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Hi all,

In an attempt to keep my focus and enthusiasm high for painting up my Tau army I have decided to start this blog. As a background, I started in on WH40K in the late 90's and collected a 2nd ed Blood Angels Space Marine force. I painted up a sizable force of BA, but put the game down when I went away to college and didn't pick it back up until last year or so. I had always tried to keep up a little with painting, but I had never really done any serious work. Mostly just trying to get some color on the models so they looked decent while battling my buddies.

Fast forward to about a year ago, I picked up 40K again and decided that as a challenge I would start a new force and paint them up to the best of my ability. I chose Tau because I think their models are fantastic and enjoy the wide array of unit types from big robots to slimy lizard dudes. Plus after so long with Space Marines I felt like I need a break from the Imperium (we are still friends, but not exclusive anymore). I chose my Dragon army color scheme following one of my favorite books and went with a Grey Orange Grey pattern to start. It has kind of spread from there so I haven't locked my palette, but I want to maintain the grey orange grey theme throughout to tie it all together.

Without further ado the first finished Firewarriors of my Cadre.








C&C is always appreciated and once I get more photos taken I can put up some of my WIP shots.

Nice Tychron, like the colors and the paint job. Keep up the good work!

Looking forward to seeing more in your series Tychron.

Tron Tau!!!

I like the colour scheme, really looking good, I think the bases need a bit more work.

Thanks for the kind words. When I originally thought of lining in orange I thought of the original Tron movie as well, then the I heard the remake was coming out it was settled that I was going with that scheme. It was a sign! You bring up a good point Tortured-Robot, I was never too big into making elaborate basing, but looking at the shots again there are several bare patches that could use some love. That being said once I get a good playable force together it will be a goal of mine to go back and make the bases more elaborate/scenic since the base can definitely make the model more dramatic.

I took some quick pics of my Stealth Suit WIP. I also have an XV8 suit completed which I will take some shots of and upload. As you might be able to tell I started my force with the Tau BattleForce boxed set and picked up a box of Firewarriors ala carte. I have put most of the models on their bases without arms so I could get in a few games with them, but still need to clip and clean the arms and prime a good deal.

The list being:

Painted:
6 Firewarrirors
1 XV8 Crisis Suit (Plasma Rifle, Missile Pod, Multitracker)

WIP:
3 Stealth Suit
6 Firewarriors
1 Devilfish (only primed)
2 Gun Drones (only primed)

Unpainted:
6 Firewarriors
6 Pathfinders (converting from plastic Firewarriors)
12 Kroot
1 Marker Drone
6 (?) Gun Drones
Extra Suit Systems (Burst Cannon, Fusion Blaster, Flamer, Targeting Array, Shield Generator)

To the Shots!






There are a few more in the gallery. As always C&C welcome.

Nice. The lining and highlighting is very crisp. I have a friend who wanted to do a similar Tron-like theme, but with green lining rather than red.

Thanks Sentinel, yeah blazing orange lining lends itself to this application nicely since it is already so vibrant it is easy to pick up and see (almost neon heh). The trick with green I would see is making it stand out enough against the rest of the model, it would definitely look cool if done right though and I would love to see some pics if he ends up going with that scheme.

I got a chance to take some quick phone camera pics of my WIP Firewarriors, and while I was at it I threw in some pics of my Crisis Suit (currently acting as my commander). The only thing left on my warriors is to do 5 gun arms then to attach them to the bodies and fill in the inevitable gaps with GS and then paint up the GS and fix any scratches that occur due to my GS fumbling

Firewarriors WIP




Crisis Suit (oh did I mention he is magnetized... he is )



C&C always welcome.

Wow, I really like your color choices on the Stealth Suit. That pic with the flash really lit up the under-amrour color, makes it look neon... rather Tron like. Very cool.

The Good Green wrote:Wow, I really like your color choices on the Stealth Suit. That pic with the flash really lit up the under-amrour color, makes it look neon... rather Tron like. Very cool.

Thanks Yeah, I really like how the stealth suit turned out and I was surprised at the effect the flash had on the purple, it really made it pop. I will have to find the pics a friend of mine took of my firewarriors. He played with it in Photoshop and found a combination of effects that made the lining glow on them. It was really interesting.

I am waiting to finish up the stealth suit squad because I am going to magnetize the burst cannons and the one fusion gun so that I can swap weapons on the other 2 suits. For some reason I had thought to only make one magnetized and just swap a single BC on and off of him for the fusion gun, but with a new codex coming out sometime next year (hopefully!) I decided its best to take the extra time now to be flexible for the future.

Edit: Found the pic pretty fast (original after the Photoshopped version)

Ahh, I am back after a bit of a long holiday. Had to visit family out of state so I wasn't able to get as much done as I would have liked. However, Christmas was good to me and my lovely wife got me the Skyray kit and the Battlesuit commander kit.

I am in the process of removing and cleaning the bits from the skyray kit to make my Railhead and I will be magnetizing the turret to swap it out in the future, I am also magnetizing the secondary weapon systems just in case I ever decide to go with the Smart Missile system with the hopes of a new codex being out sometime this year the more flexibility I leave myself the better.

I was also able to prime up a couple of Kroot models which I will be using as test models for their paint scheme. My initial ideas are to make them a chocolate brown skin with bone protrusions. Their equipment will be mostly grey and I am thinking of trying to give them orange warpaint to tie them in with the rest of the army. When I get further along with getting them painted I will post some pics.

I like the idea of orange warpaint to tie them in with the rest of the army. Sounds cool!

Love the copper guns. A whole mob of firewarriors will look great.

Great choice of colors and good photoshop as well.
Really loooking forward to the skyray and I like the plan for the kroot.

Great looking army thus far.

Thanks for the kind words guys. I got to paint up a kroot in the scheme I was thinking of over the weekend. I think it came out really good and look forward to doing the rest of the squad of these guys. I was surprised at how quickly I was able to paint this guy up and maintain a good quality level (for my painting level) even with all the dithering I was doing about choosing colors and figuring out how to make the bone look decent.

Here are the results:


The pic I had of the gun arm side of this guy looked a little grainy. I had the flash on for photographing this guy so some of the pictures are a little iffy. Once he is all based and varnished with some fellows I will take some more pics. Next up is doing up more of these guys and getting my Railhead/Ionhead/Skyray magnetized then primed for painting.