Mechanical and Hard Surface: Props, Weaponry, Armor

Hanuman Armor

For my Zbrush Hard Surface class, we had to create an Ornate armor set; this prompt allowed us to design and have something freeform. I wanted to create a cultural piece for this class that spoke to me and reflected my culture since I finally had the chance to do that. As an Indian American, I wanted to respectfully create a set of armor that would echo various iterations and depictions of the Hindu Monkey God, Hanuman. As a child, he was always my favorite, so I combined multiple pieces from different armor concepts that influenced my design. The materials were created in substance painter through texture bashing and editing existing ones of others and rendered in Marmoset Toolbag 4. The Armor itself was built in Zbrush.

The armor was extracted from A Basemesh from an Artstation Marketplace user.

Credit to them: SKristofS

The Djinnquisitor: An Afghan-Style Flintlock Pistol

For my Zbrush Hard Surface class, we had to create an ornate antique weapon; this prompt was open-ended to allow us to develop and have some freeform creativity on what we wanted to do. I was heavily influenced by Islamic art, and as such I took inspiration from the Islamic world for patterns and design. I took inspiration from Afghan Jezail Flintlocks and European-style ones, combining elements I liked. I also wanted a mysticism element partially inspired by Sufiism and the mythical Djinn or Genie; as such, I incorporated Genie lantern-inspired gemstones on it, which is where I came up with the name: The Djinnquisitor. I enjoy both Warhammer and Destiny weapon designs, so I took the name as a combination of the genie inspiration and those two weapons, which was the Inquisitor. The materials were created in substance painter through texture bashing substance base materials, pre-existing ones, and rendered in Marmoset Toolbag 4. The gun was built in Zbrush, and the bladed element at the end of it is a Scimitar.

Steampunk Handcar

For our Senior thesis game, Beneath the Badlands, we worked on a team of over 40+ people to create a Steampunk Rogue-like western involving realistic modeling and stylized painterly textures. I worked on a steam machine sprint and made a steampunk handcar for it. I rendered the piece in Unreal 5.1 and modeled and textured it in Maya and Substance Painter. The textures are painterly, and I created them from scratch and with generators and alphas.

The Autopick: A Steam Pickaxe

For our thesis game, Beneath the Badlands, one of the teams I worked on as a SCRUM Master, I was tasked to make Weapons and Gadgets; I made The Autopick for our main character, Aster, to use. Our concept artist created the look: Mae Harmon (@Mae Harmon on IG and Artstation). I rendered the piece in Marmoset Toolbag 4 and modeled and textured it in Maya, Zbrush, and Substance Painter. The Pickaxe head was created in Zbrush.

I modeled and textured everything from scratch with a combination of generator filters and hand placement.