Federal Heavy Battle Rifle Mk4
This deliverable is meant to become a re-accruing item in the Universe of ZARYA-3. Modular nature of this weapon make it a great base for multiple future variants.
When Heavy is Just Enough!
Heavy Battle Rifle Mk4 represents the fourth generation of a weapon family that have been in service for over one hundred years.
Chambered for powerful caliber of 7.6×38 HBR Mk4 is loved by Federal special forces and high tier private contractors for its reliability and effectiveness independently of weather conditions or range. The only factors that keeps HBR Mk4 from being widely adopted by the Federal Defense Forces are its hefty price and weight. The latter is clearly consequence of high caliber that may be considered overkill for most operations.
As standard, HBR Mk4 comes with a built-in powerful torch, four 20-bullet cartridges, a universal rail for attachments and a cleaning kit. Most professionals prefer to use this weapon together with a powerful optic attachment and a suppressor. Despite it’s limited user base, HBR Mk4 is still one of the most recognizable of all Federal weapons, therefore accessories like shorter/longer barrels, grips with additional rails and under-barrel attachments can be frequently found on the Federal market.
When "Keeping it Simple" actually works
Early on during the brainstorm phase for all of the weapons, I decided that instead of challenging my limited (by that time) artistic capability, I would use photo-bashing to assemble all firearms for ZARYA-3 from silhouettes of existing weapons. Some of them became extremely original designs, others like this rifle were a mere repurpose of an existing gun with few additions to make it my own.
This way, HBR Mk4 is nothing else, but the body of Heckler & Koch XM29 OICW grenade launcher that is “slimmed down” to the size of a standard rifle and supplied with an originally designed lower receiver.
The end result looked fantastic, so during the 3D modeling phase I have also added an angular scope on top of the rifle. The square shape of the scope was inspired by 90s electronic appliances and felt like the last touch in creating the retro-futuristic corporate cyberpunk vibe of this weapon.
While this design is deemed as fully complete, I still want to change the shape of the suppressor to a more square-like one, tweak the front part of the upper receiver to be slightly more aggressive and explore some volume reduction of the butt stock.
One Year to Think and One Evening to Make
This weapon is listed as complete, but may become a subject to few aesthetic changes before the final release.
The final design became realistically functional, pleasingly angular and heavy-looking. As of now though it feels like this 3D model does not live up to its full potential, so a slight rework is pending.
Part of this rework will be change of the shape for the magazine well and reduction of the butt stock to make this gun feel a bit more light and original compared to its real life prototype.
The most pleasing part though is that fully custom-made rails (not copy of currently widely-used Picatinny, but my original design!) will be able to fit an endless amount of future accessories and allow me to effortlessly make multiple variations of this weapon.
Since I had already have some expreience from working with previous firearms, the production of HBR Mk4 went pretty straightforward: A flat shape that was traced over the photo-bashed sketch was extruded to an appropriate thickness, broken up in parts and thereafter morphed towards the near-final shape.
