I’ve received many comments over the past year requesting an M4A1-s Daimyo. Before I designed the original M4A4 finish it had fallen out of favour with the community, so I figured now might a good time to make an adaptation as workshop submissions may have abated.

The original had three colour options, the most appropriate this time might be ‘Spiteful’ as there are no lime green M4A1-s’, but for continuity I’ve also submitted an Evil one too.



You may be thinking it was an easy job: ‘just take the A4 and add a silencer’ -- this was not the case at all!

I was heavily dismayed when I opened the A1 .obj - if you view it from rear projection you will see that the model has been rotated off axis, the magazine is warped and the sight is not even in the center…. essentially this boils down to a lot of extra work fixing projection issues.

I’ve mentioned elsewhere the ICC profile issue I had with other Daimyo finishes which was my own doing i.e. - changing my setup several months after -- but before the submission was accepted. This screwed up the PSD colour values.

Physically the model has several key differences - the receiver and rear stock were slightly more squat. I took the original polygon pattern and adapted it to the shape. The A4 top rail was masked out to reveal the base texture to add a nice mix of the real world amongst a vibrant graphical livery; the A1-s has a carry handle instead, but also a brighter shade of grey base texture - when the light hit it there was too much specular so this time around I’ve covered it up for a smarter appearance.

The forestock was a major issue. The contours of the ribs broke up any polygonal pattern I applied to it, especially arrow detail. This time around I’ve applied the hex pattern very subtly to avoid discernable pattern breaks, but then also devised arrows that work around the ribs. By using negative space for the middle arrows I’ve dodged the perspective issues as a positive shape would be distorted too heavily. The perpendicular detail is based on the negative space of connected X’s which are also featured elsewhere in the grip pattern, but when split in half form triangles - out of all the tests it worked the best visually and is loosely in line with the original design.


I nearly submitted the design 3 days ago with a generic polygon pattern over it but it wasn’t very interesting and only looked semi-decent from a side orthographic projection; when inspecting it ingame it looked weird - it was at this point I thought of the Holbein painting ‘the Ambassadors’ [en.wikipedia.org]- which features an anamorphically projected skull at the base.

I had the idea to feature a form of an object from the inspection angle -- but for it to look like abstract polygonal detail in side view. I thought about Japanese culture again as the name and design was inspired by contemporary Japanese graphic design. I then thought about the function of the silencer as a stealth device - I then made the jump to stealth in the days of the feudal lords - Ninjas! - specifically Ninja tools such as Kunai and shurikens/throwing stars -- in testing it was the latter that worked best, so I went backwards and forwards forming an abstract shuriken shape on the weapon from an approximate inspection view.

I’ve used a triangle for the central hole to tie in with the rest of the design elements. It only had to look like a shuriken from inspection view, so the top and bottom ‘teeth’ continue around the cylinder shape in the form of a generic central cutaway which meander as you unscrew it ingame. I then added a polygonal pattern inside with a few symbols on the reverse for add some much needed detail. It looks like a bizarre geometric shape from ‘side-on’ but I think it's still in keeping with the aesthetic thanks to the angular shape and polygonal interior pattern, plus it's a nice touch to what could have otherwise been a straightforward bit of decoration.