Zenith 11. Steel Claw and Fishboy

Half term has allowed me to make some good progress on my Zenith Project, another two completed with two more almost finished ( Metamaid and Captain Miracle)

Fishboy

Fish boy was originally from the comic Buster in the late 1960's, Fishboy Denizen of the Deep.He can breath underwater, swim very fast and communicate with Sharks and other sea creatures. 

A interesting article on the character - Are you my daddy the strange story of fishboy denizen of the deep

In Zenith he is portrayed fairly similarly, dressed only in seaweed underwear. He only has a small background part and as a casualty of the llogor possessed Mr Why. Looking for some colour images to get is hair colour was initially quite hard as the original stories were in black and white and he only appeared in one cover.His stories were repainted in other countries and there are several full colour covers that helped.

Original Buster comic

Covers from the Indonesian reruns

I created the figure using Eldritch Foundry and added his seaweed clothes using Greenstuff

Fish Boy. Denizen of the Deep

Steel Claw

The Steel Claw was from Valiant Comics and for a time was one of its most popular characters. 

For the majority of the Steel Claws stories he is portrayed in a suit, more fitting for his gritty secret agent/detective style adventures.  He had a short run in a costume which was not that well received and he reverted back to his civies.

His Zenith appearance draws from his view brief period as a costumed adventurer when he wore a metal mesh outfit along with his signature Steel Claw. 

The figure was created using Eldritch Foundry and I used paper to add his belt.

I struggled to find any colour images of the costume with descriptions stating it was a metal mesh. The was one forum comment that thought it might have been a copper mesh so went with this.

Update:

A s I completed the Steel Claw I came across an old Portuguese edition that had just been posted on Ebay. I will have to go back and redo him!

Zenith 10. Captain Miracle and Meta-Maid

Still on a Zenith drive, trying to complete all those I have made up and printed over the summer...

Captain Miracle

Captain Miracle was a Silver Age superhero from the 1960's and featured in his own comic. He has super-strength, invulnerability and flight capability

Original Captain Miracle and his sidekick Miracle Junior

Captain Miracle in Zenith, one of the heroes possessed by the Lloigor 

I have had to reprint and paint again as I had originally made him to small, though I might go back and repaint the first as Miracle Junior

Captain Miracle 

Meta-Maid

Meta-maid is an original Zenith character and is a pre-op Transexual superhero.  Her costume reminds me of a mix between Golden Age Lady Phantom and Black Canary

Design sketch taken from the introduction to book 4 ( Titan edition) 

Meta-Maid between the Leopard from Lime Street and Zenith

She is shown to have super-strength and is part of Zeniths group of Superheroes in Book 4. 

The figure was created using Eldritch Foundry and I then added several elements using green stuff to better match her costume. Extending her mask, adding a corset and gloves.

Original digital sculpt

Metamaid only appears in Black and white so I have had to be creative with the colours.I painted the boots, jacket, mask and glove as black leather, echoing Zenith's own jacket and also Black Canary. 

Her hair is shown as light and dark in various panels throughout the story but looks light in one of the original design sketches so I gave her blonde hair, another echo of Black Canary as well. 

For her skirt and top I settled on a light blue with a pink and white stripe which echoes the colours from the  Transgender Pride Flag as a nod to the character.

Zenith 8. Streamline and Captain Magnet

Two more Superheroes brought to life from the pages of Zenith, both of which have been created using Eldritch Foundry

Streamline

Not Reverse Flash but Streamline! Originally a Golden Age Superhero, he had his own comic in the 1940's but despite being billed as 'Britains Superman; he never made it past issue 4.

Zenith remade him without his cloak and within the story he ended up a traitors and was killed.

Streamline had super speed and healing. In Zenith he could also generate a protective Forcefield around himself  

First appearance in 1947

Streamline shortly before his secret loyalty is discovered

Streamline

Captain Magnet

Before Magneto there was Captain Magnet! From the pages of Super Duper Comics, he was an OSS agent and gained powers to help him fight the Nazi's. He had magnetic power along with super-strength,  near invulnerability and could fly.

He does not play a major part in the Zenith storyline and is just in a couple of background shots. 

Taken from Super Duper Comic 15

Standing in Zenith

Captain Magnet

Blender.1. Start

I have had a 3D printer for some time now (Elegoo Mars Pro) and found it to be a fantastic hobby tool and over time expanded my skills and have been making  some very basic digital conversions using Chitubox and FlashDLPrint

I have now downloaded Blender ( 3.4 for Mac as that is the limit for my system) with the intention of learning to make my own digital sculpts at some point!

I have no previous experience with similar programs and started with some online tutorials, luckily there are a lot of resources available.

One of the most recommended has been Blender Guru and his Doughnut series which seems to be a very rite of passage for many, I had made a start but found myself stuck and frustrated so have switched to the tutorials by Grant Abbitt on Youtube which I have found really engaging, though I plan to come back to Blender Guru at some point and try again! 

I have just completed his course 'Learn Blender 3 for Complete Beginners' 

Grant Abbitt

My very first creation, the 'Old Man'  following the course

    

Second Creation by the end of the Course. 

This is based on the 'Monster' from the course but I have added more which has given me extra practice in the tools, shortcuts and navigating round the program.

All very basic but first steps and hopefully the start of a long path and at the end of it ii will be able to start creating somethings actually printworthy!   

Relics. Britanan Puppeteer., Marksmen and Cannon

 A small entry to add to recently completed figures for my Relics Britanans:

Puppeteer.

This sculpt also comes with a face mask but I decided to have him showing his face. I also have another Puppeteer  which I plan on painting up in a similar uniform to the highlanders as I can run him and two Highland units as a Formation. 

Two units of Marksmen. 

I have seen some of these painted in dark green, inspired by the Green Jackets from the Sharpes series but as teh Britanans draw more from the historical late 17th Century/ American War of Independence than the Napoleonic Era Marksmen where still dressed in red.

Canon and Crew

This is a fan created cannon and crew by Oliver Haywood who made the digital files available for free on the Relics Facebook group. They are a great set and open up some conversions for other artillery pieces or gunners for my fort or ship.

A set of test rules from when the game was owned by Tor Gaming has also been found so I will be looking at them and putting together a unit card for them to play them in the current edition.

Next on my table is a Britanan Colour Party and a unit of Highlanders

Relics, Britanan Colonel Tavistock and the Green Dragoons

 

His Britannic Majesty King Jorje, by the grace of the Realm, Royal Ways and other Dominions

across the seas. We do appoint you to the Rank of Colonel of Dragoons that you may serve and

protect Our Kingdom and prosecute our Will unto your last stitch and thread…

…Furthermore We do charge thee to end the pernicious and rebellious works of the traitor and

brigand known as Maverick Mike and all who would take up arms in his name.

By your designs and force of arms he is to be undone and laid before Our throne’

Excerpts from Col. Tavistock Commission of Office

In-between working on my Zenith Project I have been playing a lot of Relics and working through by Britanan leadpile. Because I have enough to field a force in every faction I move between them and tend to then paint up a unit in that faction. I have tried not to do that this year and stay focused on working on the Britanans. I have painted up several smaller units which I will post up later but wanted to focus on the completion of my dragoons and introduce Colonel Banister Tavistock!

Relics has a well written lore  and material to support each faction but does not have an ongoing narrative or much in the way of standout characters/events . The Mercenary Faction has Maverick Mike, St Nik and the Chronicler butt nothing else.I wanted to address this and my first character is Colonel Banister Tavistock. Building on the narrative around Maverick Mike and his rebellion from the Britanan Empire, Tavistock was created to hunt him down. 

The character is based on Tavistock and his Dragoons were inspired by the Green Dragoons and Colonel Tavington from the film Patriot which in turn was inspired by the historical British Legion Green Dragoons and their commander Colonel Tarleton!

For the physical figure of Tavistock I used a Britanan Dragoon with the top body of a CSM and then blended in and created extra belt and coat tails with Green Stuff

for the uniform  scheme the designs from the film and the historical Green Dragoons were a bit different

Historical Colonel Tarleton

Historical British Legion Green Dragoons

Fictional Colonel Tavington

Fictional Green Dragoons

in the end i decided to go with the fictional uniform as the mainly red uniform would tie them in better with the wider army.

Britanan Colonel Banister Tavistock.

Promoted CSM

To make him a playable character I also created a unit card for him drawing from the Dragoon, CSM and Maverick Mike cards

I have also created a PDF with the cards and his background lore which I posted on the Facebook Relics group and is available here:

Relican Enclave