Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Nice. Thanks for your opinion. Its looking good to, (I forgot to say)

Ledabot wrote:Nice. Thanks for your opinion. Its looking good to, (I forgot to say)

Thanks. I hope to have more work to show tomorrow. I'm really excited about doing the Tau emblems on the shoulder pads.

Cool, looking forward to it

I'm swapping from everything bar washes to Vallejo a lot. Their Game Color Terracotta is excellent as a base for reds.

JULY PROGRESS 9

I finished up the Shoulder pads. I decided to do one more layer of grey. I used Vallejo Model Color Dark Grey mixed with Vallejo Model Color White in a 1:1 ratio. I also painted the Tau symbol on the pads today. I ended up going with the P3 Skorne Red. My Vallejo Model Color Red was really, really watery and the color didn't seem to have 'grip'. I also 'auditoned' Games Workshop Blood Red but decided against it because it was a little bright for what I was looking for. I'm undecided again as far as going a further layer or not. The red as it is now on the symbol looks okay; it stands out. I'm not sure if a lighter layer will help it any. Tomorrow I'll get started on the backpacks, guns, and grenades.

Pictures:

I cleaned my palette with scalding hot water.


Here are the three reds I chose from: P3 Skorne, GW Blood Red, VMC Red.


I put a lighter grey layer on the shoulder pads.



I finished up the shoulder pads by painting the Tau symbols red.

looking good, can't wait to see some of the battlesuits when are you planning to do some of those?

Great paint-scheme!
Looking forward to the finished thing.

Evaelc wrote:looking good, can't wait to see some of the battlesuits when are you planning to do some of those?

Next Month I'll be doing a couple Crisis Suits. They'll have pretty much the same color scheme as the Fire Warriors.

yamgrenade wrote:Great paint-scheme!
Looking forward to the finished thing.

Thanks!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
JULY PROGRESS 10

I decided to add another layer of red to the Tau Symbols. I used GW Blood Red. It should stand out a bit more now. I basecoated the gun, grenade, and backpacks. I had originally meant to do half today and half tomorrow but it took less time than I expected and I got all of the Fire Warriors done. I used P3 Bastion Grey. Tomorrow I'll add a lightened layer and then get started on some of the details like scopes and viewfinders.

Pictures:

I added a brighter red to help the Tau symbols stand out a bit more.


I basecoated the whole lot of the warriors' backpacks, grenades, and guns.

Those guys are so much better looking than my fire warriors. I will have to do a touch up on more than my tanks these holidays.

Very nice scheme, the red goes really well with the bone/white.

JULY PROGRESS 11

I added a lighter layer of P3 Bastion Grey to the backpacks, grenades, and guns. I lightened it with Vallejo Model Color White. I'd do more but I don't want to rush the next part. The next part will be doing the little details like lights and stuff on the backpacks, guns, and armor.

Pictures:

Nice work so far, what paints do you use for the red?

You're really pluggin' along. Very nice! Love the red!

Divine Comedy wrote:Nice work so far, what paints do you use for the red?

Thanks!

I used P3 Skorne Red for the first layer and then Games Workshop Blood Red for the top layer.

bunnygurl wrote:You're really pluggin' along. Very nice! Love the red!

Thanks!




Automatically Appended Next Post:
JULY PROGRESS 12 ***GOAL COMPLETED***

I finished off the details on the Fire Warriors. At first I was just going to make everything orange but I decided to use a variety of colors. I used Vallejo Model Color Light Green, Vallejo Model Color Deep Sky Blue, Games Workshop Blood Red, and Games Workshop Warlock Purple for a variety of things such as the helmets' 'eyes', the guns' scopes, and the backpacks' readouts/meters.

I'm done now with the Fire Warriors (except for the basing). There is something I realized as I was finishing up today... I can't count. I looked back at my plan I laid out at the beginning of July and read that I meant to do just 24 Fire Warriors. I ended up just all of them absent mindedly. You'd think I'd notice that I was doing more than 24.

Pictures

I picked out some of the details on the Fire Warrior.






36 Fire Warriors are now painted.

djphranq wrote:
I'm done now with the Fire Warriors (except for the basing). There is something I realized as I was finishing up today... I can't count. I looked back at my plan I laid out at the beginning of July and read that I meant to do just 24 Fire Warriors. I ended up just all of them absent mindedly. You'd think I'd notice that I was doing more than 24.

couldent stop loling

at least now you have extras if you need them.

AUGUST PROGRESS START


The July goal proved to be somewhat stressful. The volume of warriors I did was pretty big for me. I also would fall to the 'ugh, again?!' syndrome where each evening after work I'd be 'I have to work on Fire Warriors, ugh, again?" I think for this leg of the project I'm going to try to mix it up a little more. Maybe every other day I'll work on the project and every other day I'll do something else. Working on the project 7 days a week is making it a bit grueling. I think that by skipping every other day I'll be able to keep myself fresh for when I work and will be able to do longer sessions so I won't be losing time.

For this August's goal I plan to have the following painted: All the Gun Drones, 2 Crisis Suits, all Smart Missile Systems, the Hammerhead turret, the Sky Ray Turret, and a Piranha

Here is Version 3 of the project plan (adjusted according to progress).

****
Plan Ver 3
****

August
-Paint All Gun Drones
-Paint 2 Crisis Suits
-Paint All Smart Missile Systems
-Paint The Hammerhead Turret
-Paint The Sky Ray Turret
-Paint The Piranha

September
-Paint All Devilfish
-Paint The Hammerhead
-Paint The Skyray

October
-Paint All Marker Drones
-Paint All Stealthsuits
-Paint The Commander

November
-Paint All Kroothounds

December
-Paint All Kroot Carnivores

January
-Base the small flying bases

February
-Base the Large Flying Bases
-Base Infantry

March
-Base 'Suits
-Seal Army

April
-Adepticon 2012

Before Pictures:

Weapon bits for the Hammerhead.


Weapon bits for the Sky Ray.


Gun Drones and Hatches for the Devilfish.


Gun Drones for the Piranha.


Gun Drones for the Gun Drone Squadrons.


Crisis Suits


Piranha

I hate that 'ugh, again' feeling. Sucks. This is supposed to be something we enjoy, no ughs allowed. Looks like you still have plenty of joyful Tau-ness to paint. Interested to see some color on these bad boys now, but IMO the 3 months of basing is gonna suck monkeys. For me, personally, that is THE most tedious thing. I'm not a fan of basing. It looks good but it just ain't my cup o' tea.

Good luck and happy painting.

AUGUST PROGRESS


Well I'm past my last benchmark. Last time I tried painting a 40k army I only got through some tactical marines and a couple devastators. For this army I've painted 36 Tau Fire Warriors and now I've gotten started on vehicles.

I painted the crew for the Piranha and the Hammerhead Turret. I started with P3 Menoth White Base on the jumpsuits. I then did a wash with P3 Flesh Wash. After that I went over the raised areas with P3 Menoth White Base and then on top of that I applied a mix of P3 Menoth White Base with Menoth White Highlight. I originally meant to stop there but I found I had plenty of time still this evening so I got started basecoating the armor on the crew with P3 Sanguine Base. I also marked up parts of the Piranha and Hammerhead Turret that would be based the same color as the crew armor. Next session I'll basecoat the parts that I marked and if I have time I'll apply a layer of P3 Sanguine Base mixed with P3 Sanguine Highlight.

Pictures:

Here is the basecoat on the jumpsuits.


Here is the wash on the jumpsuits.



I went back over the raised areas with the basecoat color.



I went over the raised areas again this time with a lighter mixture.



I basecoated the armor of the crew. You'll notice little marks on the hull of the Piranha and the turret. Those are the parts that will be the same color as the armor.

Lush. Great depth of colour, really like the approach. Your blog is ace because not only is it interesting and varied but, seeing what you can achieve helps me stay focused too!

looking good. How are you going to do the control panel thing with the fws hands in the way?

inmygravenimage wrote:Lush. Great depth of colour, really like the approach. Your blog is ace because not only is it interesting and varied but, seeing what you can achieve helps me stay focused too!

Thanks! Good luck with your own work!

Ledabot wrote:looking good. How are you going to do the control panel thing with the fws hands in the way?

Thanks! I'm pretty much just going to work around the hands... and whatever I can't get to, I can't get to... simple as that. Someday I'm going to do a Piranha a little more 'cleaner' (like a display piece) and maybe then I'll put the arms after I work on the panels. I tried to do something similar with some Land Speeders. I would put the crew on but only with adhesive putty so I could prime the whole thing and then take them apart to get into the tight spots painting piece by piece.

Just noticing from some of your other threads that you are a really experienced painter. But I wanted to ask do you always put together the whole model and then paint it? is it better than what I do which is split them into main body and their arms. What is better in your opinion?

Looks cool. I really like the color scheme.

Evaelc wrote:Just noticing from some of your other threads that you are a really experienced painter. But I wanted to ask do you always put together the whole model and then paint it? is it better than what I do which is split them into main body and their arms. What is better in your opinion?

Thanks! I've only been painting for about 4 years. There is still a lot I could learn. I think it would be easier if I painted in separate pieces. I just get so excited about building that i forget to do that most all of the time. There have been some projects where I actually made better efforts to keep things apart and painted before putting them together. Some of my recent projects involved doing things in pieces (The Viktorias). That stuff turned out pretty good. For my Can Opener project I started doing that with some of the units (land speeders, dreads, scouts). I kind of wish I did that with this project. There are going to be some tough spots to tackle. My next army I do, I might try to make a better effort to keep things in pieces and painted before construction... I was even thinking of trying to paint on the sprue as an experiment.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

40k Ninja wrote:Looks cool. I really like the color scheme.

Thanks! Love your avatar!

When I first started painting, I painted on the sprue. It's an alright idea, but I found it had some flaws. Firstly, I found it difficult to shave off mould lines which made me not want to bother, so therefore a bunch of my older models have some very disturbing lines here and there. Secondly, when the piece is painted up all nicely and you're ready to clip it out, depending on how many places it's held by you have a bunch of unpainted little spots you have to go back over and paint which I found incredibly annoying.

What I would suggest would be to pin/glue pieces to something so that you can paint it with ease without any issues. I glue the whole model together minus any pieces that would be in the way/difficult to get to and on the area that will be attached to the main body put some glue and glue it/them to an old headless paintbrush (one piece per headless paintbrush of course).

I realize you didn't ask for advice, but I thought I'd offer it anyways to hopefully diminish any frustration you may come across and help keep this sweet project on track.

bunnygurl wrote:When I first started painting, I painted on the sprue. It's an alright idea, but I found it had some flaws. Firstly, I found it difficult to shave off mould lines which made me not want to bother, so therefore a bunch of my older models have some very disturbing lines here and there. Secondly, when the piece is painted up all nicely and you're ready to clip it out, depending on how many places it's held by you have a bunch of unpainted little spots you have to go back over and paint which I found incredibly annoying.

What I would suggest would be to pin/glue pieces to something so that you can paint it with ease without any issues. I glue the whole model together minus any pieces that would be in the way/difficult to get to and on the area that will be attached to the main body put some glue and glue it/them to an old headless paintbrush (one piece per headless paintbrush of course).

I realize you didn't ask for advice, but I thought I'd offer it anyways to hopefully diminish any frustration you may come across and help keep this sweet project on track.

Thanks for the advice! I always wondered about the parts where they're cut off the sprue. I can imagine it being a PITA to paint those spots. When I do my Ultramarines army I'll try using the headless paintbrush thing. Actually I have some ice cream bar sticks that I could probably use.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
AUGUST PROGRESS 2


I got started on the Crisis Suits' armor today. I probably could have gotten more done if I utilized a bigger brush to speed things up. So far I've been using the same brush: P3 Fine Studio Brush. I'll definitely have to use a bigger one when I start on the vehicle parts. All I did today on the suits was basecoat the armor. Tomorrow I'll basecoat the Sky Ray Turret and the Piranha... maybe... I'm almost done with reading Star Wars Republic Commando: Order 66. That has been taking away from my painting time.

Pictures:

Here is one suit done.




Got done two after about 3 hours.

IMHO I think they would look better with a little more color. Maybe detail their eyes and weapons.

yamgrenade wrote:IMHO I think they would look better with a little more color. Maybe detail their eyes and weapons.

Last night was just basecoating the armor. I plan to paint up their weapons/details in a further step. Right now I'm basecoating the armor to some of the army.

djphranq wrote:

yamgrenade wrote:IMHO I think they would look better with a little more color. Maybe detail their eyes and weapons.

Last night was just basecoating the armor. I plan to paint up their weapons/details in a further step. Right now I'm basecoating the armor to some of the army.

Ah, didn't read it completely, sorry

AUGUST PROGRESS 3


I had a great stride today. I basecoated the hull of the Piranha, The Sky Ray turret, and the Hammerhead turret. At first I was kind of worried about how it was turning out. The color didn't look right. It seemed a little messy. I was kind of wishing I had an airbrush. Then I just added more coats and things came out better. I wasn't used to painting such large surfaces so and didn't realize that one coat may not be enough. I got more done then I had planned. Originally I was going to just do the Piranha and Sky Ray turret. I felt motivated enough to also do the Hammerhead turret. I might go over the Crisis Suits again with another coat and see if that improves it. I was originally happy with how they turned out but after using multiple coats on the Piranha and turret, I think I can improve how the Crisis Suits look.

Pictures:

Here is the Piranha after 1 coat.



For the turrets I did two coats on a whim.



I liked how the turrets turned out with multiple coats so I did the same to the Piranha.


Here are the turrets after a third coat on each.