I recently started developing a Fantasy Hammer of War. To model it, I started by using basic geometric shapes. I specifically used 5 cylinders, 1 sphere, 1 cube and 1 torus. After that, I played a bit with the bevelling tool to define the edges of the different parts and added some edge loops when necessary. I then erased those inner faces that aren't going to be seen to optimize the model.

The part of the model that required of most time investment was the head. I made it of one piece by playing with the Extrude tool. As I wanted to differentiate between the basic metal and the protective decoration carcase, I had to push some faces in and take some other out. I then played with the harden and soften edges tools to make the edges look more defined.

Once I was happy with how all the parts were looking, I decided to start unwrapping. As most of the parts of the model were made by using cylinders it was easy to unwrap them using the cylindrical mapping options and the unfold/unfold along features. For the head of the hammer I applied 6 different planar maps, and then by using the checker map tool I stretched and repositioned those edges and vertexes that required it.