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So I am trying to think of a color scheme for my tau, my marines are black and turquoist, my chaos are thousand sons, and my dark eldar are black and white. So... I was trying make the tau color scheme kinda the opposite of all the other armies.
My thoughts so far: Yellow
had a suggestion for neon green from my cousin but i dont know how well that would turn out

So ideas and the such are welcome, thanks in advance, Peace

Neon green can work if done correctly. my old Chaos Marines did not work.

On Tau though it could be odd. Yellow is somewhat a standard colour for them.

The default TU color scheme is a sort of light golden brown. If you are talking about true yellow, that might not be so great for the tau.

Yellow is a great color though, maybe think of a more neutral color like gray or brown, with yellow for things like stripes, markings, and individual armor panels. It may even make the yellow stand out more by giving it something to contrast with.

Honestly I've never been a fan of the tan tau color scheme, I kinda want them bright, yellow was just a thought, I mainly want to stay away from blacks and blues

What ive found useful is the have them mostly as a fairly neutral colour - black, grey, white brown navy etc, and then to give them a bright colour for certain parts to make them really stand out.

For example, my tau FW have very dark grey cloth parts and light grey armour panels, with luminous orange (troll slayer) for bits of their shoulder pads and rifle panels. The leader of the FW squad also has an orange helmet, so that he can be identified as the leader, but remain part of the uniform black grey and orange.

The simplicity of the design has come out quite well and the contrast between the fairly urban grey and the orange (with white detail, such as the tau symbol and parts of weapons) creating a nice effect, strongly recommend you try something along those lines.

Purple and bone look great together and would be something completely different to paint.

What about a bright red or orange for armor?

You can do camo. Urban camo or forest camo would look great on Tau. If you want a good source for reference you can also look at imperial Guard color schemes.

how about Teclis Blue, chaos black, and scorpion green. Little orange for the optics.

Not mine, but just to show that green can work:

I have painted my tau in a dark green with silver and bright red accents. Black for cloth and the like, in a jungle fighter type theme but no camo. I use blue for the optics, just to hop on the green train. For a yellow I would either do a grey or a brown for the cloth and then green for optics or red. Just my two cents

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions, I've been thinking about it and have come to the decision that i will do, for the basic fire warrior, dark brown cloth and yellow armour, red will be used for the lenses and such, I figure that my suits will look a bit like school buses but I think i can work past that.
To every one that posed the green color schemes, I used to play tau back when they first came out and ran them with a goblin green, snot gree, DA green, and chaos black theme, not camo. I liked it I am just trying to stray away from things that I have done in the past, oh and just to say, I left a squad of the green fire warriors on a forested terrain table for a week before anyone at the game store noticed them.

You could try grey and orange, where the main pieces of armour remain grey and you can pick out particular details (helmets, shoulder pads, etc) with orange. To give an idea of how this may look, you may want to refer to the Yme-Loc Eldar:

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Yme-Loc#.T7QZM-suAQw
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/249214.page

Well if you want them bright and dont mind a little black you could try something like this:

Personally I've always wanted to do the stereotypical evil shiny black armor with red accents. The armored pieces would all be black (possibly with grey edging), the cloth a dark grey, and accent pieces like lenses and insignias would be red.

Once painted the smooth black armor pieces would get a couple of layers of gloss varnish, which would give them an appearance similar to black stormtrooper armor. The cloth bits would be left with a matt finish, which would provide a nice contrast.

I've always liked the blue, white, and black schemes. It's a sort of winter camo.

What about the vior'la scheme from the book? I don't know the conversions to the new paints but the codex says
blood red for sept markings
Rotting flesh for the armor
And Catachan green for the cloth

Yellow and weathered would look great - too often tau are "show room finish". Check out some of the imperial fist pics and blogs out there; some great yellow work.

If you decide to abandon that, I too think either an urban camo would be awesome, or maybe a cream/blue highlight scheme.

Best of luck, and post some pics of test models!!!
(pathfinders work great for tests, as since they are metal, they strip easy).

@davethepak - thats exactly what i was thinking, kinda like imperial fist tau , in the mud or something like that

@igloo94 - do you have pics or know where to find them the color scheme sounds interesting

yeah I'm trying to stay away from dark colors, and blues, my marines are teal and black, chaos is thousand sons and dark eldar are most likely going to be black and white, my girlfriend and I have still not come to an agreement on them, she wants a scourge filled army, all of them feather wings , and painted up like peacocks

Still not 100% on a color scheme but so far leaning towards the dirty yellow and brown, not black,
Oh and thanks everyone who has responded

the coolest Tau army colour scheme I have seen like a camo theme

check this link http://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2010/3/4/87693_md-Auxiliary,%20Tau.jpg

Tell her to play eldar if she wants that....

davethepak wrote:Tell her to play eldar if she wants that....

I did, she just likes dark eldar better, again still not 100% on the color scheme for that army.

Why not make then bright yellow with a strong postbox red accent colour, you can use a bit of black to provide the contrast perhaps. Should look great, end definitely not like the bulk of tau armies out there. Also ties in with the whole "fire warrior" theme too if you choose to look at it that way.

King Crow wrote:You can do camo. Urban camo or forest camo would look great on Tau. If you want a good source for reference you can also look at imperial Guard color schemes.

It is amazing!

Shameless self-promotion!!!







I don't like the basaes though. I thought it would be cool to contrast but they just look out of place.

I went with a green, red and tan for a kind of 18th-19th century light infantry look. I think it looks pretty good on the table top even if the green and red inspired the joke my army is "The nighmare before kwanzza"

I LOVE that vaulting firewarrior!

thatdudefilthy wrote:Shameless self-promotion!!!







I don't like the basaes though. I thought it would be cool to contrast but they just look out of place.

Yeah man this is pretty much what I am thinking, I would make a few changes in some areas, and I agree the snow bases dont really work all that well, I was going to put them on muddy bases, I think the dark brown of the mud will look good against the yellow

I have one piece thats pretty good. look on the front of the cityfight book. Red and white scheme. It looks pretty neat, Ive painted models with it. Looks pretty beastly. If the picture co ordinates with the guard dex timeline, the scheme are the soldiers are commander brightsword, a farsight sympathist.

PS, that tau scheme looks pretty awesome. May have to borrow it someday >