As previously stated with the Colt 1911 (linked below), Guns really aren't my area, that being said they are Hard Surface asset's and something I should theoretically be able to build as a game asset. This project was inspired by the recently re-released Red Dead Redemption. I recall the game pretty well from back when I last played it and came to the conclusion that I would like to do something rather different. Until the point of working on this project I had limited exposure to RDR 2 (Red Dead Redemption 2) but I knew 2 things, the first was I wanted to build a projects around the Outlaws and Gunslingers of the Wild West, and the second was I wasn't too thrilled with Soft Surface modelling. This left only really 1 option a firearm.

After looking around online for a few hours I came up with wanting to start working on a Colt Revolver, however I had no Idea how it worked other than point and squeeze the trigger. Because this was a Revolver, and from the area around the turn of the century (RDR being based in 1911 and RDR 2 being set in 1899), there were some that sprang to mind, one of these was the Single Action Army. In terms of RDR, this would be the Cattleman Revolver. This weapon was different than my initial idea of a Revolver however, my idea was that the Drum holding the bullets would fold out to the side, and reloading was a simple task of slotting all the rounds into the drum. This in turn meant that 6 shots could be reloaded in one go and the Drum be locked back into the frame, ready to fire. The Single Action Army didn't do this, instead it has a manual ejection rod that slides into the drum chamber and pushes the empty shell out, letting you load the next bullet, additionally to this the gun required manual cocking of the hammer before it could be fired, hence the famous way gunslingers shot I guess.

Armed with this new knowledge I set to work building the Colt, Unwrapping, and compiling a Texture Sheet before working out I wanted 3 separate textures. These 3 Textures were a Basic, one inspired by RDR 2's High Roller Revolver, and a final Engraved design. The engraved design was assisted by the help of Colin Lilley, who quickly sketched up the design. Overall the project took somewhere around 38 hours to get it into engine. Although I would have liked to Rig and Animate the weapon I don't feel completely confident in my current abilities in these disciplines, so for now it is just a Static Mesh.

Technical Information:

Poly Count: 17,622 Tri Count (Colt is 16,974, Bullet is 648)
Texture Size: 2x4K (One Texture for the Body of the Weapon, and one for the Drum and Bullet)
Overlapping UV Islands: None

Colt 1911:
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/YKlnDX

Colin Lilley:
https://www.artstation.com/colinlilley