Let’s Rock - I associate the phrase mostly with Vasquez in the film Aliens before she lets rip with that huge machine gun, but also Duke Nukem 3D. Rather than visually allude to either I’ve focused on the musical aspect and in turn created a custom ‘rock-badge insignia’. I drew reference from album covers/badges such as the Ramones (the US seal insignia cover), Guns N roses and of course Motorhead, then went away and created my very own emblem.

Initially I wanted to throw in a load of spinal tap references which you might see in the early development scamps: there was stonehenge at the top and some dials which were turned up to 11, but it quickly became overly farcical, plus I’d need two dwarf silhouettes to give stonehenge some scale… it was just too far off-course, so I brought it back to CS with pistols, ammo rounds, smoke grenades and good old molotov cocktails; I stylised the flames on the latter to look like calligraphic linework which tied in nicely with the aesthetic of the badge. I added some crackle black surface texture to the lightning bolts to rock it up a notch, and also implemented two cutaway f-holes as a nod to stringed musical instruments.

I purposely made the background a solid 0,0,0 black with no tonal detail for two reasons: the first for maximum contrast once I ramped up the phongboost, and second to beg the question how much more black can this background be, and the answer is none more.

The foil versions are the stars as chrome metal and rock ‘n’ roll go hand in hand, but failing that I’ve made a grungey paper version as well. I made loads of variants of the foils, the ones I settled with are incredibly similar yet you can see a subtle difference ingame: gold & silver vs copper & more bluish metal. I like them both but perhaps the copper one ever so slightly more as it has more colour saturation and appears a little darker.
Let me know if you like or not.