Sig P226
Here are a few renders of a Sig P226 I modeled for fun a few months ago. I built this to have a working slide, trigger, hammer, magazine, and bullet. It is around 10k tri's with all the parts. Disclaimer alert - the model has a number of extra edge loops left in and has not been fully optimized, it was not really intended to be a low poly game model just something fun to build so don't burn me too bad for that 
Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated.
Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated.
Replies
First up, what's with the color? Generally very saturated colors don't fit well on guns, and instead you could try a less saturated diffuse (maybe a blue tone instead?) and replacing it with a more saturated spec. Making certain parts different colors on the spec can really help separate different materials, especially when a product is made with pretty much all metal like this. I also noticed your barrel and guide rod (the thing under the barrel) look rather stony, whereas the real barrels are polished, shiny, and wear differently. Try making the diffuse for that much lower contrast.
Play around with the brightness of the diffuse too. As evidenced by most photos, the real 226 is a very dark gun. Dark diffuse + bright specular = shiny, active metal! Which brings me to...
Your specular isn't doing anything, as evidenced by the very flat sides. Metal is 99% about the specular, so it's important that it's doing its job. Try upping the level (metal looks nice when shiny!) and adding some color and unique detail. There is a lot of wear to materials in the real world that you can't see unless a light is shining on it, particularly scrapes that wear away the coating or create a small indent. You can also add some color to your spec as I mentioned above.
The wear does look cool in certain spots, but just remember when doing wear (or anything, really) you should always be striving to mimic real world effects, not just look cool. This will help sell anything you make as a real item and not CG!
generally speaking the spec is the main thing to work on guns.
remember that guns get oiled and greased alot.
so think of the parts you would to keep it working.
also theres lots of residue on that thing, keep that in mind.
the dirt on the slide looks ok, liking the scratches.
maybe a bit too harsh at some places.
the black parts should be.. well.. black.. or at least darker
BradMeyers82 - The lighting could use some work, I will tweak the setup a bit for a better 3 point and post up the textures tomorrow evening
JoshuaC - You caught me on that one, the extractor was an after thought as I somehow forgot to add it and had to edit it in after I had my low poly built and unwrapped. Only an issue when the slide is back though
Racer445 - Thanks for the in depth explanations, I will address all these points as I rework the diffuse/spec. As for the color, lol originally I was going to go with the standard black that the 226 is but it did not seem as interesting as this green color. I suppose I was stretching what colors and metal types would be believable on this gun but it was kind of fun
Rumkugel - Points taken, I will work on making the details pop a little more.
And here are the textures I am working with - Diffuse,Spec,Normals.
Also i think there would be be more damage around the magwell or hammer than at the front end of the slide.