I decided to focus on an SG553 for my next project. During an evaluation of current ingame offerings I noticed a lot of pattern based designs, several technical designs, but not one with a central illustration -- this observation became my brief!

Due to the shape and length of the weapon I like the top of the receiver for flowing lines; while sketching on the model I decided the ingame pov 'main real-estate' deserved a central point of interest where the rest of the illustration would flow from. I considered either an adaptation of the Xiangliu or an octopus as both have flowing lines emanating from a central point - but was actually swayed toward an Octopus this time around as the head is more interesting than just another serpent head, and I could already envisage its tentacles swirling haphazardly around the knobs and buttons on the sides.

As the handle on the UV map is excluded from the patina area I opted for a custom finish to avoid splitting up the design -- it's not a deal breaker, but it's never perfect matching patina & non-patina areas if the design spills over -- a lot of good design is decision making based on technical restraints and 'going with the grain' rather than against it

After several days drawing, redrawing, procrastinating etc, I came up with the final form of the illustration - redrew it as vector - then kept going backwards and forwards tweaking the linework to avoid nasty UV mismatches. Once happy with the form I looked at colours, of which most are represented for the SG553. The old print combo of cyan/magenta worked well during the early sketch stage and it reminded me of translucent deep sea creatures like jellyfish that have a neon appearance, so I kept it. I decided two backdrops worked best for this color scheme: greys and purples - thus the split direction. The fact that there is an existing violet SG553 devalued the full purple option but I ended up submitting both in addition to two other late stage variants. The blue-orange combo (option D) is now my favourite due to the striking colour contrast.

During testing for the background detail - camo patterns worked best but were also the simplest and easiest to create - which is nice for once! I'm ok with not over complicating the background as it wouldn’t detract from the main illustration. Also the abstract blob shapes reminded me of the 'Seamarks' cover by Paul Rand - very fitting considering the subject matter! I see the camo blobs as an abstract representation of sea foam/bubbles etc - this symbolic duality ties in with the actual game subject matter. On a side note octopuses can camouflage themselves naturally via chromatophores under their skin - which is another direction I could have taken this - although for this execution I’ve opted for strong contrast between subject matter and background for visual clarity. As the overall background pattern looked quite basic I added detail through a plastic ‘bobbling’ surface texture via the normal map which also dispersed the specular highlights.

I settled on the name ‘Deep trouble’ - partly as a pun but also as it conjured up an imagery of 18th and 19th century science fiction literature about deep sea monsters - lethiathan, kraken etc. As such I put it in a ‘ye old’ banner below the scope in blackletter form as a nod to historical sea cartography.

Let me know if you like this and which colour option you prefer!