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