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Barbed Wire Baseball Bat
October 11, 2011 - 5:00am
- 10079 reads
I figured it was high time that I actually posted some actual art on here again, so here goes!
I have spent a few hrs over the past week or so working on a barbed wire baseball bat...I have never made a weapon before, so this was pretty awesome to get cracking on.
All the modelling was done with subd in Blender 2.58a and the sculpting was done with ZBrush4 R2
For those who are interested in how I did the barbed wire, it was done by making a small section and then adding an array modifier with the Fit Type set to curve, so that the # of parts would match the length of curve. I then added a curve modifier that deformed the barbed wire along the curve.
To make the curve, I just modelled a helix, which was then scaled and arrayed vertically, which was then converted to a curve 
The barbed wire on the ball is the same deal with the fit to curve as before, but this time I had to make it permanent, because there was quite a gap between the wire.
Comments and critique are welcome
Thanks, mate!
Yea, the ability to make a mesh follow a curve is really useful and super efficient ^^ I love it!
Looks sick! And as stated before, very painful
I also like the zbrush dings and how they are localized at the tip. (Kinda gives the impression that he rams first to disorient then does a home run swing!)
Critique:
Only thing I would fix is where the barb wire ends in the middle of the bat. It looks like a clean straight line. Perhaps giving it a bit of variation will help to sell the (Use) factor of the weapon.
Great stuff bro!
Can't wait to see this finished ^_^
-Jeremy-
Thanks for the comments, mate
I see what you mean about the top of the wire. Its held on with u nails, but it wouldn't hurt to add some variance ^^
Cheers!
Oh wow, I didn't even see those before 
My bad. I thought it was just wrapped tight.
-Jeremy-
No problem, mate
I will be sure to add some more verity, anyway
More updates soon!
FANTASTIC stuff!, you always give a comment on my stuff so I think its fair I give a comment on your work . You're going for a low poly too?
Perosnally this looks really bad to the bone .I know a few games that should add this .I love the nade .
Thanks guys
More updates soon!
Just a small update for the Baseball/Grenade. Apart from thinking of a way to secure the barbed wire to the surface, I think I'm about done with it...unless anyone can see anything that I missed.
Comments and critique are welcome
As always... Great artwork man.
Thanks for sharing the know how.
Thanks eduardofranz!
No problem for the techniques sharing It's the best way for everyone to learn!
Hey guys!
I finally got an hour or so to get stuck into this again and managed to do a first pass on the wood grain and leather straps!
The wear on the straps may be a little much at the moment, but I can always refine that later
I also did a light corrosion pass on the barbedwire, but I'm not sure if that is up to scratch. (no pun intended)
Comments and critique are welcome
Nicely done
(IMO) The barbed wire doesn't need an extra level of damage. Even if it is ripping through human flesh, the only real damage that you would see is "Surface scratches" or the barbed wire starting to untangle. And that can easily be achieved in the texture pass.
The other thing was the wood depth on the bat itself running up the neck. I would emphasize so it's a bit more prominent when you bake it out.
And the damage on the leather is good. It looks dried and worn down. The dings might not be picked up in the normals really, but they will prove to be a good asset when extracting an AO.
Can't wait to see more!
-Jeremy-
Thanks, mate
Yea, I see what you mean about the wood depth and corrosion...I will fix that up when I next get a chance work on this
I was asked over at BlenderArtists how I did the damage for the end of the bat, so I made a quick animated gif to show the workflow and thought that maybe some of you guys would find it useful too
It's pretty simple and is basically the same technique that I use for sculpting stone (apart from the scratches and lack of multiple damage passes)
If you use ZBrush, you can grab the brushes I made from HERE. (I used the Morph_Spray1 and the Standard_StoneEdges brushes)
I also used Michael Vicente's (Orb) Orb_Cracks brush for the scratches, which you can get HERE (Cheers Orb!)
(Open the gif in a new tab to view the animation)
Looks great!
The only comment I have is it you can change the thumb nail of the thread so you can see the bat in perspective view and one of the latest versions.
It is hard to guess from the white vertical strap of the thumb nail that you are going to find so good artwork.
It is great to get an email notifying me that new images has being posted.
Actually it would be great to get an email when you post any image in any thread. I look forward looking to you artwork.
Thanks for the kind words eduardofranz!
I changed the order of the images in the first post so it changed the thumbnail
Other than getting a notification for a new post, I don't think that there is anyway to tell you about new images. Maybe it's something I can look into at a later date
This looks sweet! I can definately picture this in the new Rage game or in a Mad Max movie.
Thanks!
Nice work. Good detailing.
Thanks, man!
Just had a bit of time to work on the Logo for the bat, which will be engraved into the surface by a small amount.
I give you the Thwacker Pro 2000!
Comments and critique are welcome
Awesome details.......
Nail the open ends of the barbed wire.......so it can hurt a little more....
Where can we order Thwacker Pro 2000? 
Keep it coming.
Thank for the kind words
Just a small update with the logo applied before I start to tinker with the LP 
Comments and critique are welcome
Hey guys!
Sorry about the late post. I only found some time today to crack on with the first pass of the LP. It's currently weighing in at 3739 tris.
I still have to do some more optimisation yet, like removing some back faces etc. which I hope to get onto soon
Also, due to a issue with Blenders culling, some of the verts. look like they they are intersecting in the middle of some faces, where in fact they aren't. (on the top and bottom of the grip), so please ignore them (it doesn't show when zoomed in a little more, as they are below the surface of the overlapping geo.)
Comments and critique are welcome
Hey guys!
I have really wanted to get back on this and I have managed to fit in a few hours to optimise the LP a little and do some baking (in xNormal) and a first pass at texturing (still lots to do)
The LP is 3659 tris in total (I'm still working on the LP for the grenade )
Comments and critique are welcome
Can we see a kind of "Down the barrel" view of the textured LP? I'd like to see how all the little planes ended up looking from a different perspective. Looks great btw!
Thanks for the kind words
I will try and get something posted asap
Hi metalliany! Your "thwacker" is looking great! It will be nice to see the blood and stains show up in the later texture passes
Thanks!
OMG that iNsAnE!!!
Thanks, man!
I'm going to try and work on this some more over the holidays and finally get it finished so I can start something new
Updates ahoy!
Managed to finally get an hour or so tonight to get stuck in with the texturing on this
Still having a little trouble getting the right feel for the grip, but I will keep working on it.
Comments and critique are welcome
you use blender?? I thought i was one of the only ones on here Looks amazing by the way. you should try cycles, makes renders look a lot better
Haha, Yea...Since 2.33 or 2.34
I might render the HP in Cycles soon
Quick first person view that I did for a chap over on Polycount
Awesome Work,
Waiting for more update
Thanks, KSC!
More updates!
I decided to go the whole hog and optimise this to a more reasonable level. I chopped it down by 750 tris to a grand total of 2909 (previously it was 3659).
I didn't get any time to do any texturing tonight because I had to manually realign the new UVs with the old ones and rebake the normal map to match the new geometry, as Blender does not have any sort of useful option to preserve UVs when removing loops...not ideal.
I also reduced the silhouette of the grip by quite a bit as it was a little *cough* too much 
That's all for tonight...I will try and get some of the texture work done over the weekend
Cheers!
Hey Metalliandy,
All I have to say is that wood looks so real! Nice melee weapon.
Thanks, Alan!
GR8 work.........
Thanks!
It's looking great!
thats awesome good work
Thanks, guys!
Hey slacker...get back on this and finish it.
yeawwwwooouch! Looks awesome and painful!
Love that I have spent the last week making AreaDenialApparel™! for a project I am working on. I used exactly the same process in max for the barbs and also did a selection of razer wire and wall blades (the horrible pointy knives they stick on top of brickwork).
Great to see processes that I use, used by other more talented artists. Re-enforces the fact that I'm not always doing things wrong!