Pirate Pistol - wip
so ive started working on a project that is overall pirate themed, i wanted to start with something fun so i began with a pirate pistol. Ive never made a gun prop before so this is my first one, i think it looks pretty solid so far. My next step is to bring it into zbrush and start sculpting in some ornamental filagree on the metal areas, and sculpt something cool on the bottom handle. I would love any comments or crits to consider before i bring it into zbrush! Enjoy!
Replies
Few things that stick out:
Some of your edges aren't crisp enough which is leading to a little bit of a loss in the tightness of the shape. Look at some of the areas where your shapes don't appear to be resting on the surface of the gun, but instead, kind of gradually intersecting. Giving some stronger angles between the two pieces will alleviate some of this.
The trigger could use some hard edges on the sides as to give it a little more of a boxy and less of a tooth feel.
The butt of the gun is looking out of proportion to the rest of the gun. You might think about reducing the size a bit.
That's all for now
edit: after posting these i noticed the pinching on handle, its taken care of
Couple other things- I actually prefer the original handle more than the new one, heh. What I mean is, I think you toned it down too much. The shape and flow of the original is more interesting...the thing I guess that looks strange about the original is that it has a kind of 'bee stinger' kind of look to it. The bottom tapers too much and it spends too much time getting smaller. Have a look here-- http://www.clipart.dk.co.uk/DKImages/pirate/image_pirate004.jpg
Seems like this is kind of what you are going for, sans the stinger.
Lastly, there are some edge issues. If you're zbrushing this you are going to need to even out your edge flow a bit. Distribute your edge loops evenly so that when you subdivide you get an even flow of polys. In your 3d app turn on your wireframe mode and up the subds to level 4 and you notice that the barrel doesn't have enough loops on it compared to the others. The Hammer, and Frizzen need control edges on the corners so they smooth properly in zbrush.
Keep up the good work dude!
As for the handle i was having similar thoughts. My original intention was to carve out a face or a skull on that part, i was looking at a lot of pirates of the caribbean references and it seemed like a cool idea. But after messing around with it for a minute nothing seemed to flow as naturally as just the simple bulb shape it already had, so i might just keep it simple.
anyways thanks again, i really appreciate the suggestions, obviously it turned out better with your help =D
starting with the modeling.
it looks like youve done a pretty ok job getting the base silhouette of the gun, but its really lacking in form. overall it seems as if you did not pay attention to how those guns are physically made, but just as how they look from a specific angle. to start with, the metal butt of the gun is sort of just miscellaneously modeled on top of the wood, with it sort of just extruding from the surface, where in fact, it slides into a groove made in the wood and fits snugly, before then laying ontop of the surface with a soft bevel.
the same goes for the hammer area. the wood there should be shaped as though to hold a flat surface, where it looks as if you've just left the main body curved and thrown a flat piece of geometry on top of it. and also regarding that area, the hammer itself is way too flat. looks as though it was just modeled out from a side view and extruded. that too gets a nice bevel at the bottom (near the screw) and sort of softens as it progresses upward. same sort of crit for the frizzen and pan (the part that the hammer hits when fired). in the low poly it seems almost as if its not even there. those definitely need to be beefed up some.
there could be more said about the rest of the gun but its pretty much the same as ive already said. you need to grab some super high res pictures (from multiple angles) and look at not just the silhouette of each piece of the gun, but the shape and function it has.
on to zbrush.
I wouldve completely steered clear of zbrush for this model. for 1, your alphas are sort of blobby looking. it would be best to get a straight b/w alpha, something made from a vector preferably, and then drag it onto your model, with the intent to further build it up. an alpha wont do everything for you when it comes to detail, its only a starting shape.
texture
the texture looks like its just 2 colors. brown and grey. it looks like theres no actual texture detail (wood and metal) on the texture.
here's a couple of references i pulled up, id suggest taking a look at them and just drawing your eye back and forth between yours and an actual one.
http://jamesdjulia.com/auctions/288/images/pr/39560.jpg
http://www.firelockpistols.com/catalog/specials/wilsongeorgianspcl.jpg