sejmodder

Hello, I am trying to custom render a block, but I just want to render it like an item; it will be one pixel high, and have transparent parts. Let's just take, for example, a sword (laying flat), and say I am trying to render that as my 1px high cube. Since I will be rendering this just like an item, is there any way that I can easily do this using built-in functionality? I would like to be able to just make a single image, and somehow display it as my block, but 1px thick, and not have to make a lot of textures for each item I plan to do this with. I might just be over-thinking this, but I figured this was the place to ask anyways. Thanks in advance for all your help!