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Hey folks,

Recently got a 3D printer, mostly for use with things other than creating warhammer so I went for an FDM printer. However, thought it might be cool to try and see if it was possible to print good quality miniatures. Created a counts as stormsurge model for 3d printing, interested in seeing if anyone has suggestions for improvements on the design and what people think of it.
Thanks in advance for any input.

Nice work. It's got all the main design points I think. I would say though that the ankles are way too slender. Just from the engineering g point of view, the whole momentum of the bot above needs to be resisted through that joint. Therefore i think that both the lower leg and the ankle motivator units need to be waaaaaay bigger.

A personal aesthetic point as well, I like the shoulder launchers but in always like the idea of Tau missiles being launched more vertically like modern naval cruise missiles. Have you tried them angled further back?

I definitely agree on the ankles being thicker, even if only so that the model doesn't break under it's own weight. Either that or add some more contact points to help stabilize it. A tri-point connection would help prevent unfortunate ankle snaps down the road.

Yeah, that makes sense, I will work on thickening the ankles in the future. The idea behind the missile pods, was that with the drone attached I was going to model it such that one was floating off on its own operating relatively independent of the main battlesuit.

Working on a piranha conversion currently and once that's done I'll return to the ankles.

Might as well post a couple pics of the piranha as well.
Sort of Star Wars inspired.

Completed some work on putting the stormsurge together, still planning to work on the ankles but for now the first one has got the skinny ankles. After a fair amount of sanding and wood filler to do what I can to get rid of the layer lines, the project sits as seen in these pictures.

Also a WIP on the piranha.

Looking good so far

Just a short update on the piranha proxy, still have to add rear thrusters, weapons and drones.

I was looking around the internet for tau painting inspiration and stumbled across someone working on a borderlands painting style, and I loved it. Thought that based on the visual effect of the black lines it might assist in distracting people from some of the layer lines resulting from using an FDM printer. Work so far looks as shown below, pretty happy with the blue but haven't decided fully on the orange/metal portions. Comments and criticism welcome as always. First time I've painted minis in a few years but pretty happy with the results.

Looks good to me. Heck, I kinda want to try a Borderlands style now myself.

Not sure I'm a great fan personally of the big ring thing, but that paint job definately does the model.justice. really nice work

Been a while since I posted last been busy with work. Plus I kinda got a little distracted by the idea of a riptide/Y'varha/R'varna.

Update on what I've completed recently:

-Finished painting the piranha minus fusion blaster for the front and gun drones.

-Began painting the Stormsurge, legs, torso, and gun arm is done, backpack and missile pods yet to be completed.

-Went a little crazy in Solidworks and created a Y'varha.

Biggest issue that is still to be solved on the Y'varha and Stormsurge is making heads that I am satisfied with.

They look really nice.
I love your piranhas and your paint scheme is definitely great...