Weapon Art // my three most recent pieces

Hello there! My name  is Markus K. Gruber from Bavaria, and I'm currently enrolled as a 3D student at the Salzburg University of Applied Sciences. Here is some of my recent works I have made in my freetime.

I mainly use Blender for both modelling and rendering, and Substance Painter for texturing. On a rare occasion, ZBrush was involved aswell.

The Cartograph - Winchester 1873

“How often the lone-dweller anticipates some sign, this Measurer’s mercy — must always must — mind-caring, along the ocean’s windings, stirring rime-chill seas, hands as oars many long whiles, treading the tracks of exile — the way of the world an open book always.”

~ The Wanderer by Apollon Maykov

As a starting point for the weapon, I went for a different approach by settling on a setting and backstory for some character - in this case a cartographer hellbent on mapping out the stars zooming across the heavenly plains - and then basing a personalized weapon on that character. Thus, this small personal project has earned the in-production name The Cartograph, which kinda stuck with me - so the final piece bears the same name.

G33/40 Gebirgsjäger

The Gewehr 33/40 – a carbine based on the Mauser System 98 – was a rifle used by the German Wehrmacht during the second world war, especially by the Gebirgsjäger. (German alpine troops) The original rifle originated from former Czechoslovakia and had the designation vz. 33. The production of the carbine was continued during the German occupation, but ultimately halted in 1942. I made this rifle during my freetime as a personal Inktober project last year, and it was a blast to work on. Getting to know more about local history during the research phase and then translating that new knowledge into a game-ready asset was a great experience! 

SEMINO 10mm Centaur

And, as a final piece, my Semino. This project began with me stumbling across a very peculiar pistol cartridge, the 10mm Centaur. Since there were no official designs on the market that revolved around that cartridge, I decided to make my own. At first I was very nervous about the idea of concepting my very own design and translating that design into a game-ready prop. In the end, I'm very happy that I did!

All the little props you see scattered around in the renders are equally game-ready and served as more practice along the way.

And - as it is colloquial wisdom - all good things come in threes, thus we've reached the bottom of this entry. Horray! :)

~Markus K. Gruber