The leftmost picture is the official concept art for the Smart Pistol MK6 which gave me a great side profile of the gun I was modeling. The angled shots also helped me get some of the right chamfers and helped me estimate the width of some of the parts of the gun. This was the gun I wanted my final model to resemble.

The middle picture is of the Ziiiinc 3D printed pistol. The files for the pistol are free and I used them as a starting point for the model of the Titanfall gun. I used these models specifically, because the creator ingeniosly created a "NERF" pistol with an in handle magazine, functioning slide, and proportionally looks very similar to a real-steel handgun. These are impressive feats when a dart gun requires a tube fo some kind to hold air, a plunger to move down that tube, a spring to move the plunger with a lot of force, as well as a catch to hold the plunger and spring back until the triggers engages it. Then the air from the tube must get to the back of the dart and push it out of a barrel. Usually all these necessary components for a spring action dart gun are in line with each other; 

barrel -> bullet/magazine -> tube -> plunger -> spring -> catch. In the Ziiiinc's case (and the original Zinc's case too), the tube, plunger, spring, and catch are all in the opposite direction the dart is facing and are on top of the dart and barrel. The air flows from the top towards the user, in a "U-like" chamber in the backplate, and pushes the dart from below out of the barrel.

The picture to right is of the hardware kit needed to operate the 3D printed gun. I bought the kit, firstly because I planned to 3D print my model once I finished, and secondly to measure with calipers to model as well.

I honestly should have just made a prop that resembles the Smart Pistol MK6. The 3D modeling software, Fusion, is not capable of keeping smooth faces on large imported models. Therefore, most of the models I imported of the Ziiiinc gun became very triangulated and hard to work with.

In some cases, I would just make a plane, lower it by -0.1mm into the body, and separate the body using that plane. This would make a small cut between all the little triangles on what should be a flat surfaces and I could then remove them leaving me with a truly flat surface. The downside to this method was that there was no way to be sure the flat edge was aligned with the origin planes or if this flat surface was just barely a degree or two tilted which would case small issues later on (this happened a lot!).

I began with the magazine because it was the simplest to edit and it would be a small accomplishment having an entire component done. Even the magazine was rough. The original baseplate would clip into two small grooves on the inside at a slight angle; the same angle as the magazine. I needed this grove to be completely vertical, which meant the clips in the baseplate had to be vertical too. I basically filled in the previously modeled grooves and made vertical grooves the same size and within the same place (just rotated of course).

The most troublesome piece was by far the muzzle. The problems were the same that I have mentioned: little triangles everywhere(!), unaligned faces, and many errors when trying to make simple cuts and extrudes to the body. The hardest part was the spikes at the end. I used sketches on each plane needed and the surface tool to make the perimeter of the triangular spike, then stitched it, and boundary filled it. I actually did not edit the original muzzle model much. Instead I modeled a piece that could slide in front using two rods to friction fit in the long screw holes. This "cap" I modeled to resemble the end of the muzzle from the Smart Pistol MK6 with the spikes and details for its camera and laser. The Smart Pistol MK6 actually has its camera and laser below the barrel, but the Ziiiinc has its barrel at the bottom of the handle and the functioning components in the slide. So, my muzzle "cap" has the camera and laser above the hole for the barrel to still resemble the gun but keep the functionality of the "NERF" gun.

As a sidenote, I tried to model the springs that come in the hardware kit. Physically, modeling them was very easy, but modeling the movement was a lot more difficult. My instructor sent me a video on how to model the movement of a spring in Fusion. The video was very helpful and as I followed along a lot worked. For whatever reason, as I was modeling each join between each half coil, the program would all of a sudden stop animating the joint and I could not proceed with editing the joint to display the correct movement. After many efforts, I simply removed all my spring bodies so they would not the look of the model as other parts move but they stay still. 

As of 12/4/23 I am currently printing the magazine on my 3D printer. I do hope to print the entire gun, and hope even more that my additions and edits do not ruin the functionality of the gun.

I also may revisit this model to either finish perfecting it (maybe get the springs to actually work) or to iterate off of it as I pursue making my own designed "NERF" gun.

After 34 saves of the muzzle model alone, 25 of the magazine, 28 of the slide and components within, and 19 saves of all the parts in one file, I am left with... I mean, I have worked to present a "NERF" gun capable model resembling the Smart Pistol MK6 from the video game Titanfall 2. The model resembles the Smart Pistol MK6 in its overall frame and estimated dimensions while keeping the functionality of the Ziiiinc "NERF" gun it was modeled from. I also enjoyed setting up joints between the parts to resemble how the "NERF" gun would function. I am pleased with what was accomplished though more can definitely be done to improve it. Most importantly, I loved the experience of using so many skills I have learned over the semester to adapt the Ziiiinc model to what I wanted it to look like. It has taken many hours, one completely overnight 11 hour straight work period, and about half the time modeling was spent watching YouTube because Fusion would freeze calculating simple edits. All in all, I would love to do this project again and do hope to fully design my own "NERF "gun someday. 

Below is a diagram of some of the dimensions of the final model, a rendering of the final model with the slide pulled back, and an animation of the model including and exploded view of each part and a demonstration of the joints involved to create the movements of the model.