ABOUT KIT RAE

Kit Rae, the Knife Designer

Kit Rae is one of the foremost knife and sword designers in the industry with a worldwide following for his unique fantasy weapons. He was the lead prouct designer for United Cutlery for over fifteen years, and his knives and swords have appeared in popular television shows such as Burn Notice, The X-Files, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and numerous films such as Spider Man 2, Star Trek: Nemesis, and The Chronicles of Riddick. In addition to designing such famous collectible weapons as the Indiana Jones Khyber Bowie for Lucasfilm and the Sword of Darkness for United Cutlery, Kit has also produced and supervised the creation of many licensed weapon replicas from films and television shows such as The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Hobbit trilogy, The Expendables (1 and 2), Blade, Blade Trinity, Hellboy, GI Joe, Mortal Kombat, Highlander, The Mask of Zorro, Prince of Persia, and the Heroes television series. Kit also produced and supervised the replica creations for many weapons from the video gaming industry, including the Frostmourne sword from World of Warcraft, the Chaos Eater from Darksiders, Krato's knives from God of War, and the Red Queen sword from Devil May Cry. His own sword designs have also appeared in several video games, including Two Worlds.

Much of the early work Kit is known for is in the fantasy sword and knife genre. He was the creator of the Legends in Steel line, Samurai 3000, Steel Apocalypse, Blades of Atlantis, and the Swords of the Ancients collections for United Cutlery. Most of Kit's design work is actually in the functional outdoors and tactical categories, although he does not promote this as much. He has created custom knife designs for companies such as Harley-Davidson, Remington, and Colt. In 1996 his Colt Knife/Axe combo won a Blade Magazine award. Some of his recent work includes the designs for the highly praised Honshu and M48 knife lines from United Cutlery.

In 1997 Kit created the highly successful Kit Rae Fantasy Art brand, a line of his unique collectible weapons with companion art prints of his fantasy paintings. Images from a hidden world of dreams and nightmares inspire this line of edged creations. Some of His designs are strikingly beautiful, some wickedly haunting, and some defy conventional description. Kit's fantasy knives and swords spawned the creation of a huge collectible market worldwide for fantasy weapons that has generated numerous imitators. He is most well known for his best selling Swords of the Ancients collection, an ongoing line medieval inspired fantasy weapons for which he created a series of companion fantasy art paintings and a long running mythology.

Kit Rae, the Artist

Kit’s background in art started when he was a child with charcoal drawing, acrylic and oil painting. Although more of a hobby these days, his fantasy artwork has appeared as companion art prints included with his popular Swords of the Ancients collection, in a series of limited edition art prints, B.C. Rich guitar art, and in a line of Zippo art lighters. Most of his current art is tied to his tale of the Swords of the Ancients, a mythological story he created as a background for his art. Kit was influenced by such such varied artists as Frank Frazetta, Michael Whelan, Boris Vallejo, Jim Burns, Moebius, H.R. Giger, Gil Elvgren, and film concept artists Ron Cobb, Ralph McQuarrie, and Joe Johnston. These days Kit uses a mixed media approach to his art, utilizing drawing, painting, photography, and the paint brush tools from various computer illustration programs. Kit specializes in the fantasy, pinup, sci-fi, and horror genres.