To this day I'm still upset that Man at Arms covered Berserk and did "the dragon slayer" when really all they did was Golden Age Gut's sword. Yeah, it's a big sword that no human can weild, but the thing people wanted was the BIG sword. Or Inu Yasha's tersaiga that is just a regular blade but curved a little bit instead of the behemoth it should be.
And yeah, in this case the paint job totally ruins it. You couldn't have used a metal that would naturally come out red, or used some kind of gloss? Or a metal that would make for a bright blade without painting it?
Don't get me wrong, they do amazing work and whenever they do a more traditional but ornate sword the results are great, but they really need to just stay away from the big things that just come out looking wrong.