Make sure to wear your sunglasses!


Hello hello,

I am back with another Anemoia skin and this time I am presenting one for all the M4A1-S users. Since I had made the M4A4 version of the Anemoia I have gotten quite some requests to also make one for the M4A1-S, as not everyone uses the unsilenced variant. This time I wanted to try and keep my work process as clean as possible and I think I did a pretty good job at it. Making this skin was really enjoyable as there were not a lot of errors and only a couple of bumps along the way.


As aforementioned, it was quite an enjoyable process making the A1-s variant. The reason for this was because the A4 and A1-s are really similar in terms of geometry. While there are key differences (silencer, front grip, buttstock) there are also a lot of similarities like the main body of the weapon, and the magazine. I started out with the same gradient base and made sure it all lined up properly. After that I started looking into what parts featured the gradient and what part would feature the plastic coating. All parts were rather straightforward, except for the front grip.

The front grip was the first bit where I was wondering how to tackle the colour balance. When I made the insides colourful it all felt out balance, so then I tried the bits that stick out of it. When I did that it seemed to be acceptable and I moved onto the grips.

The grips were made with custom masks in Substance painter this time, instead of doing this weird old method with the M4A4 where I would make a mask in photoshop, create a normal in substance designer, and do the illusion of 3D by hand in photoshop. This time, I took the masks and created the depth and illusion in Substance Painter. This was great because it took me less effort than before. The only thing I modelled onto the original model was the grip bits on the back of the magazine, as I already had the model for that. After I had done all the height details for the main body I baked these onto the model so that I could have a proper look at the final diffuse texture.

After everything seemed fine it was time to place the text components on the weapon model. I thought this was going to be an easy job in Photoshop, but the UV's are quite distorted on this model so instead I decided to place the text in SP which turned out to be way simpler than in Photoshop. After this it was time to do a quick test in-game, where low and behold I ran into my first issue.



This little knob was not on the provided UV sheet or model. So, to fix this, I decompiled the original model of the M4A1-S from the game so I could figure out exactly where this piece was on the UV. After some quick work I found and gave it a treatment so it properly blended in with the entire design. This allowed me to draw on the silhouette work. This was quite easy work, as I had already made the drawings on the M4A4. There was some alterations I had to make to make it fit the M4A1-S, but it was quite simple to say the least.

After the drawings were on there I had to do the silencer, as this was the only thing that was still unfinished. I enjoyed the rather simple look of it but decided to add some extra details to it to make it pop-out more. The details were on there pretty easily, but I had some issues with unintended AO on the bottom of the silencer. After a quite tedious process I managed to get a uniform look on the silencer without any unintended dark spots.



I'm happy with how the M4A1-S turned out and I hope you think so too. I am quite busy with university but time is slowly freeing itself up a little, so that's nice. In the coming days I will upload the 2 other colour variants to the workshop if I find the time to finalize those. Eenjoy the original variant for now!

In the meantime, stay healthy, make sure to wash your hands, play some CS:GO and look after yourselves! :)

Love,

Hollandje