Vash’s Revolver – Part 1 – Reference Material

Be prepared for a post with lots of pictures, poor quality screenshots, and a number of spoilers. If you haven’t read the manga Trigun or Trigun Maximum and are planning on it and don’t want spoilers, stop reading this and go find a copy of it to read (I highly recommend it). If you don’t care about spoilers, get comfortable and read on.

Around the time I purchased a 3D printer and had started exploring what I could do with it, I found a model for Vash’s revolver from the Trigun anime online. My first thought was, “What!? Heck yes!” Though the model was a tad off in proportions and didn’t feel quite true, it spurred me to start searching for other models of the revolver to see what was out there. I found a number of different models and even someone on the RPF that was building a working prop of it that was amazingly accurate. Of course their post thread died out before showing off their complete model, but it was inspiring. And in my search, I found models from the anime, replica’s from the movie, but very few from the manga and definitely not available for 3D printing. I decided I needed to change that.

While exploring 3D printing I’d delved into using Fusion360 a bit and felt confident enough in my modeling skills to attempt modeling Vash’s revolver. First thing first though, need some reference images to work from!

After perusing the manga online, I settled on grabbing screen-shots from Trigun Maximum. The first two original Trigun volumes don’t have many good, clean shots of his revolver to work from and I think the design changed subtly from Trigun to Trigun Maximum. The first panel below is one of my favorites shots of his revolver from when Wolfwood returns it to him 2 years after the Fifth Moon Incident.

The overall shape of the revolver seemed like it shouldn’t be too hard to model. Though getting the smaller details of it correct will be a different matter. Between the two images above you can start to see some minor differences. For one, the thumb grip on the hammer is different, there are some extra screws there on the side – and wait! The hinge is flipped! And it’s missing the notches in the cylinder.

Pulled from an action scene in that same chapter. Some detail missing, but a good shot of it’s shape – and look, the hinge is different again, and cylinder notches are back. I suppose with the art style of Trigun, it can be hard to keep certain pieces accurate from panel to panel.

The middle image is shows good profile view of the hammer and the back of the revolver. Looking at where the hammer is set into the body of the gun, the double line there says to me there’s a chamfer running along it.

I’m not quite sure where it changes, but in the next few panels I started to notice that the revolver’s grip design changed. It didn’t seem nearly as curved, has a bit of a different angle to it, and the butt of the grip has a plate capping it, instead of being rounded off as in the first few images.

I really like this panel and the chapter it’s featured in when Vash gets his revolver repaired. And, I thought it was hilarious that Marlon loans him the revolver from the anime as a temporary replacement. This is one of the cleaner shots of the back of the revolver. It’s missing the chamfer’s running along the side plates by the hammer that I mentioned before, but this shot gives a good idea of the proportions of the side plates to the hammer and better idea of how the rear sights meet the body of the revolver.

Actions shots and couple really good side profiles.

Another set of side shots I really like. Around the middle and maybe more towards the end of Trigun Maximum, you can start to see the design and style of the revolver become clearer and more consistent.

Great shot of the underside of the revolver, showing it’s proportions and the bottom plate on the grip. Detail shot of the rifling in the barrel, love the detail in that panel. Also a good view of the top. Oh! And there’s another thing that keeps changing – the rear sight on the revolver consistently changed between having a center cutout like a normal revolver and being a single continuous piece.

I’m not sure if it’s mentioned anywhere in the manga, but I believe that Vash’s revolver is supposed to be chambered in .45 long colt. However, the cylinder is really long for the length of the bullet casings depicted. But then, I guess these are fictional .45 long colt rounds from a desert wasteland planet in the far reaches of space. Realism be damned!

Some very nice shots of the grip profile and another good side shot of the revolver. I think this is most of the reference material I pulled for the project, never can have enough of it when tackling a project like this!

Next gallery is of some amazingly colored panels that I found in my reference image search and just could not pass up on collecting.

Reference material taken from: Trigun & Trigun Maximum, Nightow, Yasuhiro, Dark Horse Manga, 2004.