Have you ever wondered how to design interesting and original weapons well in this video I'm
going to be breaking down and sharing a few methods to designing crisp and clean weapon
concepts while going through my process.
Hey guys welcome back it's TJ over here at Clifford's Studio bringing you another concept
art tutorial.
If this is your first time than welcome glad to have you here.
If your looking to improve as an artist by learning new tips and tactics in concept art
and digital illustration than consider subscribing and clicking that little notification tab
to stay up to date with all of my future content.
All right guys, so starting right off here I wanted to begin by taking some basic military
pistols that have already, for the most part, exist and duplicate it three times saving
me both time and allowing me not to have to worry about my proportions.
Once here I can start manipulating my silhouettes and start working out different shapes to
bring new life and originality into these designs and like I've said in other past videos
starting out with silhouettes can be extremely helpful when first working out your concepts.
All right, so after you're happy with your shapes and silhouettes you can jump into your
line work and details.
Now it's important to be using straight clean lines when designing weapons and props because
for the most part nothing is organic about them and they are completely machine/man made.
Additionally, I really wanted to keep similarities between these weapons designs making sure
they all can relate to each other as if they were apart of the same set or belong to the
same group of militants.
So when I'm going about designing these I'm trying to keep them between a clean and futuristic
look and a slightly more modern one.
Now going from the bottom to the top you can see I go from being more conservative and
a modern take on this to a way more crazy and out there.
And I think that's really important in concept art to have a fine line and a balance between
those two.
In fact for those of you who have played Halo back in the day when I was designing this
top gun I drew inspiration from the Needeler and as you can see the handle that loops around
the barrel is the main design element that I implemented when looking at old pieces of
concept art.
So speaking about functionality, when it comes to designing anything, you really want to
make sure the thing designing will actually work in the real world or in game.
In fact when designing these three guns one of my thoughts was in regards to the ammo
clip and where it would fit in each pistol design.
Now this is important to know because of how crucial it is to know how your design is working
inside and out so that you have clear communication between your game designers, 3D modelers and
your Art Directors.
So as an example at the bottom when I went the more conservative route I went with an
ammo clip that loaded through the handle of the gun allowing the weapon to have a chamber
and a slide.
Now this is pretty standard in today’s world and I still really enjoy the look a lot.
Now moving on to the middle weapon I wanted to experiment a bit.
I wanted to have the front of the gun flush with the barrel.
This would allow me to have the handle more curved similar to what you would find in a
revolver to counter the weight from the front.
Now for the third and final weapon design like I said before I wanted to have the handle
connect to the front creating a balanced weight distribution while the user is handling it.
With all this in mind and deciding to go with the more futuristic and modern gun design
route I needed to have the ammo clip load into the top of the barrel with a slight ledge
for easy reloading while keeping it esthetically pleasing and clean.
This however made it more complicated to fit the ammo clip into gun especially with the
weaver rail mount attached to the top of the weapon.
So when jumping into color I decided to go with a clean white and black look.
Now I really enjoyed how this turned out especially because of how strong the contrast was.
And as a side tip for those who don't know the strongest form of contrast that an artist
or anybody for that matter can create is by using black and white.
Now as I rendered this I really wanted to create a sense of depth where the black was
the under body of the actual pistol itself and the white would be the armor that was
attached and screwed on to the top of it.
All right so with this being a gun design these are weapons that are fired constantly
and used on a regular basis.
With that being said I wanted to show some wear and tear by dirtying up the clean white
with specks of dirt and grease.
Now a good tip for designing weapons and armor or any old prop is to make sure to add weathering
to your object's design showing that it has aged and is no longer perfect.
This helps add a ton of interest to your piece and introduces an organic element into your
design that wasn't previously there before.
All right guys so were approaching the end of the video I really hope you guys liked
this and were able to get some value out of this.
If you guys enjoyed this enough please hit that like button and leave a comment.
I love interacting with all of you guys and honestly it just helps the channel grow allowing
others to learn as well.
If this is something of interest and something you'd love to see more of please consider
subscribing.
I've been posting weekly and I love meeting all of you and helping in any way that I can.
If you want to stay up to date with me and follow my art live I've linked my social media
channels down in the description below as well as at the end of this video.
With all of that being said guys this is TJ from Clifford's Studio, take care