This was my favourite application of the ‘Yakuza Dragon’ artwork besides the USP, so when I updated that model for CS2 I decided that the P250 would be in line for an update as well.





With the new PBR workflow I can control via a channel which parts are metallic and which are not, but I have extremely severe restrictions with what base colours will validate, especially in the metallic areas which have to be bright. This meant that it is not possible to recreate the darker CSGO colour schemes exactly. It is for this reason that I changed the name of the purple P250 from ‘revered dragon’ to ‘mythical dragon’, as it is much more shinier and brighter, and features slightly different hues and saturation. I reserve the right to make a non-metal edition of this skin at a later date that adheres to the original colour scheme more closely, but for now I’ve gone with this direction.

The extreme limitations also affect the Gunsmith tint application, as from my memory the two colours which are applied at either end of the wear states (along with the grime colour) have a multiply blending effect. Assuming that the end product with the multiplied colours applied over the base colour have to validate with PBR, that further restricts how the gun transitions through the wear states. As such, there is minimal change in progression through ‘factory new’ to ‘battle-scarred’ states. All iterations simply get darker. I did experiment with a very bright base colour and darker tints, however that had a stronger impact on the linework colour which I wanted to stand out separately.

There are subtle variations in the surface textures. The silver (Kanbu) iteration was less salient, so I added a brushed metal effect as an extra level of detail, and a spectral noise pattern to mimic oiled metal. This brushing felt too distracting in the purple version so I kept that one simpler with some noise patterns.

I’m still learning the workflow and how the different channels interact with each other, with every submission figuring out something new that makes me want to update my previous work. This project was an exercise in learning a better working method of translating the existing CSGO UV dragon linework to a new UV layout, which I did through multiple projections, but to also come up with a better workflow with regard to the artwork masks: in substance painter, masks can only be referenced using anchors from layers above it, so this time around I projected all the linework as masks at the bottom of the document layer stack with the layers turned off, then I made a composite mask once all faces were positioned nicely, which was the referenced as a mask in the layers above. To avoid dealing with multiple input files for each projection angle, I used multiple artboards within a single vector file, which is a new feature between the versions of substance painter I have. This made making adjustments simpler and quicker, as if I wanted to make changes to lines, I’d reimport the vector file, re-apply it in the stack at the very bottom, and it would then update to all the masks above it, saving me time having to copy and paste masks throughout the document every time I make a tweak.

Let me know what you think below.