Compact Personal Defense Gun [Finished]

Zott · Sep 2019

I've been working on the following prop for a little bit now and I feel like it's at a decent point but I'd love to hear any critique, especially regarding the materials; I'd like to push it a little further if I can but I'm not sure what else it needs as I've been looking at it too long:

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/5z/wx9452s8bauv.jpg

Renders are from Marmoset. Original concept is by Fernando Correa - https://www.artstation.com/artwork/KaJDmW

Here's a gif because... I enjoy making gifs:

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/re/whyf1j4wolr8.gif

Thank you for taking the time to load all of these images

9Solid · Sep 2019

Hey Zott, so looking at the concept and your renders, a few things stick out to me. There's a lot of blank space along the slide and handle. Maybe add some more cuts into the front of the slide and add some kind of branding to the handle. The handle itself looks rather blocky, and I think the rear of it could be smoothed out a little more. Same goes for the hard edges on the slide and around the trigger. I think the highpoly could be rounded a little more in those areas to accentuate them.

For the materials, it's a good start, but it could use more roughness variation, color variation, wear in areas that are going to be handled the most. Fingerprints on the back of the slide, worn paint at the bottom of it, lighter blue along the handle. Stuff like that. And I think the back of the gun could use some more interesting details. I'd take a look at some striker fired pistols for inspiration on how to break up some of the flat areas there. Finally, compared to the reference, the gun looks a tad bit too long, and I think could be more compact, which would help your blank space issues a bit.

Overall, good job! I'd say just tweak the design a little and make it your own. The renders themselves look solid.

Zott · Sep 2019

@9Solid Thanks very much for the thorough feedback!
You're right about the design changes you mentioned. Looking at it now, the barrel/slide length should definitely be reduced. The blank space issue wasn't obvious to me at first but now I can't unsee it lol

I was mostly looking at glock images for reference other than the concept; I hadn't heard the term "striker fired" before and that does give me a lot of great results to go off of, thanks!

I'll work on that and post updates.

9Solid · Sep 2019

@Zott No problem! Excited to see it evolve.

Zott · Nov 2019

So it's been a long time since my last post - the motherboard on my desktop died and was out of warranty so I was without a workstation for a little while before I was able to get new hardware. All that out of the way, I feel like the redesign is at a good point now:

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/7o/w6fgqwe3ea1o.jpg

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/ad/zl1brvvbt65o.png

Old version is in the foreground.

I think separating the sights as their own parts helped break up the blocky slide a little and making them larger in general helped clarify the scale of the pistol. In retrospect, the old sights are not really... how pistol sights usually work, heh. I also redid the front of the pistol with more reference in mind.

The updated parts are now in zbrush, ready for some nice bevels and such soon. I'm pretty happy with this prop for the moment but I'm always excited to hear more advice/critique if anyone has any

Zott · Nov 2019

I've got some happy little bevels on all the updated parts. Here is a shot from every angle, in the worst collage I've ever created:

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/ss/2d59y8i3bczu.jpg

Forgive me

I'm probably going to sculpt in a damage pass this go-round, rather than trying to do it all in the materials but I'm not sure yet.

Zott · Jan 2020

Well, it's been a while, again. I set this project aside for a few weeks and practiced some other techniques for my next portfolio project, which helped give me "fresh eyes" for this prop and kept me motivated and excited. I'm really grateful for the feedback I received here; I think re-doing this really really helped the outcome.

I would always love to hear any additional critique and suggestions if there are any but for now I feel happy with how much I've learned from this so I'm going to call it "finished".

Total tri-count is 12.1k and there are two textures, one for the gun and another half size texture for the laser sight attachment.

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/N5R2KN

Compact Personal Defense Gun [Finished]

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