The blade shape is not really to my taste, but I'm more of a traditionalist. My only real concern is the handle, it's too straight and the shoulders and butt are too sharp. Even if you contour the handle slabs your going to have a sore hand with much use. I've heard it said that the best way to learn ergonomics on a knife is to cut a telephone pole in two with one and you'll learn all you ever need to know about handles. I've never cut a pole in half with a knife, but I have used knives a lot, and studied the hand and different handles.
Take your blade, and hold it and try to imagine using it, see where the sharp corners are and where they rub your hand. One thing I've done is to take clay and grip it, then study the shape of it. Also look at nature, there are no straight lines in nature. The marvel of the human hand is that it's very adaptable to different shapes. I'm a firm believer that the only sharp area of a knife should be the edge. Everything else gets smooth up and rounded and contoured.
To me I like to know why, why is a blade point shaped like this? Why is the belly this shape? What is the purpose of the butt cap shape? Every aspect of a knife has a purpose, even if it's just to "look good". Case in point, I had a customer want a cleaver, I asked what was he planing on cleaving, meat, or bone, or both. The blade thickness and edge geometry for each is different, as is the profile. Or to put it another way, you don't want to batten fire wood with a fillet knife, or try to fillet fish with a large camp knife.
I've seen a lot of knives that were beautifully put together, absolute perfection on fit and finish, perfectly ground and sharpened, expensive materials and engraving, some with beautiful damascus, inlays, ect, and pretty much no balance and or would be uncomfortable to use. At one show I handled a maker's knives that were a bit on the rough side, visible solder joints at the guards, satin finished blades, ect, not bad, but he didn't take them to the next step. But when I picked them up they were alive and perfectly balanced and felt like a natural extension of the arm.
If it was me, I'd keep the blade profile pretty much as is, but maybe get rid of the sway back and drop the handle down a degree or two and add a bit of a palm swell to it and round off the "guard" and butt, maybe take a little less deep a recurve. Also think about the length, a longer blade makes for more force as a chopper, but makes for more difficulty carrying it. I like big knives, but they tend to stay at camp or in the truck, not on my belt.
Just my .02 cents. Any way it goes, make what you want, how you want, and have fun.
