Gunblade

[Joseph Descallar]

[Hitsu//San]

Even if it's kinda cool you will break your wrists or the blade at the first strike cause of the katana shape mostly. It's a cool design but not functional at all and in most cases people won't believe it.

[Joseph Descallar]

You are absolutely correct about the functionality part. I struggled with that idea for a while. How I solved it is to make the blade retract in and out. The user would then use the gun as wand to shoot. I realized sometimes you have to bend functionality and go with what looks good.

[Hitsu//San]

You are absolutely correct about the functionality part. I struggled with that idea for a while. How I solved it is to make the blade retract in and out. The user would then use the gun as wand to shoot. I realized sometimes you have to bend functionality and go with what looks good.

This is true at a certain degree. You never have to cross the believability line cause if people aren't going to not understand it or believe it then they aren't going to like it as you can see, even if your gun katana can shot missiles that can transforms into robot dinosaurs that kicks the enemy butt with martial arts. That was cool? Hell yeah ! Someone is going to believe it? Damn, no!

The FF8 gunblade is a good example to make something believable, the thing is much more huge and must be used with two hands and the blade is heavy and thick which means that maybe the gun recoil is more easy to handle and can be used to make the blade spin. Is does work? No. Is it cool? Sure. Is it believable? Well, it is cause most of the sword welding laws were not broken.


Your design is using a type of sword meant to quick slash and uses rotatory movements. We all know that katanas are not used for heavy hits or straight attacks and the weapon balance is his most important feature which made that kind of sword so popular. You're breaking all the katana main features by putting a huge gun, that no one knows when to use it, in the blade.

This is something really important if you're going to make a career in concept art. If this concept will be used in a hypothetical videogame for the main character and no one is going to believe and like it then you've failed to provide a solution for your client.

You can imagine what does this means. Anyway you surely can do whatever concept do you like to do for practice and for fun, is cool to see differend and fresh ideas and i like your effort. I just want to be sure that you'll understand why functionality must move together with cool

[InfernoKing]

The concept is pretty straight forward, but I think you need to explain more details.

You say it retracts, show us how it does that.

Why are the biometrics/trigger all the way up the hilt and not on the grip, and how does it fire? Is it limited shot or can it be reloaded, and if so how/where does one do that?

Try an ergonomic exploration to see how someone would actually use it, and I don't mean just draw it, but use props in real life (toygun, flashlight, lightsaber, etc) to simulate the experience of wielding that thing. What does it look like when someone holds and/or fires it in shotgun mode versus sword stance?

It's cool, but I agree with Hitsu//San it's hard to believe in its current presentation.

[OmenSpirits]

Final Fantasy 8 designed pretty good gunblades.

[Joseph Descallar]

Final Fantasy 8 designed pretty good gunblades.

Good for inspirations but I try to stay away from looking at other people's concept when designing.

[OmenSpirits]

Good for inspirations but I try to stay away from looking at other people's concept when designing.

It's less about taking from them (as it sounds like you may be worried about), and more about seeing what works.

Gunmakers take from each other all the time. No point in recreating the wheel, right?

Looking at a working design isn't a bad thing.

[Joseph Descallar]

It's less about taking from them (as it sounds like you may be worried about), and more about seeing what works.

Gunmakers take from each other all the time. No point in recreating the wheel, right?

Looking at a working design isn't a bad thing.

Reference is different form inspiration. I look at actual guns to study how they function but as far as other artist's concepts for games, I stay away from them because I don't want my assault rifle looking like the assault rifle from Halo or MS3, etc.

[TinyBird]

Reference is different form inspiration. I look at actual guns to study how they function but as far as other artist's concepts for games, I stay away from them because I don't want my assault rifle looking like the assault rifle from Halo or MS3, etc.

Though then you may actually run into a risk of just unconsciously designing something you've seen once. (Which happened to me, I had to design a cyborg and made sure to stay away from any images of Robocop so that I wouldn't be affected by the design, and after I had finished the design I looked at Robocop and saw that I had drawn several things to be exactly like Robocop. Because in both designs some parts were taken from human musculature.)
Knowing what has been done can be used to the opposite point, as in, look through several gunblades, collect the things that have been done the most and then actively go to a different direction.

On the line of this specific gunblade, there actually is a katana gunblade called "Heaven and Earth" http://images.wikia.com/finalfantasy...nd_Earth_1.jpg
It actually does what Hitsu//San mentioned, the sword and its design is not impeded by the gun. You can definitely see someone still use that gunblade like the actual sword is supposed to and the silhouette of the gun doesn't look unbalanced, which is what peeves me personally most in your design. I can go with things that don't really work as long as they at least look pleasing (not in the "it has to be pretty and sparkly" way, but in the "form/proportion/balance/repetition" way).

[Tubal]

A thumb trigger would make it a lot easier to use and to show it being used, in a game or other artwork. You still wouldn't be able to aim with it, but aiming is for minions.

[Joseph Descallar]

A thumb trigger would make it a lot easier to use and to show it being used, in a game or other artwork. You still wouldn't be able to aim with it, but aiming is for minions.

Ahhh yes , thumb trigger good point.

[Funkyskull]

Not sure if already mentioned, but I think the blade would be thicker / taller in the frontal view.