I recommend fast forwarding through alot of this video......it's not great....but this guy used a technique much like the rotoscope station @ QAS. Like I said...this video is not great, but it is a useful example of how it can be done.
The Quality isn't the best, but it is good enough to see the mixture of rotoscoping and straight animation. There are a huge amount of different techniques stuffed into this film. Quickdraw has high quality disks of this as well, check them out for further research.
Watch for the mistakes, the lightsabre actually disappears a few times. I like to watch older movies, it helps to see how they problem solved there way out of tight jams. They didn't run to a computer!
Yes, a TEAM of people sat in a room and rotoscoped in the light saber effects. Not only did they have to consider the sword but also the light that it casts on nearby objects.
Well.....Ya I don't know if I would try and base a career on light sabers, but it's a good place to start playing with effects.