None of the current P2000 finishes really grab me. The Silver one is my go-to finish, and although authentic looking it isn’t particularly interesting. So I decided my next project was to adapt the dragon linework to the P2000 UV.

During development I worked up 6 treatments, 3 of which I’ve decided to submit. The ones that didn’t make it were a two tone chrome with purple lower half that I decided broke up the main illustration too much; a light-bronze base with yellow/magenta/violet fade which looked like a homage to disco, and an orange based one that I decided was erroneous after boosting the applied colours on the Imperial version.



This is my favorite but it's definitely more toward the high saturation end of the scale. The texture layer is actually based on on the DE emperor dragon colour scheme with brown to purple undertones, however after experimenting with how the workbench colours impact the texture I really loved the multiplied orange effect - its like its aflame! I desaturated the linework in the albedo to accommodate the applied colour, but also allow a sweet transition from orange to magenta which worked best and also illuminated the weapon a new light, specifically that of a vibrant sunset. Due to the luscious transition even battlescarred looks cool and unique instead of mashed up, in fact some might find that state preferable.

WIth all of the overlapping themes of previous designs I really struggled to give this one a prefix: ‘Flaming’ (had a different background colour), ‘emperor’ (had a different transition), ‘sunset’ (already used by Valve for the desert eagle), ‘Vespertine’ (too lengthy for the thumbnail!), ‘Crepuscular’ (same issue plus the kids will call it crap dragon), Asian dawn (I read about them in Time magazine)... in the end I settled on ‘Imperial’ as its close in association to Emperor, plus it sounds rich and domineering. Although I’m really quite attached to vespertine or maybe something more romantic sounding like Kyoto Sunset - the sunset hues massively inspire the final submission after all. I deliberated a whole day and in the end I settled on a safe rational option.




I wanted to make a neutral version as out of the desert eagle submissions it was the gunmetal one that got selected. The P2000 doesn’t have a separate grip component -- as the purple two-tone option I mentioned above wasn’t working I decided to punt for full metal... with a few caveats to keep things interesting and distinguish it from the silver finish. The first of which is the texture - the albedo features a brushed metal effect to make it appear more tactile, and secondly - there is some very subtle colour work applied to the texture - the base metal has clouds of colour applied at a very low opacity. The dragon linework itself has a linear spectral gradient applied at a very low opacity so that as it catches the light the colours are ever so subtly boosted; it’s most noticeable in dark areas when it catches the light. As such I’ve heavily ramped up the light exponent settings..

If you are wondering where the name ‘Kanbu’ comes from it's related to the Yakuzu structure: ‘Kumicho’ is the term for the ‘big boss’, ‘Kanbu’ is the next level down the management hierarchy - the P2000 is nowhere near as prestigious as the desert eagle, but I’d guess more suitable for those in administrative positions. Further down the chain I’d expect much heavier weapons than pistols to be used as the work becomes more ‘hands on’; so Kanbu felt about right to me although I was conflicted about it: Kyodai (big brother) or Shatei (little brother) are suitable alternative names.





During development this was called ‘mint dragon’, but that's rather arbitrary sounding and I’ve already made a green/brown sg553 so I decided it should tie in with that finish. To reinforce the link to the assault rifle I’ve applied a lighter brown scale pattern beneath the dragon linework, and also made the transition from a high impact green to a cyan hue. The brown appears warmer when factory new due to the applied first colour which makes the factory new state a dark reddish brown against a bright green, making the contrast extremely high - even more so than the Kanbu!

The majority of ingame time is spent looking at the back end of the weapon, so I’ve done something different this time around and made a chinese style dragon head working around the hammer. I created this very much off the cuff by painting shapes on one side of the weapon in 3D and seeing how they mirrored. Originally it was just a mouth shape plus two eyes but I was worried the lower part looked too much like a retro batman symbol so I incorporated a few flame bits and a nose. I tidied it up later on by projection mapping a vector version of the face onto the model for cleaner lines and smoother transition over the separate parts. It’s a thicker line art style to work with the small UV area but still in key with the flame shapes on the SG so I’ve allowed it.

I’ve paid strict attention to the wear: Factory new has no wear; at Minimal wear the sight and trigger completely erode along with a few bolts; by Field tested the ejector has completely worn away. The remainder states are increasing multiplications of the third workbench colour, with noise being heavily applied by the Battlescarred state. Towards this end of the wear scale odd blocks would appear at specific locations on the UV - I’ve selectively darkened the Alpha to counteract this, as well as lightened specific parts to partially reduce glare from the high phong exponent settings.

Let me know what you think below!

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