In-Between Semester Study

In between the fall and spring semesters, we were tasked with doing a 3D Art study using an object made of both wood and metal. I chose a Colt 1851 Navy Revolver; for an added challenge, I wanted to design it in the style of the game Wayfinder.

To begin, I looked up reference images and diagrams of the revolver and began doing sketches of it to figure out what the pieces were and how they fit together, and then how I might add some stylization to it.

I then looked at reference images from artists who worked on Wayfinder to observe how they treated wood and metal; I pulled several images of both sculpted and textured renders of rifles, since the wood in particular was stylized differently from how it looks in doors and furniture in that game. I also searched for reference images of filigree and observed the filigree in the references of the revolver.

 Having done the relevant research, I did a concept painting to try to combine the style with the design of the revolver; I did a layout for the placement of the filigree as well. I noted that my painting was still rather tame compared to the rifles actually used in Wayfinder, and took note that I would need to push the sculpt further than the painting.

Next I did the blockout. This was tricky, because I realized that I was hewing too close to the original proportions of the real gun, and while Wayfinder's rifle designs aren't particularly fantastical, I thickened up the barrel, cylinder, and frame in my blockout to get them a little bit chunkier. Of significant assistance was this Sketchfab model, in terms of further examination of the three-dimensionality of the gun; it doesn't completely match the reference images, so I used those where possible, but the model was helpful in further examining what the parts were and how they fit together.

The most recent stage is the sculpt. The primary difficulty here has been the wood, which was a lot of trial and error; I restarted the stock twice before I finally figured out a workflow that made sense and got me the result I was looking for. I plan to add the filigree later; for this, I wanted to focus on the particular stylized wear and surface variation characteristic of Wayfinder in order to get the silhouette looking right.