In December 2019 I started a rough sketch for this idea. I stopped for Christmas and then never started in the new year. Four years went by. I did dabble for the CS20 event and the dreams and nightmares competition, but in all honesty my heart wasnt in it.

That feeling remained, until this year when I became so disinterested with gaming I decided to give weapon finishes another try. Only to realise I had forgotten so much of what I had learnt. Making matters worse, I had bought a new computer the previous year so I had to start from scratch installing applications and setting up workspaces how I like them and rejog my mind on keyboard shortcuts. Luckily I saved a lot of presets in a backup folder which helped immensely. As I had this weapon and sketch already setup in Cinema 4D I set myself the task of finishing this project as a refresher exercise.

I hate the UMP in CSGO. Hate it. I hate the hollow bullet sound, the underwhelming damage, slapshod accuracy… its just far from ideal. If you are carrying an UMP you are on the backfoot. Furthermore as a weapon model it has this really annoying raised horizontal middle strip that breaks up any large image you apply over it. This annoyance led me to the question ‘what would work well across this model?’ That was when I had the idea of the Bayeux Tapestry, which itself is split into three horizontal sections: a middle section which tells the story, and an upper and lower section for ornamental creatures, incidental details, and the occasional penis.

The Bayeux tapestry itself is public domain being roughly 953 years old. (Copyright lasts 70 years post author death in most territories, so unless there happens to be a superfluity of undead medieval nuns on the loose I believe this is safe to reference.) Furthermore to be super safe (I’m not a lawyer) and avoid any potential secondary copyright issues I used creative commons search and found two photographers who documented the entire tapestry for free on a Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0) basis: Photographers Dennis Jarvis and Dr Bob Hall, both on flickr but also other platforms – great work gents! Rather than incorporate the photographs which themselves as pixels are technically copyright of the photographer, I used them as visual reference and I sketched elements I liked first directly (and crudely) onto the weapon with the brush tool in Cinema 4D, then once arranged into a composition that I liked, re-created in adobe illustrator as vector art for schmoothness.

For those among you who glaze over on the subject of western european history, the Bayeux tapestry documents several historical events culminating in the battle of Hastings of 1066, an important date in Britain as it marks the end of the Anglo Saxon era due to King Harold being slain in battle (shot with an arrow in the eye, followed by what maybe some light horse trampling) by some random cad in William the Conqueror’s army.

I’ve used artistic license and cherry picked elements I liked and then added some parody details to amuse myself and nod to the culture of CSGO. The main strip had to have mounted soliders charging ahead as that is the exciting part of the tapestry and could represent a ‘Rush’ strategy. The fallen soldiers with salty annotations is typical of CSGO players in post-death text chat. The stock features Harolds eye with an arrow in flight towards its target. Below that is a kingly figure (William) holding a frag grenade instead of an orb, and a banner that reads ‘EZ GG’ - urgh. On the mag is a ninja defuser hiding amongst some branches. The top rails are embellished with a cobblestone pattern which felt appropriate. I featured some medieval trees (front of mag and rear handle), as the location where Harold and William met was at the ‘Hoar (grey) Apple Tree’. I’ve snuck in some weasels, partly because they got a mention in the Aberdeen Bestiary (a beautiful medieval manuscript), but mostly because I like them. Deal with it.

As to application of the textural elements: personally I have a major hang up of fabrics appearing on weapon finishines, It just doesnt make sense to me. Even fabric on top of a weapon still feels fake. Also the pixel definition in the main area is severely limiting. So I decided to mimc fabric instead with rudimentary ridged fill detail without actually going in the direction of recreating a stitched fabric execution. Its a middle ground which although not entirely authentic, references the source material-material whilst remaining somewhat based on realistic hard surface modeling. I think that makes sense?

Regarding the Normal map: I have added one for the aforementioned surface detail, but it is ENTIRELY OPTIONAL and perhaps unnecessary – the gun works great without a normal map. To save uploading the same thing twice I’ve uploaded it applied by default.

I might make an alternative version at a later date to appease more restrictive cultural requirements (i.e. without dead guys and severed heads: maybe they could be buried in the sand / sleeping, with sandcastles and ice cream – Hastings does have a beach, but alas its mostly pebble. Who knows… no promises, and I’d much rather do a few colour options instead.

Let me know if hot or not. It’s been a while so I’m prepared to be crap.
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