All hilts I did on my freetime, all of them were fun to do =)
I mostly used 3DCoat for the texturing process, but not the same way for each sabers. For example the ObiWan Ep1 hilt was only painted in 3DCoat and then I get PBR maps with Photoshop, instead of RedJaws one which was fully done using 3DCoat in no time, with custom smartmaterials I did for Star Wars Redemption ( it really speed up your workflow to do that, and you don't lose the handpainted control you love ^^ )
Star Wars - Rdemption's project : https://www.artstation.com/artwork/gO4Pm