#ninjitsu

In the official Leonardo concept art...

...Leonardo is a Daisho wielder, or he uses a pair of swords, one a Daito and the other a Shoto. (As much as the creators would like to convince me those swords are proper Katana/Wakizashi, those are the straightest curves I've ever seen. ) There will be some slight changes between the two swords.

Tsuba! Or the sword guard!

I think it'd be made of Blackened Steel and Silver, and it'd be the same for both swords. The Kogatana would be a handcrafted item Leo added to the Wakizashi. I think he'd be very interested in crafting his own swords in the future, and he probably did after Splinter died. But for now, I think a small little utility knife with his name carved into the hilt (in hiragana) and some choppy engravings of what ever he thought was cool into the blade is something he'd do. This means the Katana's Tsuba would only have a singular hole for the blade. The Tanto, (unusually) located in the hilt of the Katana, maybe a concept unique to the Hamato Clan.

Menuki! Or a small ornament to help with grip!

On both swords I think they'd be gold and paired with white Tsuka Ito (hilt wrappings) to match his hand wraps, with a black Samegawe (a ray skin underneath the Tsuka Ito). Leo goes through a lot of moral dilemmas in IDW and I think the gift from his father eventually being stained red in blood would be a cool design change/concept. ⤵

Also a design note that like the Menuki, the Tsuka Ito would need to be wrapped slightly different due to the change in hands. The diamond shape usually seen on the hilts is to be a rough indication of finger positions, two larger fingers rather than four smaller ones would require a more dispersed wrapping.

The headcanon that Leo names his swords is GREAT! My own personal take is that Leo would go for Japanese names because he really tries his hardest to be like his father. The Katana is called Meirei (めいれい) which means command/order, and the Wakizashi, Yaritogeto (やりとげる), meaning follow through. (Probably. I used Jisho Dictionary, please don't take my word for it.)

Basically, Meirei is a representation of Splinter - and Yaritogeto, the turtles. I think each name would be engraved in the blade in Hiragana.

Anyway... sword brain-rot... 😨

I might do the other turtles as well. At some point. And I will probably draw the Kogatana with all it's little imperfections too.