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So im making a tau jungle fighter army. Im Ok at painting, guys at the club think my models look good. But i have always dones crisp, Unblemished paintjobs.
But if you fight in the jungle, you are not going out of there clean, most of the painted vehicle i have are crisp paintjobs. so how can i dirty them up with, same with things like my crisis suits.
I know rust is going to be a big one, as is mud,
Also, what can i use for basing them? I had this idea for Oolong tea leaves, but that doesnt work well.

Maybe grass flock and aquarium plants?

Lucarikx

It depends on how much you want to "ruin" your paint job, I think. Here are some of my suggestions:

You can go easy and do some mud on the landing pads (if you have any), but if you are using flyers you don't really need any, I guess. Perhaps some scratches/dirt on the "nose" or wings, where the vehicle would take damage from leaves when flying.

An easy way to make them seem used is to add "blast markings" on the exhausts (vehicles and suits) and the tip of the weapons. You can do this by washing with black, sepia or brown.

For your drones you could add some moss on them, but rust could work fine if you have a jungle camouflage colour theme.

For the bases I suggest using the same as your regular warriors, for cohesiveness. A note on leaves: because of the high trees in the jungle, the plants on the ground don't get much light, which in turn means that the ground is mostly mud, vines and dead leaves from the higher bushes and trees. The effect also makes leaves and bushes that are on the ground bigger than in temperate forests. So using a brown uneven base with some large leaves could work fine. If you are feeling fancy there are some very colourful large flowers too

I dont mind ruin it.

my tau are designed for a temperate/tropical planet, and have the corisponding paint schemes, tigerstriping and greens, browns etc.

you dont have to make camo messy to make it work, I vary my patterns from unit to unit, and just keep a cohesive palette of colors, feel free to check out my gallery for any ideas that may click.

always willing to help a fellow Tau player.

Ok so i did what i kinda wanted to do with my vehicle with my stealth suits
I added Rusts(A homemade brown wash) and chips, I tried highlighting around them but it didnt work out too well.
Also, I love how the Tau hold the Railguns in your gallery, givning they are fighting in the jungle, normal broadsides would be to cumbersome, anyway you can tell me how you did that?

Dry bush dark colors all around.

Such as? A dark brown? Dark Black? Grey?

What color purple did you use for the stealth suits?

For the environmental weathering there are 2 key questions in my mind. What colour is the earth in your jungle? Is it the dry season or the rainy season? this will determine if you're talking huge mud spatters or a lighter drybrush of dust. the earth colour will dtermine what paint colour to use respectively. A darker colour for wet mud or a lighter colour for dust.

For wearing and chipping, look up pictures online for forestry and lumber vehicles to see where damage to the paint work is likely to occur. It will be on exposed edges and anywhere the suit has taken fire. Also don't forget streaks of greenish/brownish grime wheren the suits have been running through vegetation and being spattered by chunks of exploding tree

I used Liche purple highlighter by screamer pink.
Any idea on how to do grime?

Sponge application, or drybrushing?

I would recommend just googling for lots of images and then fiddle about with different methods for applying paint that gives you a result that is similar.

You could always try doing some Agrax Earthshade washes too. I've done it on everything from orks to Necrons and it adds a level of "clean" dirtiness to the models on a light wash to a "grubby" heavy wash.