Monkey Wrench Prop

I chose to create a monkey wrench for this project so that I could create a reasonably simple hard surface prop and then do a deep dive into texturing. As a little easter egg for myself, I branded the wrench with the letters “SES,” the initials of my great-great-grandfather, which he wrote on many of his tools that have since been passed down through my family.

I used topology reduction workflows to keep the wrench in all quads as long as possible while removing unnecessary topology where I could. The jaw threads on the side were more challenging than expected, especially after a friend pointed out to me that they should be pitched at a slight angle so that the jaw would actually move up & down when the nut is rotated. I appreciated the friend’s input, but it required some creative re-modeling on my part!

After feedback from fellow students, TAs, and mentors at CG Spectrum - as well as a few kind folks at PolyHaven - I realized that this first texturing pass still needed quite a bit more work. I was okay with how I had initially set up the steel, rust, paint, and dirt layers in Substance, but the rust and dirt placement didn’t make sense in some areas. In addition, the paint was too reliant on a curvature map that caused awkward strips of paint down all the sides of the wrench. It was okay, but it could be a lot better!

My final textures involved far more hand painted rust, dirt, and grime than my original texture, which had been heavily dependent on automated generators in Substance Painter. Hand painting the various layers took a good deal more time, but I was much happier with the result.

In my final version, I used the Highpass filter in Substance to control the height of the paint, which gives the impression that the paint is peeling up around the edges. Much thanks to Art of Pilgrim on YouTube for his informative video on that process!

And to complete the project, I created a “clean” version of the monkey wrench with just a small amount of dust and dirt on it. It’s surprisingly satisfying to create a clean version of a model that was so rusty and dirty; it’s like digital pressure washing!

Finally, my reference board:

Thank you for your time!