Kit Rae

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Kit Rae (born 1966 in Burlington, Ontario, Canada) is a fantasy collectibles designer who specializes in knife design, fantasy and sci-fi art. His first job as a designer was for Smoky Mountain Knife Works in the mid-1980's. Kit’s background in art started when he was a child with charcoal drawing, acrylic and oil painting. He was influenced by such varied artists as Frank Frazetta, Michael Whelan, Boris Vallejo, Jim Burns, Moebius, and H.R. Giger. Writers such as Frank Herbert and J.R.R. Tolkien were also big influences. These days Kit uses a mixed media approach to his art, utilizing drawing, painting, photography, and the computer.

Kit Rae - Weapon Design and TV/Film Product Development

Kit has become an award-winning weapon designer and fantasy artist with a worldwide following for his unique fantasy weapons. He was the lead designer for United Cutlery for over fifteen years, responsible for design of the Legends in Steel, Samurai 3000, Steel Apocalypse, Blades of Atlantis, Volkoth, and the Swords of the Ancients collections. Kit Rae's knives have appeared in television shows such as "Deep Space Nine", "The X-Files", "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 hugely successful collectible blades as the Indiana Jones Khyber Bowie for Lucasfilm and the Sword of Darkness for United Cutlery, he has been a product developer for the Lord of the Rings weapons and armour line (over 50 products), the Blade film weapons, Indiana Jones knives, Rambo knives, Hellboy, Heavy Metal, The Mask of Zorro, Mortal Kombat, The Shadow, Dragonheart, Kull the Conqueror, Stargate, Eragon, and Warcraft.

In 1997 Kit created the highly successful Kit Rae Fantasy Art brand^[1], a line of his edged weapons with companion art prints of his fantasy paintings. Images from a hidden world of dreams and nightmares form this unique line of edged creations. Some of Kit's designs are strikingly beautiful, some wickedly haunting, and some defy conventional description. His unique work has graced the covers of numerous magazines including Playboy and Blade Magazine. Kit's fantasy knives and swords spawned the creation of a huge collectible market worldwide for fantasy weapons that has generated numerous imitators. Kit is most well known for his best selling Swords of the Ancients collection^[2], for which he created a series of companion fantasy art paintings and stories (The Tale of the Swords of the Ancients and Other Blades of Power). Though Kit has been designing knives since 1984, fantasy and sci-fi art have always been Kit's passion and are his primary business through his Kit Rae Design Studio, LLC. He currently illustrates fantasy and sci-fi art and designs for the knife, gaming, and film industries, as well as running his Kit Rae Fantasy Art^[3] brand of knives and swords.

Kit has also been a prolific designer of folding, sporting, hunting, throwing, fighting , and collectible knives since 1985. In 1996 Kit won a Blade Magazine award for his Colt Knife/Axe Combo. Among the brands Kit has designed knives for are Harley-Davidson, Colt, Gil Hibben, Remington, Browning, Tops, Uzi, Ford, Stanley, and Rigid Knives. Kit has worked with a variety of knife producers, including Smoky Mountain Knife Works^[4] United Cutlery^[5], and Gil Hibben^[6].