously built prop versions of several of the weapons that had been listed to be created by the director. In the webseries, Swatton created real versions of fictional weapons and armour. Some of his creations included the Zenith Blade from League of Legends and Wolverine's claws from X-Men. The last episode featuring the creations of Tony aired in June 2014.

Beginning in April 2015, Swatton has starred in Blizzard Entertainment's intermittent Azeroth Armory webseries, in which he forges iconic weapons from the Warcraft video game series, with episodes typically released as part of the marketing push for new World of Warcraft expansions.

Personal

Swatton has a fiancée. In 2013, he obtained American citizenship. Swatton was once a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism but left after other members wouldn't acknowledge hits on them from Swatton in mock battles, which led to him having to use force which caused Swatton to leave because he said he didn't want to be a bully.

Film credits

Swatton has been credited and even gone uncredited in many films and TV shows for his contribution to the props departments, making weapons or armour for them, some of the credited performances that he has been given are as follows:

References

1. Montgomery, Leland (10 May 2013). "Man at Arms: A Blacksmith goes viral". Paste. Retrieved 20 November 2013.
2. ^ McLauchlin, James (28 March 2013). "When Hollywood Needs Shiny Instruments of Death, This Blacksmith Delivers". Wired. Retrieved 15 November 2013.
3. ^ Rothman, Lily (18 March 2013). "Forging His Way: Q&A with Hollywood Blacksmith Tony Swatton". Time. Retrieved 15 November 2013.
4. "Man at Arms forges the Zenith Blade". Na.leagueoflegends.com. Retrieved 15 November 2013.
5. "Tony Swatton Makes His Own Wolverine Claws". HuffPost. 16 July 2013. Retrieved 15 November 2013.
6. "Null - YouTube". YouTube.
7. "Captain America's Shield". 29 April 2013. Retrieved 15 November 2013 – via YouTube.
8. "Really Heavy Metal – Meet Man at Arms weapons master Tony Swatton". Geek exchange. 7 April 2013. Archived from the original on 3 December 2013. Retrieved 20 November 2013.

External links

• Official Home Page – Sword and Stone
• League of Legends Community Program
• Official YouTube Channel – Aweme
• Tony Swatton at IMDb

• Artists from London
• Living people
• People from Hammersmith
• English expatriates in the United States
• British blacksmiths
• Prop designers
• Knife makers
• British jewellery designers
• Society for Creative Anachronism