How to Draw Paintball Guns

A basic drawing of a paintball gun will look like its lethal counterpart, except with a longer barrel, paint container and gas compression system.

Reasons to draw paintball guns range from the technical (blueprints, instruction manuals) to the artistic expression of a real-life passion. Despite their name, paintball guns aren't really firearms---in fact, the technically correct term for them is "markers." Nevertheless, paintball guns share a number of basic details with their lethal counterparts, such as the barrel, handle and trigger. A drawing of these components will differ only slightly from a drawing of a long-barreled handgun. But a paintball gun drawing will be defined by what sets it apart: a paint container, carbon dioxide tank and gas compression system.

Things You'll Need

• Sketchpad
• 4H sketch pencil
• India ink pen

Instructions

1. Draw the basic shapes of the paintball gun in pencil. Use two rectangles for the main barrel and grip, a small upside-down triangle for the trigger, an oval for the paint container above the main barrel, a cylinder for the elongated barrel, a cylinder for the gas tank (jutting from the back of the bottom of the grip), a rectangle around the trigger for the trigger guard and a long curved cylinder for the gas injecting tubing. The tubing will extend from the opposite side of the grip from the gas tank to the underside of the barrel in front of the trigger guard. Pay close attention to the perspective of the shapes. Choose a single point in the distance and draw the entirety of the gun "shrink" toward that point---close portions of the gun are larger than the parts farther away.

2. Slowly erase the rough shapes of the paintball gun and replace them with finalized details. Begin with creating the accurate shape of the gun, then move on to the small details---the empty space in the barrel of the gun, the ridges in the gas tubing, the finger impressions in the grip and the fixing screw connecting the paint container to the main barrel.

3. Trace the finalized pencil lines in ink. Begin with the most essential details and cautiously move on to the finer details (but be careful not to go too far! Unnecessary detail can subtract from the quality of a drawing). Let the ink dry and gently erase the pencil lines from the drawing.

Tips & Warnings

• You can make the metal portions of the paintball gun more obviously metal by drawing reflected light onto those parts. You can't technically draw brighter reflected light, but you can suggest it by sketching shadow around the area that is reflecting light.

References

• BassPro: Guide to Paintball Guns