re: Avatar Weapons & Guns
thanks for the warm welcome!
the artwork that's in the cinefex ad has pretty much the final artwork of the weapons i designed (the pistols were done by others here at weta, the wasp was by steve lambert, and the standard issue pistol by christian pearce).
except the artwork shows the designs as caseless, as they were originally intended. jim wanted casings ejected for dramatic effect however, so the final designs had cased rounds and big ejection ports.
there were a lot of live firing versions made of the carb rifles, shotgun, and wasp pistol. and the carb rifles also had a version where a custom reciprocating mechanism was developed to simulate recoil, muzzle flash, and shell ejection.
the live fire carb weapons had ruger mini 14 mechanisms, and the shotgun used a norinco pump action internal mech.
the CARB system (cellular (originally caseless) ammunition rifle base) was inspired by the LMG11 and the MRC. the design is intended to be a highly modular system, whereby different versions of the weapon are assembled from common parts. theoretically the bare CARB unit (without any foregrip or barrel extension) could be used on its own (not that you'd want to... it'd be a tail heavy and awkward thing). i really had fun designing a lot of tech details that never made it into the film, weapon design is a favourite subject of mine.
the carb rifle base utilises a rotating breech (as the system was originally designed to be a caseless weapon, having the extra complications of cased rounds makes the system less feasible, so i'll refer to the original design now), with a plastic pre-packaged, self powered, disposable, non-reloadable box magazine with transverse stacked rounds in separate columns. the magazine has a built-in e-ink ammunition counter along the bottom edge on each side. the magazines hold 80 rounds of 6.2x35mm ammunition. a variety of modular components can be added, such as different length barrels and underslung 20mm munitions launcher.
the 20mm munitions launcher forms both the underslung launcher (which can fire any number of 20mm tactical rounds, ie: air-burst grenade, tactical buckshot, armour piercing, non-lethal etc...) for the assault rifle CARB variant, or can be used on its own. the shotgun is based around the launcher with modular stock and barrel attachments. there is also an anti-materiel/sniper variant shown in the cinefex ad, which wasn't made for the film, and was just me nerding out.
the flamethrower has a one piece ultra-tough laminated carbon-nanotube reinforced polymer body. this enables the entire body to be storage for the extremely highly compressed fuel and propellant. the extremely rugged body is shatter proof, bullet proof, and ultra durable. it has a flat bottom for easy storage, and was intended to be a tool, rather than a military weapon.
i guess that will do for now, if anyone has any questions, please fire away.
hopefully we'll get the artwork cleared soon too.
i have a website but it's so seriously out of date i won't bother listing the address here,
other than that i have a blog of rough scribbles here:
http://skul4aface.blogspot.com/
most of the work i have done in the last 4 years has been for major film projects for weta workshop, so i can't show any of it.
nevermind...
cheers,
aaron