3D Printed Dieselpunk Models Merge Science Fiction and WWII

Sometimes there are Kickstarter campaigns you hope will succeed, but sadly wind up failing. Noah Li is a Game Animator who launched a Kickstarter campaign that didn’t quite reach the funding goal. Maybe I’m biased because I’m a fan of both the MechWarrior universe and World War 2 technology, which is what Noah’s campaign merged together with his Deiselpunk (a close relative to Steampunk) 3D printed models.

Though similar looking to MechWarrior Battlemechs, his creations were made unique by, essentially, strapping a pair of robot legs to a tank body at a 1:100 scale–smaller than most Revell plastic model kits, but awesome nonetheless.

Noah’s kits, five in total, encompass several different factions including the Soviet Union, Germany, the US, France, Japan and Britain, all of which have interchangeable turrets, legs and chassis that can be mixed and matched to make all kinds of unique designs. Instead of selling the model kits as a complete package, Noah went the made-to-order route that would allow pledges to pick and choose the parts they wanted for their respective builds.

Like most any model kits, the parts are shipped unassembled and unpainted so you can put your own color scheme on your creations. All of the models have a 5” X 5” build area and a varying height of 3 to 5-inches depending on the combination used, with fully articulated legs and turrets providing any number of poses.

Noah was offering the PLA-printed parts starting at $5 for accessories, ranging upto $250 for a full mech model kit–a tad high, but not unreasonable when you consider the price of resin and other custom toy model/kits. However, he missed his very low target goal of $1,500 to bring the models to reality. It’s unclear whether or not he will offer them later, but you can keep tabs on his Artstation site. I (and others) hope he does relaunch the project, as his designs are awesome to say the least.

Whenever we see an awesome product that launched on Kickstarter and didn’t quite make it, we look at what they could have done differently to succeed. The video was great at illustrating the design and how you could interchange them, but lacked some details, a personal touch without Noah speaking or handling the mechs, and an appeal to fan of this kind of art. With that, here are a few things we hope Noah thinks about when he relaunches the project

• A visual of the pledge awards (grid with cost and image of what is recieved)
• Some historical context/story (where did the ideas, shapes, details come from)
• Behind the design (what printer, design hours on each, research done, etc.)
• Having all tanks designed (only 3 of 5 were done)
• Complete test printing (only 2 of 5 were test printed)
• List of paints/tools (to complete the look as shown)
• Put this into the video (along with what the funds are needed for)
• More promotion on social (Artstation, Twitter, Mech fan sites, design sites, etc.)
• Open-sourcing models (higher pledge level or granted through…)
• A community site (for access to models, share mods and first access to future models)

Until then, here are some more shots of Noah’s Mechs.