Chapter 1: Proportion & Balance

Created by Sarah Choi (prompt writer using ChatGPT)

Proportion & Balance (Center of Gravity, Leverage, Reach/Clearance)

Design Fundamentals for Weapons — equally for concept and production artists

Why proportion and balance decide whether a weapon “works”

A weapon design can be beautifully rendered yet feel awkward if its massing, leverage, and reach are off. Proportion and balance govern how a player reads silhouette, how an animator poses the piece, and whether the modeler can build it without constant fixes. Treat them as your primary composition tools: they set mood, imply power, and make the object usable by a human or believable for a creature. In game development, they also determine camera readability and collision behavior. This article builds a shared language for concept and production so decisions made in thumbnails survive into orthos, rigs, and in‑engine use.

Mental model: three interlocking frames

Think of every weapon through three frames you keep cycling:

  1. Proportion organizes the relative sizes of parts into a visual hierarchy. 2) Balance distributes mass around a center of gravity (CoG) to control handling. 3) Perspective determines how those choices read in camera and in motion. Silhouette is the bridge between the three: if silhouette stays clear across angles, your proportions and balance are probably coherent.

Proportion: establishing the hierarchy

Good proportion starts with a dominant, a secondary, and a tertiary mass. Dominant masses carry identity (e.g., a broad axe head, a long barrel cluster, an oversized power cell). Secondary masses support function (hafts, receivers, guards). Tertiary masses provide articulation and accents (fasteners, rails, ports). Lock this hierarchy early so later detail can’t erode the read. For realism or near‑realism, anchor key lengths to body landmarks: forearm length for grips, shoulder width for two‑hand spacing, hip‑to‑floor for polearms. Even in fantastical settings, consistent ratios signal intent.

Ratio sets that travel well across styles

Many studios keep reusable ratio sets to prevent drift. Common anchors include blade:handle around 3:2 for one‑handed swords, haft:head around 5:1 for mid‑weight axes, and overall length around 1.2–1.4× user height for polearms that must fit doorframes and camera. For firearms, stock length to barrel length, magazine depth relative to receiver height, and muzzle device diameter relative to barrel are dependable dials. Treat these as starting grids, then push for faction style.

Avoiding visual bloat

If every part is the same scale, the eye can’t find structure. Keep at least one full step of scale separation between adjacent masses. When you add attachments—scopes, batteries, bayonets—absorb their footprint into the hierarchy by either integrating them into a dominant mass or shrinking them into tertiary accents; floating “medium” lumps create noise and weight creep.

Balance: center of gravity, leverage, and torque

Balance is where plausibility and handling live. A weapon with a CoG too far from the hands feels sluggish; too close and it lacks presence or striking power. Imagine a line between the primary grasp points; your CoG should usually fall near that line for nimble handling, or deliberately offset for weighted strikes.

Center of gravity placement

For one‑hand melee, aim the CoG about a hand‑width ahead of the grip for chopping heft, or nearly over the knuckles for fencing agility. For two‑hand swords and polearms, place CoG between the hands when choked up, and a little forward when held at the pommel to cue momentum. For pistols, keep CoG inside the grip triangle (hand, wrist, trigger) to prevent muzzle droop in idle poses; for long guns, place it slightly forward of the forward hand to imply real barrel mass without exhausting the animator.

Leverage and moment arms

Leverage equals how far mass sits from the pivot. In a swing, the pivot is a hand; in aim, the pivot is the shoulder‑elbow chain. A small weight far from the hand generates high torque and reads “heavy.” Use this to your advantage: thickening a blade three quarters toward the tip dramatically changes feel even if overall mass is similar. On rifles, long rails packed with accessories create front‑heaviness that animators will fight; concentrate mass nearer the receiver unless you want a deliberate support‑weapon read.

Distribution and damping

Continuous mass tapering provides visual and physical damping—thick near the hand, thin toward the end suggests control. Interrupted massing—thin‑thick‑thin—creates whip or wobble, which can be a stylistic choice for brutal or arcane weapons. Exposed cables, banners, and chains exaggerate imbalance; keep them short or anchored near the CoG for gameplay clarity.

Reach and clearance: the usability envelope

“Reach” is how far the effective edge or muzzle extends from the grip; “clearance” is whether that reach collides with the body, armor, walls, or camera. Early in concept, sketch the weapon in a reach envelope: T‑pose carry, idle, aim/swing extremes, sprint, holster/stow. Ensure it clears thighs, pauldron peaks, and backpack silhouettes. In first‑person, check that sights, muzzle devices, and tall optics do not pierce the near‑camera frustum during reload or inspect animations. In third‑person, test the silhouette against a collision proxy of doors, corners, and allies to prevent comical clipping.

Perspective: making proportion and balance read on camera

Perspective compresses your careful ratios. A long barrel foreshortened in first‑person shrinks into a trapezoid; a curved axe edge can disappear when rotated. Solve this in design rather than paintover hero shots alone. Build primary angles early: three‑quarter glam, top‑down for orthos, and the in‑game dominant camera. Emphasize edges that carry identity by adding tiny plan‑view bias—slight kinks, step‑downs, or chamfers that remain visible when foreshortened. Choose handle cant and stock drop that show the trigger guard and magazine outline in third‑person; these micro‑decisions keep class identity legible at small sizes.

Silhouette: the contract with gameplay

Silhouette communicates weapon class, faction, and upgrade state in 100 ms or less. Give each class a signature negative‑space pattern: void under a trigger guard, notch between scope and carry‑handle, daylight between axe eye and beard, or the triangle between a polearm spike, hook, and shaft. Avoid scalloped edges that break into visual foam at distance. Art direction can push scale wildly, but silhouette must remain stable across skins and attachments; constrain attachments to “safe zones” that don’t occlude the class‑defining cutouts.

Cross‑discipline checkpoints

For concept artists, lock proportion sets before surfacing detail. Draw a human proxy beside every pass and annotate CoG and grip distance. Call out intended handling adjectives—“whippy,” “anchored,” “neutral”—so rigging and animation can mirror your intent. For production artists, validate that the modeled CoG matches the concept by approximating densities (steel, wood, polymer, ceramic, battery) and checking distance to the handline. Nudge internal wall thickness and hollow volumes to bring CoG into spec without visible change. Keep grip geometry and trigger reach within ergonomic bounds; silhouette gains nothing if the hand cannot fit.

Practical workflows

Begin with “mass posts”: draw the handline, then drop circles/rectangles for dominant masses along it. Mark a provisional CoG and test swing and aim arcs with ghosted overlays. Iterate with three proportion keys: A near‑realistic, B stylized‑heroic, C exaggerated. In each, shift the CoG 5–10% and observe how posture and camera read change. When a candidate feels right, freeze a neutral ortho set and perform a “perspective audit”: rebuild the three key cameras from scratch to ensure the read survives. Only then invest in materials and micro‑detail.

First‑person vs third‑person tensions

First‑person favors exaggerated near‑camera shapes: taller front sights, chunkier fore‑ends, and stocks trimmed to avoid clipping during sprint. Third‑person needs broad, clean outer contours that read at thumbnail sizes and across busy backgrounds. Resolve conflicts by designing with two silhouettes: a functional hull for third‑person and a near‑camera shell that preserves landmarks when foreshortened. Document both in the handoff so the viewer understands which compromises are intentional.

Material and density cues

Players infer weight from materials. Dark, matte metals and dense woods read heavy; polymers, perforated shrouds, and open frames read light. Use fasteners, ribbing, and surface wear to signal load paths. Put denser textures where you want perceived weight, lighter treatments where you want speed. This lets you keep CoG plausible even if lore demands an oversized head or barrel—visually pull mass back toward the hands with darker, denser treatments near the grip and lighter, smoother finishes at the extremities.

Case examples

One‑hand axe. Early pass has a large, flat head and long beard; CoG sits far forward, creating a slow, punishing read. Shorten the beard slightly, thicken the eye around the handle, and hollow the rear with a socket detail. CoG shifts closer to the hand, swing looks controllable, silhouette keeps its aggression.

Bullpup rifle. Goal is compactness with a long barrel. Receiver and magazine move behind the grip, but a big optic pushes mass forward. Split the optic into a low body and forward sunshade, anchor the battery pack near the butt, and introduce a carry‑handle that visually ties mass to the rear. CoG centers over the handline without losing the long‑range read.

Arc halberd. The first design stacks a broad blade, secondary spike, and emitter coil at the tip, making clearance poor. Move the coil into a mid‑shaft housing, notch the blade to restore negative space, and angle the spike backward. Third‑person sillhouette becomes readable; reach remains impressive but clears the pauldron.

Communicating balance in the handoff

Do not assume downstream teams intuit your balance decisions. On your orthos, draw a simple balance diagram: a line connecting grips, a dot for CoG, and arrows for intended torque direction in key poses. Include a small table listing estimated mass by part and material, plus the intended adjectives for handling. Add callouts for attachment safe zones and silhouette “do‑not‑occlude” cutouts. In your perspective sheet, include a mini first‑person frame and a third‑person thumbnail lineup to prove the read.

Common failure patterns and quick fixes

If a weapon looks toy‑like, the CoG is probably too close to the hand; thicken or extend a dominant mass slightly forward, or darken and densify near the grip to shift perceived weight. If it clips in every pose, shorten protrusions or create collapsible elements with clear detents. If the silhouette is noisy at distance, collapse mid‑scale detail into larger planes and reserve micro‑detail for near‑camera views only.

Building a proportion library

Maintain a studio library of proportion sheets tied to character sizes and armor kits. Include standard grip spacings, sheath/holster dimensions, shoulder clearance arcs, and doorframe proxies. Keep faction‑specific ratio sets to preserve identity across families and variants. When a new lore technology appears—say, magnetic accelerators—design its balance signature and silhouette slots so it plugs into the library without reinventing fundamentals.

Final checklist

Before you call an iteration done, verify that the silhouette reads at gameplay distance and near‑camera, the CoG sits where the handling fantasy requires, leverage is intentional and communicated, reach clears bodies and spaces, and perspective views reinforce—not contradict—your proportion decisions. When these align, your weapon will feel inevitable: stylish, functional, and a joy for production to build and animate.