The Occult Revolver

This revolver is based on a concept by Marcin Tomalak

Project Objective

The goal of this project was to improve my skills in prop modeling, digital sculpting, baking, and texturing. Each stage was approached meticulously to produce a historically grounded yet fictionalized Civil War-era revolver that stayed true to the original concept.

To start, I gathered a range of references. Since I aimed for a high-fidelity final model, it was important to collect images that showed detailed secondary and tertiary surface features, as well as references illustrating the revolver’s individual components and how they fit together.

Workflow

I began by modeling a midpoly version of the revolver in Maya, aiming to capture as much detail as possible before moving into ZBrush. Once complete, I brought the model into ZBrush to smooth the geometry and sculpt fine surface details—such as edge dents, scratches, metal texture, and the fabric wrapping.

After finishing the highpoly sculpt, I decimated the model for easier import back into Maya, where I began retopology to significantly reduce the polygon count. The resulting lowpoly ended up having 16,816 triangles.

The lowpoly model was then UV unwrapped and taken into Marmoset Toolbag for baking. I performed an 'exploded bake' to avoid unwanted ambient occlusion artifacts—especially important since the revolver's parts separate during interaction. This ensured clean, accurate shadows.

In Substance Painter, I focused on creating high-quality textures that authentically convey wear and aging, using layered materials to reflect years of use. The model uses two 4K texture sets to achieve a high level of detail. While a real-time asset would typically use lower-resolution textures and fewer sets, I chose this higher resolution specifically to showcase detail for portfolio purposes. A similar visual result could have been achieved with a single 4K or even 2K texture set for real-time applications like games or simulations.

Additional Renders

Conclusion

Through this project, I significantly deepened my understanding of high-poly baking, realistic texture development, and reference-based modeling. My research into historical firearms helped me accurately replicate functional components, while still taking creative liberties to create a believable and visually compelling fictional design that stayed true to the original concept.

Looking back, one area I could have improved in was the wear and tear detail—particularly around areas where parts would realistically be assembled and disassembled. Additionally, the wraps could have used more refinement; their thickness felt inconsistent, and I believe more layering would have enhanced the realism. It’s also not entirely clear how the wraps are secured, which I think affects their believability. I also think I should've straightened many of my UV shells to reduce anti-aliasing.

Overall, this project greatly enhanced my skills in prop modeling. I gained valuable experience across the entire asset pipeline—including modeling, sculpting, retopology, UV unwrapping, baking, texturing, rendering, and lighting—for high-fidelity asset creation.