Designing a DIY weapon
This time I decided to cover a bit of my personal side project. I took part of the Hum3D Three D Guns 2 -competition because I wanted to test new workflows and I also wanted to design a weapon that feels and looks like someone could have built that from spare parts. I didn't have that much time to focus on it because most of my time went into Planetrism and ROT-8 projects. As I write this the competition is still running so what you see here might not present the final result and I can promise that things will change.
I´m not a concept artist but what I love about 3d graphics is the fact that I can create models and experiment with all sort of ideas fairly fast. What I end up with is something that I can use for various things. Its not just an image, its something more. Thats why I really like to do these kind of smaller projects to experiment new ideas and tools. In this case I really wanted to push my knowledge about Unreal Engine materials.
Back story and functions
Usually I start to think the story first. That way I have something solid to use as a base and everything needs to support that story. That way this weapon hopefully feels like a real functional piece.
The backstory is something like this. After the nuclear war remained people fled into underground arks but few decided to stay on surface for various reasons. Because most of the resources were gone these people needed to improvise in order to stay alive. Tom was one of these people. Previously he worked as a car mechanic and thanks to his private garage he managed to craft this weapon from spare parts. Every week Tom will visit in his old apartment and hope to meet his lost family there.
That way I knew that most of these weapon parts needed to be something that you can find in a car. Also its important to understand what kind of tools he had available to built this weapon. Maybe welding machine, drills and a lot of bolts and nuts. In my previous life I actually studied to become a car mechanic so I wanted to use that knowledge here too.
Then I needed to decide the actual function. Something that is reliable but still efficient without too many moving parts. Its important to have a weapon that is easy to maintenance when the world had gone crazy. I ended up with a pneumatic system. Something that you can find in a game like Metro and something that we all played with when we were kids, Super Soakers.
So I needed a piston that will generate that pressure when the user move a lever. Then there should be containers where this pressure is stored and a trigger that will release this force. I also needed to have projectiles and a magazine where to store them, barrel, stock, some sort of scope and so on.
Then I just started to block out various ideas. I just wanted to find a good balance with various elements. Pretty early on I ended up separating gas cylinders into smaller ones and that way balance the design more. Instead of using a large cylinder I created three smaller ones that will distribute weight better and makes it easier to aim and handle that weapon. I also got an idea about a connecting rod that would support the stock. I modeled zip ties that helped to keep various elements together and also to boost that DIY feel.
I always try to keep the visual weight in balance. In this case it was easy to end up with a barrel that looked really heavy so I tried to relocated some elements into stock/back area in order to make it look more balanced.
I iterate a lot with my designs. Usually at the beginning things looks very rough and ugly but that way I can test all sort of ideas fast without losing too much work. I really enjoy this part. Once I have design done then I can start adding more details. I want to keep things detailed but a the same time its good to avoid making it too noisy with different bolts and screws. There is a line where extra details starts to break the overall design and thats something I want to avoid.
As you can see image on top I iterated a lot with various ideas. Some of those ideas made into the final design but I also deleted a lot of tests to get the results that I was happy with.
Next I might share more info about the actual environment that I created for this project. I might have gone a little too crazy with it but that was also important for the story. I hope you find this interesting and keep reading my future issues as well.
I think my art is going down the toilet. What do you think
Until next time,
Kimmo K.
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