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.
This post is long over due and the printer that created these print examples is now well past it’s sell by date. That said, I still wanted to post a collection of print examples from my Original Elegoo Saturn 3D printer as I’ve found it to be a tremendously capable and reliable printer.
I’m also hoping that seeing what a now obsolete resin 3D printer can do in the hands of an amateur, may inspire a few creative types to take the plunge! Again, that said: For the Love of God! read up on my earlier Saturn and LD-002r posts to more fully see what you might be getting into!
Posted: 12/19/2020 I’ve been working on my M26 Perching design sporadically since I finished the King Tiger. Every time I thought I was done I’d find a picture online that told me I wasn’t. This incarnation, while nowhere near perfect, I feel I can live with. I find designs in armor scales need to be more precise than those of ships. Small errors and intentional design simplifications are hardly noticeable in 1/450 scale but seem glaringly obvious in 1/35.
Most of the parts are now printed. As with my latest ship models I used both my Ender 3 Pro and LD-002r printers on this project. With winter here to stay, I won’t be using the LD-002r again till it warms up. Much to my surprise, I was able to keep on printing with it out in the tool shed, while outside temps were only in the upper 30’s. So if you have a garage (and a sensitive spouse) you’ll probably still be able to print year round – even if you live up north.
Much of the assembly is also complete, so more posts are sure to come.
Update: 1/1/2021 My m26 Pershing is now complete, visit the new project page for more details and the finished model pictures.
