Thanks, fellas.
Quote: "EAI, you seem to know a lot about guns are you are gun expert or collector because your knowledge of firearms is amazing!"
Hardly an expert. Just do a lot of research beyond looking at pictures on guns.ru. Globalsecurity.org is one of the best, free, starting points for referencing any kind of militart hardware IMO.
I have a very modest collection but it helps out a lot when modeling to have something right in front of you. Even if it's not the same gun I'm modeling there are a lot of common anatomy points, ie; guns of a similar opperating system will have similar parts. They look different but they function and relate to one another in like ways. I go shooting whenever I can which unfortunately isn't often, especially now that surplus .308 has doubled in price this year.
So you guys can see that it didn't happen over night, I'm attaching an archive pic with some earlier work so that you can see the progression (It's large so consider yourselves warned!).
Unfortunately, I lost all my earliest work to a virus back in the day. My first gun was a minigun litterally made out of a bunch of cylinders and boxes/rectangles... And I thought it was totally sweet though it was pure crap. Never did the trace and extrude thing though... Bringing in a background image brought Strata to it's knees LOL. In retrospect, that was probabily a good thing.
Anyways, I know many of you guys have only been modeling for a couple years or less. You'll improve just fine over time if you keep at it and don't take shortcuts. Modeling is like any craft and mastery doesn't come overnight. I still have lots to learn and I'm sure that in a year or two I won't be as thrilled with the work I'm putting out currently.