PC-CSGO | M4A4 | Bounty Hunter *finished*
polycounter lvl 8
LAST UPDATE:
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I will start with a little description on the design choices and what not.
What probably won't be a suprise after checking screenshots as core for the inspiration is Boba Fett, and overall Star Wars starships aesthetics. When thinking what I could do for this contest to stand any chance I came to conclusion: as it's is sci-fi themed and most people are likely to connect it to it's technicality, etc. I expect most of the skins to be sculpted fake 3-D gunsmith finishes, which I do not make, since there are far better people around in this kind of skins (eg. Millenia), so I knew that I have to take different angle. As M4A4 is my single favourite model in game I knew I had to start with it. Star Wars being my favourite movies series I had to use some of it, and it (the M4) already seems kind of from this universe with its base shape/looks (eg. you can compare it to this: http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/1/12/A280C_blaster_rifle.png/revision/latest?cb=20151106025618). Altough in SW they do not paint guns in any way, they do it with space fighters, speeders, and armour as in Boba's example. So I took them all combined, took some reference from other sources and started pondering (I will post up all reference collected later). At this point I knew that I was going to make the skin look like painted with the sci-fi shapes from SW reference, took amazing color scheme from Boba's armor (I think it is heavly underused for how cool it is, barely few skins I seen on workshop that use those colours) and did my best to sketch up nicest shapes possible. Meanwhile I added 2 to 2 and recalled M4 skin I made earlier (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=602293809) which I think has amazing shape in form of the skull with jaw on magazine, so I decided to use it again, as I couldn't find anything better with this much character. From this point it was all mashing it together to make sense in the sci-fi theme. I decided to pull it further into grunge finish area, as: 1. I love this kind of stuff, 2. with my skill-set I excel at this kind of finishes, 3. I love those dirt panels on X-wings, 4. I except it to be unique on the range of gunsmith sculpt skins.
Also what is worth noticing are the skins that are already in game that could be considered as sci-fi. With M4 Battlestar, Desert Strike and Asiimov it really doesn't give a lot of space in the theme, and the kind of stuff I do with Bounty Hunter is one of the last things that were not done (accepted) to M4 yet.
I will post more of WIP screens later when I get collected, I only today really started working on actuall skin, last 4 days spent on sketching to find nicest shapes for it, not a fan of randomly slapped images on the gun so I wanted everything to fit properly and make sense to play with gun natural shape nicely (as all those liveries on SW reference do).
Not to mention that being a bounty hunter is badass and it fits the M4 "blaster" too.
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First few sketches and checks for shapes and design on a gun:
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I will start with a little description on the design choices and what not.
What probably won't be a suprise after checking screenshots as core for the inspiration is Boba Fett, and overall Star Wars starships aesthetics. When thinking what I could do for this contest to stand any chance I came to conclusion: as it's is sci-fi themed and most people are likely to connect it to it's technicality, etc. I expect most of the skins to be sculpted fake 3-D gunsmith finishes, which I do not make, since there are far better people around in this kind of skins (eg. Millenia), so I knew that I have to take different angle. As M4A4 is my single favourite model in game I knew I had to start with it. Star Wars being my favourite movies series I had to use some of it, and it (the M4) already seems kind of from this universe with its base shape/looks (eg. you can compare it to this: http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/1/12/A280C_blaster_rifle.png/revision/latest?cb=20151106025618). Altough in SW they do not paint guns in any way, they do it with space fighters, speeders, and armour as in Boba's example. So I took them all combined, took some reference from other sources and started pondering (I will post up all reference collected later). At this point I knew that I was going to make the skin look like painted with the sci-fi shapes from SW reference, took amazing color scheme from Boba's armor (I think it is heavly underused for how cool it is, barely few skins I seen on workshop that use those colours) and did my best to sketch up nicest shapes possible. Meanwhile I added 2 to 2 and recalled M4 skin I made earlier (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=602293809) which I think has amazing shape in form of the skull with jaw on magazine, so I decided to use it again, as I couldn't find anything better with this much character. From this point it was all mashing it together to make sense in the sci-fi theme. I decided to pull it further into grunge finish area, as: 1. I love this kind of stuff, 2. with my skill-set I excel at this kind of finishes, 3. I love those dirt panels on X-wings, 4. I except it to be unique on the range of gunsmith sculpt skins.
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Also what is worth noticing are the skins that are already in game that could be considered as sci-fi. With M4 Battlestar, Desert Strike and Asiimov it really doesn't give a lot of space in the theme, and the kind of stuff I do with Bounty Hunter is one of the last things that were not done (accepted) to M4 yet.
I will post more of WIP screens later when I get collected, I only today really started working on actuall skin, last 4 days spent on sketching to find nicest shapes for it, not a fan of randomly slapped images on the gun so I wanted everything to fit properly and make sense to play with gun natural shape nicely (as all those liveries on SW reference do).
Not to mention that being a bounty hunter is badass and it fits the M4 "blaster" too.
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First few sketches and checks for shapes and design on a gun:
Replies
Very little update, only like 2 hours of further texture painting on the upper receiver and lower around magazine holder. I also reverted some of the scratches on the grey line-work in order to find best balance or grunge and readable. Adding it now, since I doubt I'll be able to work more today on it.
Peace.
also, i love your design!
There is plenty of different sites offering images hosting, (you can just google it to find your favourite), I personlly use imgur.com it works well and it's popular so people aren't afraid of clicking the links. Just make sure you use the link called "direct link to image" or something like this, basically it should be ended with .jpg/.gif/etc.
From the texturing I pretty much finished this stage of painting around upper receiver and body skull areas. Whole design received first facelift now with like first bunch of details here and there.
I like how it is going so far, I feel like I am on a good way to catchin the SW paint/livery spirit, hopefuly you share my feeling.
PS. Sorry for no-ingame view today, but I thought this stage wil be nicer to notice from PS perspective + I put here base colours as an extra thing.
Just a few next steps on the grunge texture expending towards the stock a bit. Yellow stripes on the body and the letters received some texturing too.
Today and yesterday I painted some more texture, re-shaped upper part of skull teeth, pondered on some details and started shaping ris rail covers, so far came up with this, and I think I am liking the shape, could end up different, but next I will work on stock likely.
This screenshot is taken with alpha channel set to full black, I am going for sure for custom alpha and I think I am going to set lowest float on minimal wear to make it all work towards the distorted texture I paint. Top RIS will for 99% remain stock.
After Gaunt's and SLIMEface's feedback I decided to give another try for re-shaping the eye, to give it more character and make it more aggrsive perhaps. Those are just sketches on the base of current one so it should (just should) look okay in-game ont he model.
Wondering in which direction I should go, any ideas?
Naaah, I'm pretty sure the colours are okay, it is quite colourfull overall, the colours are rather bright and the contrast is high, some Coverts aren't as colourfull.
And thank you, glad you like the style I decided to paint.
Many, many hours spent today on it, mostly inside the psd to regain control over all the layers I made when painting, this is in-game test for checking how those phong settings with this skin look under lighting, and I like the results. I am close to the end, areas on screenshots covered with base coat (it's not a real base coat, since no alpha made yet) will remain base coat to keep balance and not go too much with details into covert area, it is already colourful and bright enough I belive.
What's left are details, and off angles that were not covered properly when I was merging the texture onto the model. Later, when I'm done with finishing I will make alternate colour versions for those who either do not like this colour combination, or think it's too close of a Boba Fett's thing.
I think the overall design is great and the way you created the skull on the receiver and clip is cool. My only real feedback is that the clip area with the text doesn't make much sense for the overall design. I guess when i think of how the person who would have designed that cool custom work, would most likely not artistically incorporate a stencil of information regarding the bullet count/bullet size. I dunno, that is just my thoughts.
keep up the great work, duder.
Thanks for compliments, I'll explain why I wanted to do the text. I knew that it isn't exacly what star wars do (altough on starfighters there are little notes like WARNING! and so on), but I looked at the bounty hunter in this case a bit disconnected from just what SW say. I looked at him like at professional guy who earns cash for living by dealing with military stuff, soldiers often mark caps with different info (maybe not exactly what kind of bullet is inside, becouse they know it by the shape of the cap), but I could imagine that such bounty hunter has plenty of different kind of ammunition and that as a rough real guy he is not afraid of dirt and scrapes, and stenciling his magazines isn't an issue for him, but usefull practical thing to do. I belive it isn't supposed take 1:1 everything from the source but we are expected to kind of play with inspirations and their use.
Also what is something from other area, not just pure meaning, I thought that it wasn't the most healthy way for the design to have the HNT-R text solo on a whole skin, it looked lonely so I wanted something that won't damage the core of clear swooping lines (that's why it's ouside of the core design), but will be cheezy and nice to look at.
The HNT-R was a solid idea. look forward to seeing the final!
Cheers, I am looking forward to the final too, I spent quite a lot of hours already and I am not as close as I thought I am to ending it.
The skins is pretty much ready, I fixed all merging errors, It's all ready, I just need to fine tune the colours (eg. red I think will end-up being less pinky, more browny, and the grey outlines will be brighter) and make alpha channel properly, but other then that is good to go.
PS. Yeah, I won't keep "DONE" on the other side of the gun...
PS2. Yeah I forgot to apply the AO stock-fix, sorry for that!
As requested:
From what i see, i think you should work more variances into the paint effect and to build more contrast near the edges of the grey and green. also, a super minor note....that "T" is bugging me how it bends to the left. Sorry, i do a lot of food photography and my eye is trained for stupid little shit
The thing is that I am going for an effect of the design being stenciled level-by-level onto the gun. I want the lines to be a "bit" flater as they are not striaght painted, time and dirt made them textured if anything. I had higher contrast on it earlier (pretty much on everything if you check first screens), but I tuned it down with time, it feels to me more accurate.
T isn't really bent, it's being irregulary scraped/distorted, that's the result. :P
Yeah, my girlfriend is doing food photo too so I personally feel the pain everyday.
ya, i am sure you have worked this thing to death and kinda know the sweet spot when it comes to the colors and contrast. I now spend about 3-4 days on just trying to get the textures right. everytime i learn something new, my process gets longer not shorter :0
To death and further, I have crossed every border together with this skin...
"everytime i learn something new, my process gets longer not shorter :0" - it was the name of my last 2 weeks
This is pretty much the very final version. I applied last changes, thanks to Ego Deaths feedback, those were: painting the area under rear sights, adding yellow peephole and removing the paint from the ring between body and stock "pipe".
I have alpha and other CWs set up, so I'll be dropping it onto workshop as soon as I get all the screenshots ready, so if you think anything should be still changed for perfection: speak now or forever remain silent.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=689047054
And the pictures:
Thank you all who shared feedback, helped me on improving the design, who commented nicely and to everyone who just came back and gave it a look.
This is probably like last "WIP" post as I ended the skin, the workbench only screens and UV I will add to the final submission thread, since that's what the rules say.
Alright so first main scheme, work name Bounty HNT-
Navy version:
And last "haze" scheme:
All versions have same wear model/alpha channel:
Link to the collection on workshop: http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=689047054