I’d obviously rather spend two hours creating a fictitious French naval recruitment poster circa 1887 prominently featuring my new, mostly complete, Redoutable Ironclad Blender model, than spend those same 2 hours working on the tiny details that remain, won’t show in renders but still need to be completed before printing…
Think I may make this my new splash page graphic. I love the way creating digital dioramas in Blender lets you “play” with your new digital toy models! 🙂
PS: The keen observer may have noticed I used my Admiral Duperre model for the second ship in line.
Blender renders of the French ironclad warship Redoutable
Original Post: Jan. 8, 2026
While researching my Admiral Duperre project, I would repeatedly come across pictures of the first steal hulled battleship, Redoutable and I really liked her lines. Her tumble-home hull was even more pronounces than Duperre’s and though Redoubtable is Duperre’s predecessor, aspects of her appear more modern, at least to my eyes. In the pictures above her Blender work is easily over 90% complete but I’ve still got a bit of work before she’s done. Even so, it’s only taken me a little over a month to get this far. So I’m definitely getting faster! (Or at least able to reuse more). I kind of like Redoutable more than Duperre right now but then again, I always like the shiny new thing I just finished best.
Come spring I’m going to have some difficult choices to make as to what gets printed and assembled first. Heck, I’m already looking at Courbet for my next Blender build. I do love me some French ironclads…
Below are renders of Admiral Duperre in her 1887 configuration
Had a long ChatGPT yesterday about my Duperre Blender model. Seems there were some historical abnormalities. I figured there were a few… it’s why I contacted the all knowing Oracle for a sanity check. Turns out that when Duperre had the Charles Martel type fighting tops she also had the fugly anti-torpedo netting. Except for the late 1890’s by which time she had lost her bow sprit, and status as a front-line battleship. I’m typically not a crazy stickler for historic accuracy, but I really like this model and want her to be reasonably accurate.
When in doubt
Kind of left me with two acceptable options. Make all the changes to get her into her 1892 refit configuration (except for the nets, which I cannot abide). Or do her up as close to her 1887 refit as possible, making her more or less a copy of the Paris Naval Museum’s Duperre. So naturally I went with both, at least in Blender. Not sure yet which I’ll ultimately print/build (leaning towards 1887) but for now I’m tweaking her for both states.
Except for the lack of anti-torpedo hardware, the pictures below are pretty close to Duperre’s post 1892 refit look.
Original Post: Dec. 7, 2025
French battleship Admiral Duperre 1891, Blender renders
OK, back to business. The Blender design work is complete (edit: yeah right...) on my French ironclad Admiral Duperre. She still needs to be parted up for printing but that must wait until I decide on the make of my new resin printer. I’ll be scaling her to 1/200 for printing and when built, she should pair nicely with my 1/200 Charles Martel.
There are a handful of reasonably good photo’s of Duperre, but few during the desired period. It’s extremely difficult to know when changes occurred when looking at earlier or latter photos, though if you see enough pictures you start to see patterns and make assumptions, but it’s easy to get it wrong. Speaking of getting things wrong. I know the paint scheme used on the Paris model isn’t 100% correct and was used to highlight her armor layout, and it’s even less accurate for Duperre circa 1891, but it’s available in color, looks crazy cool and is probably the most widely know paint scheme for her.
Anyway, plenty of time for me to tweak things, it’s going to be a while before the temperatures in my printing shed allow me to resin print again. so I’ve got a few months before I can start this build. In the meantime I’ve already started on an even earlier French ironclad: Redoubtable. I really do love me a tumble home hull. I’m guessing I’ll be posting design updates on Redoubtable long before Duperre sees any more progress.
The reworked Blender model of Admiral Duperre also needed a new sunset shot and of course a posterized version…
Update: Dec. 14, 2025
Reworked my Blender model of Admiral Duperre to represent her earlier 1887 configuration -thought I’d have a little more fun.
Update: Nov. 11, 2025
Still messing with Blender dioramas/graphic art, I wanted to try a new none night time setting. (and I’m not ready to go back to working on all the small details I’ve still got to do…) I do really like the posterized look.
Original Post: Nov. 9. 2025
My Blender Admiral Duperre displayed in a digital diorama.
My Blender design for the French ironclad Admiral Duperre is coming along nicely. At about 70% complete, most of the remaining work will consist of countless small details limited only by my patience. I wanted to have some fun with the model, so dropped it into the Blender diorama I had originally made for Charles Martel.
Frances ironclad Admiral Duperre after about 3 weeks of Blender work
Oct. 27 2025
Winter’s coming and I need a new resin printer anyway, it’s time to switch to Blender design work and prepare for next seasons model building projects.
Having had a most excellent time with Charles Martel, and really loving the steam punk look of her, I decided to go back to the source of tumble home goodness. I spent a day or so doing a deep dive into France’s early ironclads, her pre-pre-Dreadnoughts if you will. So many interesting options, (the ironclad era is chock full of them from all nations). It didn’t take too long before I found what I was looking for: Admiral Duperre . Sticking with France also allowed a connection to Charles Martel and you can readily see the evolution of design ideas.
I found Admiral Duperre to be an irresistible subject for modeling, she has so many naval design eras baked in: – Straight from antiquity, the prominent ram bow and forecastle. – From the preceding generation of ironclad frigates, 14 massive muzzle loading broadside canons 7 per side. – Again from the age of sail, schooner rigging! Or was it barque? Anyway she’s got sails for Pete’s sake! – The latest ironclad innovations were also present: Steam engines powering duel props, a fully steal and armor plated hull, 4 armored barbettes housing massive breach loading 13.4″ rifled cannons, (in pseudo turrets even!) – And my three favorite design elements, two of her massive barbette guns are arranged forward, side by side in wing turret fashion, she’s got two giant side by side smoke stacks right behind them and of course a sexy tumble home hull.
I’m thinking she’s about half done. maybe an additional month or two of Blender design work before I’ll switch to parting mode, breaking her up into printable chunks. Hopefully I’ll have a new resin printer by then.
This post introduces the Charles Martel project page. The Charles Martel was a French pre-dreadnought battleship from the end of the 19th century. Her 1/200 scale model has been by far my most ambitious 3D build, taking over a year and a half from Blender design to display case. Her project page has a ton of Elegoo Saturn print example shots, in-progress build pictures, and comments from the assembly process, below are a few images from it.
It was a long time coming but I finally completed my first large, resin only project, using my new Elegoo Saturn 3D printer. Follow the link to USS Tigrone‘s project page for details and lots of print and build pictures.
Update: To see my most ambitious Elegoo Saturn project, check out Charles Martel
