I was wanting to try out some more engraved/etched metal type stuff, so a steampunkesque raygun seemed like the logical place to start. May I present the Armstrong & Whitworth Luminiferous Aether Pistol.
Blender 2.80 + Substance Painter. I tried a few different HDRIs for lighting as well as changing the surface on which it sits.
Did a quick, 240 frame, animation to see how it looked. By quick I mean I left Blender to it while I slumbered. It’s a bit noisy in sections where there’s shallow DOF.
lovely work. though a turntable would look better to present it.
Also I’m interested in your workflow if you don’t mind. 
Which aspect? The modelling in Blender is fairly straightforward stuff. Do you mean the texturing in Substance Painter as far as doing the engraving/etching?
the details on the gun are so good I thought you modeled them then baked them.
I’m not sure if this will be readable here, but it will be if downloaded. Just a quick rundown of the basic steps I took. It’s something that’s doable in Blender without Substance Painter. All you’d need is two materials, one darker and rougher than the other and with its height lowered by a bump node and then a new image used as a mask controlling the two of them in a Mix node. Substance Painter is just a lot easier and more fully featured (I’m sure Blender’s feature set will be improved in this regard in future).
Oh, and I forgot to say the Xolotl addon linking Blender to SP makes it a simple affair to send the materials back from SP to Blender when done or update them after tweaking. The downside of this whole workflow is that I ended up with separate 4K texture sets for each and every one of my materials, despite them all sharing the same UVs. There are ways of combining all these into one set though, which I didn’t do on this occasion but might in future.
And another note. Despite talking about Height this whole time (and exporting a height texture I think), Substance Paiinter does convert Height information into normals for you and this is what I used in Blender. For this kind of depth of engraving/etching normal maps work perfectly fine. No need to muck around with height and displacements.
Very helpful. thanks for sharing. 
I featured you on BlenderNation, have a great weekend 
You’re #featured!
NIce metal work! I also like the tip of the gun. That trick to add a colored map so it looks it has been heated a lot of time is sweet. I use that also on exhaust pipes for cars and bakes. Looks quite realistic.
Did you do the pattern manually?
Thanks @bartv and thanks @rombout.
Yes, I did it manually in Substance Painter. If you scroll up a bit someone had asked me about workflow and I added an image showing a few of the stages.
Wonderful attention to detail. Especially like the heat discolouration at the tip of the barrel!
I hate to be that guy, but how does the fluid get up through that hole?
LOL. You have just reminded me that I had intended to have a wee tube descending into the liquid. I guess we’ll just have to imagine it uses suction or something. 
Grips feel kinda bland in comparison to engraved frame. Maybe some checkering and / or maker’s logo?
I’m a newbie and I mostly see with my right eye and not that healthy, anyway
It looks very stylish and pretty
https://blenderartists.org/uploads/default/original/4X/d/a/0/da06cb10763ab1d20b2e0356648d9bc2236b3dd6.jpeg
the above link of an Image is the best looking one, seems that the floor looks the best, at least in my opinion
It works at all levels. From a distance, it’s “steam-punk bad-ass.” Then, get up (very) close to it at every angle and the detail is all there – right down to the tiny scratches on the wooden grips. Terrific!
I <3 it 
great work !
ever try using math.cos((position-location)+time) to make moving strobe FX?
or use a gradient ramp -> move the UV to make the ramp ‘fill’?
Yeah noticed those aswell, i wasnt sure it was manual or projected on
With all the great models in this gallery, yours is the most imaginative I’ve seen in a long time. Great work!
