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Hello people.

In this thread I will document the next week or so it will take me to get around to painting one Tau Fire Warrior. I know a week for one mini is a long time but it's just the way I do it, hopefully I'll do a fair amount over the weekend however.

I'm doing this mainly to learn I suppose so I will give you a little background on me. I have just taken 40k up as a hobby after ditching it around 8 years ago when I was 12/13 years old. I do really like it and this time around I'd like to make an army to actually battle with. I'm thinking Orks or Space Marines, something simple although looted vehicles appeal to me so may go Ork.

I digress, I'll show you two samples of my painting. The Techmarine was one of the last things I painted years ago (Most of him broke off over the years) and the Stealth suit (incomplete) is the last thing I painted recently and I don't think I'll finish him off, just see if I can remove the paint and start again someday.




Both are shabby IMHO and I want to improve all the time and I figure the best way to do this is to post a step by step process of my painting so that you good people can suggest improvements. I'm fine with criticism, just not taking the piss.

Here is the model I am now going to paint. I assembled and basecoated it this afternoon although if I had it, I would have basecoated in black. So first question might be is it worth me thinning some black down and brushing on a basecoat? I'm going to be painting him bright colors but as I lack any washes or inks I'm worried about highlighting a little bit because their won't be as much shadow.



Thanks for any input guys and I hope this can be the start of a much better painting career!

Salut.

i like the paint scheme you choose.

Hi, the stealth suit looks like a good start.

I would deffo go out NOW and get some of the new GW washes they will change the whole way you paint and make your "lining" look much sharper.

Keep up the good work i will be watching

I'm working on my Tau army as well at the moment, so I'm curious how yours will turn out.

Small note: You didn't glue the antenna to the helm, did you forget it or leave it out on purpose?

I'm a horrible painter just to tell you, but in my experience I know what highlights are and I don't see any.

nice sceme

Hey people thanks for your input.

I've been painting the Fire Warrior today but my brother has the camera with him in London today so I can't put any pics up until tomorrow but I think my first attempt at drybrushing went quite well but you can judge that tomorrow.

Thanks for the advice on the washes, it's definately something I'm looking into when I next get some cash, which will be in a couple of weeks. I could definitely use your advice though as to what washes would be best to use. I'm going to get some vallejo game colors because I've heard some really good things about them.

The reason I ask what colours are best for the washes is that I have seen Flesh Wash used effectively on Blood Angels but being a noob I'd have thought that the red wash would have been ideal. I might just buy all the washes or something.

Yeah there isn't any highlighting on the stealth suit, just as there never has been on anything I've painted. The last thing I tried to highlight was my XV88 broadside and it failed horribly.

But thanks for the feedback people, I really appreciate it.

Dave

Edit: I left the antenna out by accident, but I prefer it without anyway now that I look.

Yay! My bro got back from London and now I can post some pics!

I've kinda decided to go for yellow and purple on these guys just so that I could try out some drybrushing on the legs and blending on the head. The blending went out the window but the drybrushing I'm quite happy with for my first ever try at it.




You can kinda see the highlighting effort I made on the legs (where I drybrushed) and I am pretty pleased with it, they grey areas are somewhat mysterious to me atm as to what color I'm going to paint them but I'll figure that out tomorrow. I've spent a lot of time today with my friend (user: baoh) just gluing together warhammer. I took some pics of his vindicator which I think is pretty good, he's deffo a better painter than me atm and his knowledge of 40k far outstrips my own.

I digress again, point is he gave me the base from his chaos bike as he is converting it into a quad and this is what I'm doing with it:



I'm excited to paint that little mini scenario! I put some part I got with my stealthsuits in front of them which probably has nowt to do with Fire Warriors but it's deffo better than having it's own base IMO.

But yeah, I'm pleased with my efforts but I know they could be far better and with any luck you guys' input will help.

Cheers for reading,

Dave

Quick update, kinda migrated onto these other tau because I want to finish them before I start an Ork army hopefully next week.

Wow, look at those date stamps. ARe you from the future?

In short, yes.

you should post your blue and white tau! blue and white = suits tau amazingly

Can't be bothered now lol, been looking for a way to delete the thread but you can't I don't think - Just want to start a proper army now

What I would do is to paint your primary colour (yellow) over the entire model. Make sure you thin it a little to get a nice even coat. Otherwise you will put heavy coats on for each colour, and you will have bits of white showing through. Yellow will be easy to cover with other colours later. Also, once the yellow basecoat is done, slap a mild brown wash over the model. It will bring out the recesses and make you painting looks ten times better, and also serve as a guide for further colours.

The whole reason I signed up to this forum was for advice like that. Thank you!

I don't know how evil it is to revive a thread as old as this but I think it would be pretty neat to post a picture of the mini I'm currently painting.

The Ork army I mentioned way back then never materialised because I ordered them from the mythical 'Woot3'. I hope none of you have any experience with that site whatsoever for it was merely a spectre that lured me in.

Anyway, I think I've come pretty far in the last 2 years! (2 years in which I have barely visited DakkaDakka and mainly just painted stuff and browsed painting specific forums)



It's a WIP Alpha Legion possessed marine. It's by no means perfect but undeniably leaps and bounds ahead of what I was doing with Tau when I first got into the hobby again.

I love those wings. Kudos!