evaluation of concept art (object)

this is my evaluation of my concept art object which i have taken in inspiration from the steampunk styled gun below it, the design for my object is a reversed steampunk duelling pistole which was a challenge because duelling pistols stopped in the age of the musket, because of this i had to think of a reason why this weapon could only fire one shot instead of 12 to 15 like its modern day counter parts.  the way i solved this problem is by making it a energy based weapon that needed to charge, i got this idea from a story i heard about the worlds first military laser weapon that could only fire one shot at a time and then takes 3 days to charge leaving the user defenceless. 

gold plated:

the gold color is to represent wealth as duelling pistols are only handled by the wealthy, however designs of objects in the more modern age are more simplistic and therefore i have used a smooth rounded design with few but defining features, because if the futuristic style i have not covered the object with decoration like the image that inspired me. 

the energy core:

the energy core is based on a fusion reactor similar to the ones you see in the films but on a smaller scale, you could also say it looks very much like plasm weapons that have been around in games from almost the start of computer games. 

the guns base :

the base design follows the same layout as my inspiration (having the grip and trigger as far back as possible and having a long extended barrel) on the other hand ive changed the design making it more thick and armoured around the base of the barrel but still keeping the top of the barrel exposed. 

rubys:

the ruby is there to show a sense of wealth even though allot of the fancy design has been removed this part of the object still shows that not everyone in the game can afford to have this weapon, it also shows that this weapon is more for show rather than a functional piece of equipment. this characteristic is present in my inspiration which also doesn't have a large amount of ammo, this would limit the weapons use in combat due to its low rate of fire.

style:

for this piece i have decided to limit my self to mainly using the gradient tool that we learned in the same lesson as this assignment was set and textures, the reason i gave my self these limitations is the same reason you would limit your self to two tones or colors which is its only a concept and not a fully rendered image or painting. 

good points:
one thing i like about my piece is its unique cartoonist style even though this is not my main style of drawing this time ive looked outside the box and tryed something different and received a overall good result.
bad points:
the main bad point about my piece is the handle with i believe is under detailed and appears flat, the second point im not happy with is the jagged edges and curved caused by the polygon lasso tool however both problems could be fixed even on the final piece. i should have followed the inspiration more closely as a reference.
improvements:
one thing that i would improve if i were to do this object again would be the handle as i believe i could have added more detail onto it however at the time i was unable to think of any details i could add without messing  up the overall design. another thing im not happy with is some of the sharp edges coursed by the polygon lasso tool, to fix this i would spend a greater amount of time masking the edges so they are more smooth and flow into each other better.