Mortal Shell: Virtuous Cycle - Axatana Weapon

Axatana weapon I designed for Mortal Shell: Virtuous Cycle!
Had a ton of fun figuring out how the design/transformation would work visually. Since we only planned to add 1 new weapon to the DLC, I really wanted to find an interesting mix and a way to switch between a heavier/slower 2 handed weapon and a faster twin-blades setup.
First 6 images show the high-poly I designed/modeled using Moi3D and ZBrush for details.

Then there is a screenshot from Substance Painter I used to paint the final in-game textures. LowPoly Retopo, UVs, Baked Maps were made by Dmitry Mishur

Last 2 videos show the final transformation animations by Vladimir Yarmolik

And the video before that is one of the earlier animation tests I did in 3D Max while figuring out how this сould work, going back and forth between axe and swords tweaking the model parts to make sure it has a nice silhouette in both modes. While the idea itself is kinda ridiculous if it was real, for all intents and purposes and within fantasy videogame context I was pretty happy with how it turned out in terms of the balance of the aesthetics vs overall perceived function appeal 🙂

https://www.artstation.com/vladimir_yarmolik

https://www.artstation.com/darkmarekl