Making the Blunderbuss [Zbrush]

The Blunderbuss

Gun Frame

Insert cylinder. Use move tool to stretch it length ways. Mask half of the cylinder and start curving it into the handle of the pistol. To create the end of the handle, mask the end and enlarge it, and move it up against the handle so that there isn’t a gap between the handle and the round end. To increase the bulk to the gun, I masked the bottom of the gun (under the barrel) and using the scale tool, enlarged it. Enlarging it will make it move the whole thing uneven, to using the move tool after scaling it fixes this. 

Barrel

Mask the top half the untouched half of your cylinder. Use the one of the flatten tools to create a flat surface. The barrel will go here. Insert another cylinder for the barrel. Make it fit along the flat half of the cylinder with half of the barrel sticking out.

End of barrel

To make the end of the gun, insert another cylinder but this time in a separate subtool. I have to do this because the shape must not be a poly mesh. So with this in mind, select the cylinder, select the Initialize tool and drag the bars across using Tapertop (to enlarge the end or shrink) and Inner Radius (This makes the shape hollow making it fit correctly with the barrel, or at least making it look like a hollowed out barrel).

Add to the bulk

To make the gun a bit more bulky, I added a block above where the trigger will go. Simply insert a cube, subdivide it a couple of times and place it in the central part of the gun.

Flint Mechanism

To create the trigger mechanism I used mostly shadowbox e.g. the frizzen and flash pan. But to create the cock that holds the flint I used cylinders and a box. I subdivided the box about four times and masked the centre and right part and using the move tool moved it out a little. I then used the inflate balloon tool to make it look like the piece of flint using the same shape. The stem part was one cylinder that is made to look like several.

Skull & swords

I made the skull and two swords with shadowbox also. I inserted a plane and then used the shadowbox tool. I draw a very detailed image. Yet it didn’t come out and fine, most of the image is there. I was going to have it on both sides but I couldn’t because the flint mechanism would cover one side of the gun.

Ramrod

With flintlock pistols you must not forget the ramrod; this is what you use to push the ball down the barrel. The ramrod is placed within the gun structure under the barrel.  Insert a cylinder, size it down to make it quite thin. Mask the end and enlarge it slightly, I enlarged it quite a lot because my gun is not very accurate so it almost has a cartoony look. Bring the end back against to close the gap between the enlarged part and the rest of the cylinder.

Screws

The screws used for holding the flint mechanism were made with a cylinder. I sized the cylinder right down, subdivided about 3 times and masked a line down the surface. With the masked line I used the move tool to subtract into the cylinder. Duplicate it and use it for the other part.

Problems faced & solved

Flint mechanism

I found the flint mechanism slowed me down quite a bit. I managed to create a believable vice and flint with only a cube. Only part I dislike is the stem of the vice, It looks like I put a bunch of small cylinders together, plus it doesn’t fit the type of design.

Barrel end

In the beginning I did not use a separate part for the end of the barrel and instead I tried to enlarge small parts and using the move tool to attempt to make it smooth. In the end it was off, it was smooth and did not fit very well. With some help I create a separate shape and realised how easy it was to achieve the shape I wanted.

Trigger

The trigger was tricky. I spent a lot of time rotating a cube and stretching to all sorts of shapes. In the end I managed to find the right rotations and deformation tools to make it work.

Trigger guard

This was quite awkward to work with. I still think it’s odd. I wanted to extend it, making it follow down the handle of the gun, but when I stretch the shape too far it flattened out too mush losing the round cylindrical shape I needed for the guard. I eventually decided to leave it in its early stages.

Fixing parts that were in a straight line

I had several problems with using the move tool the scale objects. I later realised that I had only enlarged the shape from my point of view, so I had to keep checking the side of the shape to fix it. One example of this was when I was making the ramrod, from my point of view it looked fine, but from the side it was an oval shape, so I had the use the move tool from a side tool also, doubling the time to enlarge the rod.

Overall, the making of my blunderbuss has taught me the most on how to manipulate shapes. It is by far my most favoured model. I’m eager to create a better version with more personality.


When trying to find a suitable flintlock pistol design to follow, there were just so many and so many brilliantly designed pistols. In the end I found what looks like a cheap model flintlock to try and build. It wasn't anything too fancy which was great for me because I could add more too it. Having seen so many flintlock pistols, it will be added to my list of life ambitions, to build a real one.


Here is the reference picture I found.