Presenting the thirteenth skin in my very first collection, the SG 553 | Rising Tide!

“Water is the element of change. The people of the Water Tribes are capable of adapting to many things.” This is a quote from Avatar, The Last Airbender. I get a lot of people who tell me these skins remind them of the show, and being a long time fan I see exactly where they’re coming from. Funnily enough, I never actually referenced the source material while making the original design for the Glock-18, which is the one that started it all, but after having finished the first 4 skins in the collection I saw the resemblance myself.

Anyway, why do I bring up this quote? Well, it relates to the design of this skin. The texture files for certain skins have certain design constraints that impact how the design will be applied to the weapon. The SG 553 is the most noticeable example I’ve experienced so far. The front of the gun has a huge rail on the front that uses repeating textures, which meant I couldn’t just project my design onto the side of the gun, polish things up and call it a day. And so I had to adapt to this change.

It took some trial and error choosing which colours I wanted to use. I wanted to make sure that if I could not keep the same detail as my original illustration that I could at least maintain the same colour composition. That I feel is the most important part of the design to me, and I design these skins around balancing how much and where I add my dark blues, light blues, and whites. Eventually I came to the design you see, which I felt captured the same colour theory as the original design.

Would I have it any other way? In retrospect, no. I’m very happy with how this limitation allowed me to try something new, and I feel like it sets the SG apart from the rest of the collection and helps ground the design in reality as well by breaking it up to have a geometrically painted area. I feel like with how far the ridges stick out, if I had been able to successfully project the design onto that part of the weapon it would have stretched awkwardly across the part that is directly facing the player when they hold the weapon. Not something I want. I’m rambling I know but I just found it interesting how one small thing like this managed to change my experience with the design process so much. It was fun and refreshing, and I’m curious which weapons will challenge me next.

Speaking of next weapons, I am releasing a new pistol to this collection every week! There are 3 left, and once those are done I will be filling out the collection to all 34 guns in the game! Stay tuned if that interests you ;) If you like what you saw here I’d appreciate it if you’d vote “Yes” and maybe even drop a favourite, it means the world to me as does all the support that has been shown to my collection by this wonderful community. Thank you for your time :)

Check out the rest of the collection: