how to draw guns:
guns are made up of 3 principle parts
• the barrel, which the bullet flies out of
• the magazine (and thus the receiver, but mostly the magazine) which is connected to the barrel and supplies bullets to shoot
• the grip, which allows you to hold the gun in the first place
other important parts (but not necessarily things you must display, as they are generally assumed to be present)
• the hammer, which hits the bullet causing it to basically EXPLODE and shoot out the barrel
• the bolt, which takes bullets out of the magazine, then puts them into the barrel
there are some nuances to the way these parts work together
• stocks are a measure used when a gun has enough recoil that it would cause someone using it to buck wildly into the air. according to hollywood, that means 'anything', so it's pretty much OK to put a stock on anything that's not a pistol. the only real rhyme or reason behind stocks are that they reach your shoulder, and sometimes they can be folded over the rest of the gun for storage
• barrels are generally thicker the bigger the bullet they fire. this is why things like the anti-materiel rifle from fallout new vegas looks like it can be used as a forgetin battering ram, while the varmint rifle from the same game looks just like a normal gun
• in instances where the bullet is entirely
too large to fit inside the barrel (for instance, on a rocket launcher) you can just stick it on the end, but this function implies that the barrel is actually just a big dumb tube and would, instead of ending at a grip or stock, have some form of exhaust port on the opposite end. this is not always true.
• magazines aren't always hollow boxes; revolvers, for instance, have a large rotating (
revolving) 'cylinder' in which you can put bullets into, which then is pressed flush to the barrel
• longer barrels stereotypically means harder-hitting. this is true because ballistic weapons (IE: guns that shoot actual, physical bullets) do actually benefit in stopping power and accuracy from longer barrels due to technical things that are probably unimportant to you. even with energy weapons longer weapon is shorthand for 'hits harder'
•
multiple barrels is shorthand for 'extremely fast firing', but not necessarily 'a shotgun'. shotguns are basically explosions of shrapnel pointed in one direction, coming out of a single tube. multiple barrels implies that the gun functions like a chaingun; the barrels all rotating to help dissipate heat.
• the barrel is almost always the thinnest part of the gun: in other words, the rest of the gun should be fatter then the barrel. the only case this is not true is with grenade launchers, and it is still the exception rather then the rule
beyond the basics though most of gun design revolves around that cliche what/why/how trinity: 'what does this gun do', 'why does it need to' and 'how does this gun do it'. for instance, if i were to attempt to design a gun that fires lasers used by the military to pierce armor by firing super hard, it would have to be electrical in nature, have some way to generate and fire a laser, be practical and streamlined enough for military use (and probably be a boring, dull green) (or an awesome wood-on-gunmetal-black thing, which you should
always choose over dumb olive drab), and the barrel should be long enough for an outside party to understand that it fires extremely powerful rounds
more outlandish bullets (or pseudobullets) can be thought through easier if approached from the angle that the barrel always needs to be big enough to support what you are attempting to shoot out of the barrel; for instance, if your gun shoots big, self-contained acid blobs, the barrel would logically be a huge hollow cylinder (and the magazine would be some form of acid-container). if you don't know what to do to make your gun unique, you really can just slap primitives or simple shapes onto a side-view and trim or add until you see something you like. remember though that adding 'weight' implies that the gun is more and more powerful- sort of like how a rocket launcher
looks tougher then a normal pistol
if all else fails, look at other, existing, fictional or non-fictional guns to see how they are put together. note where the barrel, bolt, grip, magazine and other assorted gun-parts are placed, and see if you can guess where they connect. the
internet firearm database is a good place to start
