Though I've been going by the Internet hobby handle "Brass Scorpion" for a few years now, anyone who's checked out my hobby articles over time knows that I dabble in a lot of Games Workshop model ranges besides Chaos.
I've been sitting on a pile of Tau stuff since their previous Codex release and added some of the cool new stuff to the pile with their latest update. I've finally started to build some of it in hopes of painting it soon.
One model I couldn't wait to play with was the new Riptide Battlesuit. It's huge and can be built in a wide variety of stances. I definitely wanted to try out some dynamic posing with it.
The kit comes with nice locator pins on the leg joints to allow for quick, steady assembly. However, as the instructions indicate one can remove the pins and adjust the legs in nearly unlimited poses. There was a really cool kneeling pose pictured in White Dwarf #400 a couple months ago and I've seen many other interesting poses modeled at my local hobby shop.
One pose I hadn't really seen was a running stance so I decided to give that a try for my first Riptide; I have two and haven't quite decided how to pose the second one yet!
As you can see from the photos here the legs can be positioned in quite extreme and dynamic positions. The photo below shows how the rear leg is extended straight back as if it is just pushing off in a running step. The left shield arm is thrust back as the weapon on the right arm is thrust forward.
The side angle photo below gives a good view of both legs. This pose puts a lot of stress on the small right ankle ball joint because not much of the left foot is glued down, making the model want to rotate left and fall over. When I add scenic bits to the base I'm planning to have something glued next to the left foot to add some support.
The view below of the right side of the model also shows a clear look at positioning of the legs as well as the gun being thrust forward. This Riptide is firing on the run!
Now I'm still not sure exactly how I'll be posing my second Riptide, but there's a poster with classic Tau artwork hanging in my local hobby shop and I may be using the image of the Crisis Suit there for inspiration. If you decide to clip the joint locator pins on your Riptide and go with a free pose it's helpful to look around at other models and related artwork for inspiration. Be sure to dry fit the parts and test out your desired pose before gluing anything together to ensure it will work out as desired.