cmiVFX: Photoshop Weapon Prop Design

cmiVFX launches its latest training video for the ever growing gaming creation industry. Game production is at an all time high, and that means more jobs for more artists. This video will show how to start creating prop designs for digital asset modeling. When your done with this video, you will learn how to have final production ready work for client submission.

Concept Design

Want to a cool weapon in that game? This video takes you through the basic process of creating a concept art in PhotoShop for a weapon prop that will be used in entertainment design such as games and film. The tutorial shows you the basic setup in getting your tools, researching your references before designing, and some philosophies behind the design you are creating.



Workspace Definition

In this chapter, we will be discussing the setup in PhotoShop (CS3 and later, including latest beta versions) on some of the tools needed to do a concept piece. We will go over the basic setup that is not overly complicated so you can jump right in and provide shortcuts and hot keys to make workflow easier.



Camera Angles

Here we`ll review the basic value of perspective to set up camera angles to give the optimal view for showcasing your concepts and why certain angles are used.



Solidifying Concepts

Creating a weapon design from a brief or description from a script for a game can be challenging at times. This chapter will discuss some of the questions you need to answer before actually designing. The majority of this chapter will talk about sketching your references therefore creating believability in your weapon design (firearms) by taking cues from research of real world firearms and integrating it into your own design. Research is emphasized in order to create a plausible design and usable for production.



Generation

Now that you have done research, it’s time to take your knowledge to the test and create some awesome initial thumbnail sketches. Starting with line sketches, you will learn to effectively draw sketches on a page to generate different variations of your weapon design. This will emphasize proportions of your design and pushing your variations as you go further into your exploration. The second part deals with the further exploration in conjunction of generating silhouettes and further refinement. The third part will discuss about generating a grayscale refinement of your design before taking it to final.



The Final Presentation

Showtime! Now take it to finish to where you can present this to your client or art director. This chapter will demonstrate the basic technique of adding color and some use of photo texture.



Short Bio

Brian Yam is a concept artist working in the entertainment industry. His experience spans over 9 years and has worked for such companies such as Imagemovers Digital (a Walt Disney Feature studio), Imagi Animation Studios, Spark Unlimited, Naughty Dog, and Insomniac Games. Brian found his calling in the concept design field after working a few years in the science field and found out that his passion was in designing vast environments, spaceships, and cool looking props for games and film.



Project Contents

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