Colt Detective Special .38

Although I don’t really fancy guns in particular, the Colt Detective Special is an iconic revolver that I associate with a lot of movies and tv shows I grew up waching: Detective stories, crime thrillers, action and horror movies. To this day many computer games still draw on this very revolver.

This particular version, a 3rd generation Colt Detective Special in .38 caliber is blued and features a walnut grip, just as I remember it being used in so many detective shows and games.

For the high-poly model, I used a boolean hard-surface polish workflow in ZBrush. The low-poly model was done manually in Blender. The texture bakes are a combination of Marmoset Toolbag, Substance 3D and hand-painted detail in Photoshop.

Lighting and rendering was also done in Toolbag.

I paid special attention to the materials. As a frequently used “tool”, the revolver should tell a story that lets you guess how it was used by looking at the wear marks. At the same time, however, it should appear well cared for, because it must function reliably for its use.

This is a side project that came about on a whim after I had more time for movie nights due to the pandemic.