Comedy Club

Made a comedy club type building, trying out different things.

Comic Book Fun

Okay, the bamboo isn't just randomly exploding, it's filled with black powder,
just a little trick our hero has.

Howdy, recently I've been researching and drawing up concepts for a new side project; this idea I've had for a long time but my artistic skill at that time was not good enough. But now I've been practicing, I've been studying, and now I've got minor improvement! BOO YEAH!

Mercury Man attacks!

I've mainly been penciling out basic forms on paper and then taking a picture of it with my phone (Huzzah for technology), using a fancy little app called Autodesk Sketchbook, the older one that only gave you ten layers and no Blending capabilities, I made do with what I had and inked and colored in all the scribbles .

Red Jackal, Fire-powered agent of the East

Someone's chucking fireballs?
Do you call the fire department?
Nope, call a Panda...

Smith and Wesson Animatic

   
     An animatic of a Smith and Wesson Model 19 unloading the spent casings and then loading fresh ones. This was made for an instructor for the Canadian Firearms Safety Course to show his students how to unload a Double Action revolver, hence the yellow arrows showing movement.

     The video encoder on Blogger doesn't appear to show the full quality of the animation.

Smith & Wesson Model 19

Smith and Wesson Model 19

   So it's been awhile since the last firearm was posted, mainly because I can only do modeling on my days off, but anyhoo, here's a new gun.

     The Smith and Wesson Model 19 is a K-frame, six shot revolver in .38 Special or .357 Mag. 

     All firearms are the product of someone having one thing, and then upgrading it. For this fancy six-shot revolver, police agencies needed a more powerful round than their .38 Special cartridges. So as with any ammunition, a guy played with some of the measurements and ended up with a round with a little more "Oomph". The .357 (Three Fifty-seven) Magnum round was essentially the same as the .38 Special round except for the case which was .125 inches longer, that doesn't sound like much but that meant more powder, and more powder pushes the lead little farther and harder.

     With this new round, it was necessary to have a gun that could accommodate it, since it was mainly going to be used by the police, they wanted the design to be a "peace officer's dream" sidearm, it would have a four inch heavy barrel K-frame with a shrouded barrel like most N-Frame revolvers (helps with the recoil, revolver barrels like to move up after firing since all its control was at the back of the gun, compared to most semi-autos where the control is more centered). 

Smith and Wesson have their own labels for the size of revolver frames they make, the smallest would be "I-Frame" which were mainly .22 LR. 

Onto the "J-Frame" which was just as small but had bigger calibers, "K" and "L-Frame" were generally medium sized revolvers.

"L-Frame" is large... yup...

"N-Frame" is larger (Think of Dirty Harry's S&W Model 29 which at the time of that movie was "the most powerful revolver" in the world). 

Then there's the "X-Frame" for the modern Smith and Wesson Model 500, the now most powerful production revolver in the world, and I got to use one before Schwarzenegger so I may be a little biased on how great it is.

 There's also the "Z-Frame" for their fancy S&W Governor, a revolver that eats .45 Colt, .45 ACP, and .410 shotgun shells. Much like the Taurus Judge.

-Mike

Colt M1873

 

     The Colt M1873, or Colt Single Action Army, or Colt .45, or Peacemaker, or Colt SAA, or "The Gun That Won the West"... was a Single Action revolver. Single Action meaning that the revolver will only fire when the hammer is pulled back manually by thumb.

     Now the main reason I made this was because someone asked me to make a Single Action Revolver, and then animate the method of reloading, the whole opening of the Loading Gate, pushing the Ejector Rod, and having a shell fall out.

     I decided to try out some hard surface modeling, I watched a few tutorial videos on general hard surface modeling and thought I'd try it out and incorporate some of the techniques into this model... luckily it looks kinda cool; it has that extra 'oomph'. The overall model is missing screws and the catches on the cylinder, and the texture on the revolver is just a shiny kind of blinn...


     Haven't been doing much modeling, mainly because I've been working.

Ingram M10 (MAC-10)

Magazines hold 30 rounds of .45 ACP
1,145 RPM (Rounds Per Minute)
little over a second to empty a magazine...

     Ingram's Military Armament Corporation 10 (M-10 or MAC-10) was produced in the beginning of the 70's with versions made by other manufacturers still today. Originally firing a heavy .45 ACP round and then later the 9x19mm Parabellum round.

("Si vis pacem, para bellum" is Latin for "If you want peace, prepare for war") 

I don't have much to say about this firearm, Canada has banned it by name along with all variants. If there was a solely semi-automatic version of this historic firearm it'd be immediately classified as prohib anyway because it looks scary to the people who write the laws... all the while, a semi-automatic Czechoslovakian version of the Skorpion vz. 61 called the CZ 91 is A.O.K to buy. Here's the kicker about that gun; it's been classified as a 'rifle' so magazines can only carry five rounds... of .32 ACP... It was classified as a rifle because the "Skorpion pistol" is prohibited, calling it a rifle changes it's classification.

Here's a link to a list of prohibited firearms

Former Prohibited Weapons Order, No. 12

61. The firearms of the designs commonly known as the Ingram M10 and M11 pistols, and any variants or modified versions of them, including the Cobray M10 and M11 pistols, the RPB M10, M11, SM10 and SM11 pistols and the SWD M10, M11, SM10 and SM11 pistols

Former Prohibited Weapons Order, No. 11

40. The firearm of the design commonly known as the Skorpion Auto Pistol, and any variant or modified version of it.

Stupidity Ltd.

MS Paint... Fun fun fun...

     Long ago when I was a wee caterpillar, I drew comics. This festered into a thing called Stupidity Ltd. (Limited). The original comics were hand drawn, and soon I switched to a more digital medium. I didn't have Photoshop back then so I had to use what was available. The coolest trick I learned while using the program was making gradients, as seen above.

Here's a link to Stupidity Ltd. (it's on Facebook)  

looking back at it all... ugh...

SIG-Sauer P230

     The Swiss made SIG-Sauer P230 is a compact pistol usually utilizing the .380 ACP round. Capable in firing SA (Single Action) and DA (Double Action). Production stopped in 1996, replaced with the P232. The P230 has no real safety, the but does has a "de-cocking" lever, and has the ability to be left on a half-cock (a feature in most DA pistols).

     That's about it actually...

     What, Were you expecting some long write-up about this firearm? Then uhh, it was originally chambered for .32 ACP but then that was dropped, probably because the police using it wanted to do more than tickle the bad guys... Um, it was used twice in one of my favorite T.V. shows called "The Unit".


     There...

Ruger 10/22

Ruger 10/22
Satin Black Barrel and American Walnut Stock

     What can I say about the loveable Ruger 10/22 (Ten Twenty-Two)? A versatile, semi-automatic rifle that popped up in the mid 60's. Many, many, many shooters have either used one, has one, or grown up with one. This rifle is great for shooters of all ages and skill. New shooters will experience a quality semi-automatic rifle with negligible recoil, and older shooters can fire and cheap, multiple rounds downrange.

Ruger 10/22
 Simmons 22 Mag Compact Rifle Scope
Stainless Steel Barrel and Black Synthetic Stock

     One hindrance the rifle has is the bolt release; The factory bolt release's internals has a wee bit of a lip or hook, because of this, releasing the bolt can get quite hard to do. One would have to pull the bolt back and forth and finagle the small blade at the base of the bolt release. Most shooters can and will file that hook away. This Auto Bolt Release results in a nicer and quicker reload. However, smacking the receiver or dropping the rifle can cause the bolt to close if it was originally open. If a loaded magazine was already inserted that would mean that the rifle is now "hot" and you've just done a dangerous thing...

     I made this awhile ago but just fixed up the texturing and overall model recently, the original textures were not good (at all). Immediately when I turned 18 (July 26) I got my firearms license. The following Christmas I received a Ruger 10/22 with some sort of forest floor coloured synthetic stock.

My Ruger

     Another one of my favourite shooters: 22plinkster, does a variety of trick shots mainly using .22LR rifles and pistols. He's split cards, cut floss, shot though a hole in a CD (while it was spinning), shot an eraser off a pencil, and skipped bullets off of water and hit a balloon.

                         

Kel Tec Sub 2000

Thanks to Canadian gun laws, this has a 470mm long barrel...

     The Sub 2000 is a rifle that fires 9x19mm or .40 S&W. That's right, a rifle that uses pistol rounds. All the while the same company makes the PLR-16... which is a .223 caliber pistol... Yep, the same caliber fired by civilian AR-15s.
     Kel Tec CNC Industries made this rifle to accept Glock, Beretta, SIG, and S&W Magazines depending on caliber. The 4 pound (empty) rifle is mainly made of a synthetic material called Zytel, while the more important components are made of a high quality steel. The predecessor of the Sub 2000 was the SUB-9 which was released around 1997 but was made of aluminium and was more expensive to make. Other competitor pistol caliber rifles are the Hi-Point 995 carbine, a 9mm rifle that weighs around 6.6 pounds, which is about the weight of an AK system, and is quite large, and the Beretta Cx4 Storm, which is a pound lighter than the Hi-Point, and can be ambidextrous for the left hand shooters. The biggest detail about the rifle was what happened when you push down the trigger-guard. That's right, it folds in half!

     This rifle works great for hikers and backpackers, the rifle itself is light and compact, the long barrel and large sights provide good accuracy, and the pistol ammunition is generally lighter than carrying a shotgun or larger caliber rifle for protection in the woods. A while back, my dad took me to a gun store that had one of these, boy are they small. It may have been just the one available at the moment, but folding the rifle requires a small amount of care, the front sight connects to a catch located in the butt plate, and you have to make sure it goes in for it to be secured.

 I modelled this rifle mainly because it was featured on a video of my favourite YouTube shooter: Hickok45. This rifle was easy to model, but hard to texture. The frame and fore end took the longest time to texture while the front sight took the longest to model. The texture of the magazine release features the Beretta grip, because of this, I specifically modelled a Beretta brand Magazine, as opposed to just importing a previously made Glock magazine from the Glock 22.

M67 Grenade Crate

Grenades are addressed "To Whom it May Concern"

 The M67 High Explosion Fragmentation Hand Grenade (or "grenade" for short,) is  wee ball of composition B explosive fun. It replaced the M26 (Lemon) and the less reliable Mk II Pineapple grenades in the US Military.
  I don't know much about the M67, it's not really my forte. It's not like us Canadians can go buy these to take to the range and chuck them about. Well we probably could get some blue training ones or those chunks of metal you find at military "surplus" store.

    I actually modelled this for a completely different thing, see for one of my classes, some lighting thing, we were given a scene and was told to add Mental Ray lighting and model one extra fruit. Now Pomegranate in French is "Grenade" (pronounced differently but still...) and the Mk II grenade was called nicknamed "Pineapple", while the M26 was called "Lemon". You can hopefully see where I'm going with this. So I modelled the M67, even though it's nicknamed "baseball" I still thought it'd be ironic or something. After modelling and texturing the grenade, I figured the humour would be lost when the instructor marks the assignment so in the end, I quickly modelled a pear and plopped in in.

Enviroment Reel 2013

     Here is my Reel that I made at the Visual College of Art and Design (VCAD), if you've seen the previous posts regarding the Reel, then you should know what it's about. But here's a refresher;

     The first scene is some sort of warehouse that currently houses a Militia or rag-tag group of individuals who have stockpiled many surplus and sporting firearms.

     The second scene is a militaristic bunker run by some mercenary or privateer group. Since they are better funded, they can afford better gear.


     I'm still planning on fixing up both scenes and continue working on another scene that's more "verdant"...



Here on Vimeo

 http://vimeo.com/70193244

Here on YouTube too

http://youtu.be/GIdykIOUMEQ

Cheers

Mike

Taurus Judge

Taurus Judge: .45 Colt and .410 Bore,

    I think I first saw the Judge on YouTube, Hickok45, one of my favourite shooters, was playing around with one and I just thought that this revolver was the coolest. A revolver that can use a .45 Colt Cartridge, which is like a .45 ACP but with a longer casing, and a .410 Bore shotshell (proper name for the shell as opposed to 'gauge'), which comes in quite a few different loads such as buckshot, birdshot, slugs, and... other things that'll fit in the hull...

   In the US, there's a wee thing citizens can get called a carry license, Canadians can get one too only if they have a valid reason and there is no way they can have an officer protect them. Valid reasons may include a Ninja T-Rex with Predator's gear hunting you down, then and ONLY then could Canadians carry for self protection. Anyway, the reason why I brought up the whole carry thing is because of a small debate of whether or not the Judge would make a good carry gun.
    Because of the short barrel, the spread of birdshot and buckshot would be big, and loading slugs would essentially be the same as loading .45 Colt. So why wouldn't you just carry a semi-automatic that'll hold more rounds? Granted, the Judge has shallower rifling in the barrel that helps reduce the dispersion of the shot, but then that alters the performance of bullets or slugs, and Taurus does make the Judge with a 6 1/2" barrel. Most people carry pistols because they can't carry a rifle for self protection, so the premise of having a "shotgun" in their holster would lead some to believing in using that. Thankfully, various ammunition manufacturers have started making 'self-defence' loads in .410, for example; the Winchester PDx1 which holds a mix of buckshot and several 'disks'. The disks are most likely an attempt to simulate the expansion of a hollowpoint bullet.
   Taurus then released the 'Public Defender' model which has a smaller frame. On the other end of the spectrum though, is the Taurus Raging Judge... Now that's a beauty... This Judge comes with a frame from a Raging Bull, meaning longer barrel, bigger grip, and a ported barrel.

   You may notice that there are two different coloured Judges up there. Yep, the ones on the right are the run-of-the-mill stainless revolver. But the ones on the left is the special edition "El Juez" version. This one comes with gold plated hammer, trigger, and cylinder release. Only 1000 were made, so needless to say... they're sold out... The reason why it's called "El Juez" meaning "The Judge" in Spanish, is because Taurus originally started in Brazil.

    Never modelled a revolver before, while wanting to keep the prop low-poly, I still had to have the important parts of the firearm look weird or cube-y... The cylinder took the longest time to figure out but after that everything fell together.

 

Ambient Occlusion Tests 'n Stuff

    Playing around with Ambient occlusion in Maya, then used After Effects to put it all together. A Mauser C96 rotating with some 7.63x25mm cartridges and stripper clips.

I'm working on my FINAL DEMO REEL thing, so I am wee bit busy.

Playing Around with particles

    Here's a good ole Ingram M10 firing a .45ACP at a steel target. Not much more to say about it frankly. I was just doing some particle stuff in attempt to simulate a frangible bullet.

CZ 858

Canada's answer for the AK

   In Canada, any AK variant is classified as a Prohib firearm, meaning that unless you have the right licence there is no legal way to own an AK-47 looking rifle while living in Canada. Although there are semi-automatic AK variants out there, they are still prohibited because of their history, that's like banning all pit-bulls because a few eat children... So the good ole country Czechoslovakia, sent in some surplus parts to make a semi-automatic SA vz 58's. Us here in Canada ate it up, so much to the extent that Canada had started making a "Canadian" model of the rifle: real wood stock with a maple leaf engravings... The CZ 858 (and the vz 58) have no internal relations to the AK, the only similarities to the original rifle is the basic shape, reloading method, and caliber.

   It's a fun rifle to shoot, only problem is the recoil. I don't mean the recoil is bad though, it just that the iron sights seem to be a bit low, if you get the rifle with a wire stock or a scope mount, then there'd be less of a chance of being tapped in the jaw by the wooden stock. Also there had been many surplus rounds of 7.62x39mm that would corrode the metal if you didn't properly clean the rifle. Something about chemicals in the primer affecting the type of metal that the knockoff AK's and SKS's were made of.

   Making the CZ was ultimately fun up until I reached the area that covered the gas piston, and the front sight. I had to figure out how to model these parts with a low poly count and still make it look up to snuff. I can't complain with the results in the end.

Demo Reel Tid-bits Part 2

Sleepy quarters of the base

If you've seen the updated version of the AR-10, you'll notice that the one rifle is sitting on a wooden table in some sort of dimly lit concrete bunker. Well that's my second environment: a well funded militaristic base. I was going for some mercenary or privateer type groups that would contrast the other environment in both equipment, and setting. They have bunk beds as opposed to the cots, Stinger SAM crates instead of those surplus RPG ones, and the M4s instead of the civilian CZs.

Pistol Rack along with some other... party favors

I figured I should put some sort of uniform but I didn't know what color it should be. Since these are technically the "bad-guys" I didn't want to make it the generic Jungle or Desert digital camouflage, since they were too similar to the US and Canadian uniforms. Then I found a picture of the Chinese Marine Corps and their Type 99 4-colored Oceanic pattern, the blue was a nice contrast from the gray and dull browns of the scene. I'm not saying that these are the Chinese though, just some people who's loyalties can be bought.

never enough guns... NEVER!

These guys are toting some M4s, AR-10, 870s, and various semi-automatic handguns and are also in possession of some M67 Grenades and M18 Smoke grenades. The shelves still need to be stocked and I should dirty up the floor some more. Keep in mind that these are still being worked on.


-Mike

Mauser C96

Deise ist ein Broomhandle (bad, bad German...)

   I don't know where to start with this... Have you ever seen Star Wars? Well, did you know that Han Solo's (Harrison Ford) gun was a modified Mauser? Granted, many of the firearms used in the first three movies were based on Second World War goodies. The Mauser C96, or Broomhandle as it was sometimes nicknamed, had an integral box magazine which hadn't been used much on pistols before. It was generally fed by a stripper clip, which held ten 7.63x25mm Mauser cartridges until it became chambered in other calibers. The C96 came with a wooden carrying case which doubled as an attachable stock, and soon after a carbine version of the pistol was made with a longer barrel and a forend. An automatic variant called the "Schnellfeuer" (basically meaning "Fast Fire") was developed with a detachable box magazine and selector switch... I reckon you'd want the stock for that...

   The reason why I modeled a C96 was because someone wanted one for their environment. Well actually they didn't know which gun they wanted so I searched up some firearms relevant to her scene. Figuring out how to do the barrel was the tough, since it transitions from a smoothed barrel to the more polygonal frame. Everything else after that was quite simple, all I had to keep in mind was to keep it low poly.

Glock 22 Gen 1

Austria's Glock 22 Generation 1 in .40 S&W

   Depending on the department, the police can choose from various models of semi-automatic handguns. The most popular is the Glock 22 loaded with fifteen .40 S&W hollowpoints and the Glock 17 or 19 loaded with fifteen to seventeen 9x19mm hollowpoints. The Glock is simple, no really look at it, it's a glorified rectangle, this is a two year old's drawing of a gun come to life; just a box for a slide, a big ole mag release, and an internal hammer.
   This is actually the reason why some departments equip their officers with Glocks: it's simple. Another fancy thing about the Glock is that the magazines and slides are interchangeable (within reason). The Glock 22 magazine will fit in a Glock 27 (which looks quite nice), and if you have a .22 conversion slide and magazine for your Glock 17, you'll have an inexpensive training gun for practicing quick reloads, acquiring faster sight picture, or getting your younger ones accustomed to handguns (be cautious with the young ones though, during the colder weather the trigger safety may start to irritate them after prolonged use).
   That's also another issue some may have with Glock; the safety, or lack there of. Most firearms produced these days have a switch, lever, or button to press which prevents the firing pin from touching the primer. The Glock does not, well at least not a discernible one. The Glock instead has this wee little trigger mechanism in front of the proper trigger, this is properly called the "Safe Action Trigger", the gun will not fire unless both triggers are squeezed. Compared to the Colt which has two. But of course no safety mechanism is 100% safe, and is no better than the safety between an ethical shooter's ears.
 
   The Glock 17 was the first handgun released by Gaston Glock, it is called "17" because it was the seventeenth patent they made. The Glock was also a big deal because of the company's expertice in advanced synthetic polymers. Some television shows have erroneously stated that the polymer frame would allow the gun to pass metal detectors, despite the fact that the barrel and many of it's internals are very much metal. Because of the Glock's simple shape, many attachments have been made with it in mind, the most popular is the CornerShot, it may look like an intimidating machine gun, but it's really a Glock attached to a glorified stick... There is also various carbine kits that makes the gun look like something out of a Sci-Fi flick.


I modeled a Glock becasue I grew up with them, used them and loved them. Personally they don't compare to the 10mm S&W 1006 but that's just my opinion, and you shouldn't take the people's opinion on firearms on the internet to heart. ESPECIALLY when it comes to the Glock v.s 1911 debate.

Browning M2HB

Land, Sea, or Air; Ma Deuce is always there... sorry

   Consider this firearm the staple of any military scene in any movie, show or videogame... Put together some ARs, Berettas M9s (92FS) or 1911s, and M2s then BAM, you have yourself a "Military base".

   The original M2 was an upgraded version of the Browning Model 1921 which was the .50 caliber version of the Browning M1917. The Browning M2 HB (Heavy Barrel) machine gun is mounted on almost every vehicle from World War II to the war in Afghanistan, (if it ain't broke, don't fix it eh?) but of course it has had some modifications. The barrel is Air-Cooled (meaning that the barrel is cooled by just the air) but older versions of the MG mainly on naval vessels had a large water jacket that would hold water pumped from a tank, they did this on other machine guns back then like the Vickers, this wasn't as adaptable compared to just a regular barrel shroud. Oh and the barrel shroud is not "a shoulder thing that goes up." (*shudder*)

   Other than on various modes of transportation the M2  is used in MG nests for light fortifications or as AA guns. Before the use of the .50 BMG, most airplanes were generally fitted with machine guns that were around .308, .30-06, or 7.92mm. There is a considerable size difference between them and the fifty. The M2 was also designed to be belt fed from either side of the receiver, this allows two M2s to be fired side by side, while all the used shells are ejected out the bottom so there isn't any interference from flying brass.


   This modeled firearm is just placed on a standard M3 tripod and features the generic Spade grip. I gave it a stainless barrel shroud as opposed to the standard blued one.  I had the hardest time trying to figure how to make a low-poly barrel shroud, ended up figuring something out.

Why did I model a Browning M2HB? Why not.


-Mike