so im making a game and i recently made a sword model (to those who saw it, ill make the blade longer soon), and just today i made a gun model, a pistol. this is my first time making a gun partially from a reference image, so constructive criticism would heavily be appreciated.
the model:
(the holding animation is NOT going to be used ingame, it was just made to show how it would look in the character’s hand)
The gun (on the character) is wayy too large.
The gun is too bulky, specifically its too thick.
The shape of the gun isn’t exactly the best.
The barrel/muzzle is too large and with it lacking the visual of actually going further into the gun, it looks bad.
The trigger is too blocky and imo, too large, however it may just be too “forward” to look right.
The iron sights on it are really bad, there’s no center point and what should be at the back of the gun is at the front.
The modelling of the attachment rail isn’t that good either, most pistols don’t even have an attachment rail, but those that do use the standard design which is more than just a few bumps on the surface.
The grip on the handle also isn’t modeled all that well, its just a block and doesn’t look all that great. Adding some curves to it and in general giving it more shape would certainly help it a lot.
Compared to your sword model which I also saw (but didn’t comment on), this is unfortunately a downgrade in quality.
I could also keep nitpicking about how functionally it isn’t good, but I’ll go onto advice:
When using reference material, I’d suggest downloading images of a guns side-profile, and then creating the general shape of the gun based off the image.
So, use an image like this:
Once you’ve got the side profile, you can then just use plain reference material to estimate the thickness and to add other little details.
That’s the simply way to model guns decently. You get results that resemble what you’re aiming for, but aren’t super accurate.
If you’re aiming for a more cartoony vibe then I’d recommend doing what Fortnite did.
The guns do infact resemble what they’re supposed to, but in places they have cartoony proportions on top of cartoony textures. And if you’re wondering “how to texture properly”, well it comes at a INSANELY high price with Substance 3D Painter (and I wouldn’t recommend buying it), however there are free, or often far cheaper alternatives.
(One direct upside to Substance however, is that it does have a direct “Roblox” export option)
However, lets shift to a more “realistic” texturing method since not everyone has money to throw into a texturing program. May I introduce, color sheets. All you have to do for that is throw a handful of colored squares into a single image and then assign the faces to those colors in blender’s UV editor.
Some really good gun models on the Unity Asset Store use this method for texturing, one I can name directly is CASTLE BRAVO.
This effect is much better if you use gradients, which also assists in a cartoony vibe, however gradients require a bit more setup, as you’d have to orientate each part correctly for the gradient to flow.
Thanks! If I’m being honest, I don’t know that much about guns, I mainly just tried to replicate the reference image, which combined with my “improvising” may have created the unexpected results (e.g. the “iron sight”). I’ll make sure to research all the parts you described and make changes to my weapon.
This pistol model looks awesome! Great job on it! How long did it take to model this pistol? Will you be making more models? I rate this 9/10!
Thanks! It took maybe 2 hours to model it, and i’ll probably make more models for the game. However, I’ll be revamping it based on @Chark_Proto’s suggestions.
