Feeling Lucky? - Model 1894 Winchester Rifle

This is a personal project that I worked on off and on for a couple months to practice my hard-surface modeling and texturing skills. My Model 1894 Winchester Rifle asset is based on my great-grandfather's lever-action rifle from the early 1900's.  In preparation for this project, I took multiple reference photographs myself to work from. For this project, I used Maya for most of the modeling. I did some sculpting in Zbrush, such as damages and sculpting on the wooden areas. I applied these sculpted details with displacement maps. I created and organized my UVs in Maya. I used Substance Painter to create some maps (AO, curvature, etc.) and damage masks that I built upon in Mari. I did most of the rifle texturing in Mari. The scene was textured using a mix of Mari and Substance Painter. I did the look development, lighting, and rendering in Maya with V-Ray. After rendering, I did some color grading and depth of field adjustments in Nuke. Finally, I complied a little video in After Effects:

Breakdowns

This is an earlier version of the rifle that I initially shared online. Once I shared it, people gave me feedback that helped me revise my asset beyond this initial pass. This version didn't have enough contrast, was too shiny, could use more sculpting damages, and needed a revised lighting set up. Also, I got the recommendation to put it in a scene as well. Thank you to Tapio, Lily, Ellora, and Patrick for your feedback on my original version of the rifle.  Feedback always helps you to improve!

Model

Textures:
Beauty-Diffuse-Specular-Gloss

Below are my rifle's UV Layout in Maya. I separated my UVs by materials so it made the texturing process more efficient. However, I should have optimized the UV space better. I was trying to avoid too many seams and wanted to maintain the same texel density throughout the asset.

References Organized in PureRef:

A Final Thought: If doing a personal project, do something you're more interested in rather than what you think people want to see. You will enjoy the project more and be less likely to burn out. Honestly, your project will probably turn out better too. In hindsight, I should have picked a different subject matter. It was still great practice though!