WIP - Righteous Bison Indivisible Particle Smasher

iconoplast

I was poking around on Weta's website one day and stumbled across the line of limited edition ray guns that they sell. Since I don't have obscene amounts of money to spend on them and they are fantastical, I decided I wanted to make a (virtual) few of my own. Right now I'm working on the iconic member of their line-up -- The Righteous Bison. It's not an identical copy -- I tweaked a few things that I thought would be more reasonable if I pretend it's a working model. I've got the high poly mostly done and some temporary colors blocked out. Still to go are the final low poly, the real texture, and the bake. I did a quick bpr in zbrush so I could get some feedback while I'm still in a position to make changes. Thanks for any feedback guys!

Fingus

Your proportions and placement seems good. There are some areas where you're slightly off, and some areas where you deviate more strongly from your reference like the deco on the handle. The main area that needs work at the moment is the fin on the back. On your model it is very rounded, but in the original it's more stepped. Also the tubes need to be slightly thicker.
I also noticed that the surface of the main body gets broken by the parts attached to it. You can see the transition is very rounded compared to the reference. Is it all one piece? Because it looks like a smoothing issue. I'd model them as separate pieces.

Here, I made a gif with the reference overlayed on your model:

PLyczkowski

@Fingus The author clearly stated that he is not going for a identical copy.

TrevorJ

pssh! how dare you assume anyone ever reads anything on Polycount! were artistes!!!

Thriller Theater

Looks really cool! Smoother design than the original. Really nice kind of mechanical details. Maybe I should borrow some for my professor´s equipment.

iconoplast

@Fingus - Thanks! Not all of those were intentional deviations, so I really appreciate it. The biggest thing is indeed the fin; it must have been something I missed happening in sculpting since it lined up with the reference before that. I'll definitely have to revisit that. The tubes are a stylistic choice, as I think in the original design they'd overheat without some airflow/spacing between them. The body is currently a single piece -- the tubes, the piece that attaches them, the dial, and the little thing the tubes go in to on the bottom are what's separate right now. I did that primarily to get more rounding in the spots where the rest is solid as the silhouette was pretty poor at any significant distance otherwise. (I made the trigger larger and a little farther forward for the same reason.) Is it better to have it look more like separate pieces but not read as well farther away? Or is there some way I can have both?

Oh, and the deco on the handle is because I thought it looked rather silly to have it fill the full width, especially with the atomic symbol vertically stretched like that. I also made it darker toward the middle instead of lighter because that's about where the hand would hit while holding it and it'd gather more dirt and grime in the cracks there. I'll be adding more below that as well, but making sure I got it at that spot now reminds me to do it later.

@PLyczkowski - Thanks for that. Still, I'd rather know if the deviations look like a mistake instead of a stylistic choice. I may rethink them if it makes me look inept. (Also, she, but as it's the internet I'll forgive the assumption.)

@TrevorJ - Did you write something? I didn't read it.

@Thriller Theater - Glad you like it! By all means, borrow away. Your professor looks a fair bit like the guy I imagined building this anyway, so it'd definitely fit!

Thor Sowards

Nice! Did you just bring it into Z for the bpr or you start it off in there? Big thing i noticed off yours from the original is where the fin piece up top connects to the rest of the gun. The original looks as if its a separate piece that gets screwed on or something but yours doesn't. I think if you made the fin look that way it would help it out a bunch. Other things would be to add some screws around where the handle connects to the body, and I like that little lever behind the handle (the safety maybe?) in the original, any chance of gettn that in there?

Great job overall though! Lookn forward to seeing the lp!

iconoplast

I built a base then did the detailing in Zbrush. I think I'm going to rebuild the fin completely and see if I can get it looking more like it should.

As to the little lever, I thought it was a safety at first too, but it's on both sides on the original. I will have it on one side at least, probably as a floater when I bake the normal.

iconoplast

Latest:


I think the fin is looking a bit better now that I've convinced Zbrush that it doesn't need to crash 4 times an hour. I still need to address the extra rounding on the tail that cropped up. Anything else I'm missing?