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So I started this Tau army about 18 months ago, slowly adding models and spending more of my time modeling, magnetizing, and playing then actually painting. I ended up slapping some paint onto enough models to play in the LA Gaesday last years, so now I've ended up with a bunch of based and semi-painted models that I need to finish.

Advice on how I can go about shading/finishing some of these (other than fixing obvious blemishes or my unfortunate color scheme) would be welcome - I originally tried to short-cut everything by starting with a spray coat of shadow grey, and now I'm having some trouble effectively shading the large flat areas of the battlesuits.

Anyway, for a first-ever modeling and painting project I'm somewhat happy with it, and since I just built a cheapo light box for my wife I thought I'd play around with it. Enjoy.

Attack of the red x's man. Check your image urls.

Thanks, not sure if this fixed it - both showed up for me, maybe picasa web doesn't like the way I'm linking. Oh well.

Works now.

First off, I'd work on highlighting the edges of the armor on both the suits and the firewarriors. It'll do wonders for making your suits look nice and is a good starting point for your firewarriors, which are the ones I'd concentrate on shading and blending.

If you're deadset on that color scheme, then try some light drybrushing of the undersuit areas on the firewarriors.

They kind of remind me of the newer War of the Worlds movie with that red stuff on the bases. Looks really cool though.

yeah, the red stuff is just woodland scenics lichen, and I think it turned out pretty well. Unfortunately it's kind of flimsy so it wasn't really the best idea for an army I take someplace to play with every week - I've already had to replace or re-do it on a few battlesuit bases. The fire warriors have held up well. Mostly I've had to re-think how I store/transport them, standing up on a magnetized base is much better for them than laying around in a foam tray.

The fire warriors pants/undersuits have been drybrushed with a couple of lighter shades so they don't look all-black, but it didn't show up very well in the picture. Looking at them more closely here it's was more obvious from the back than from the front, I probably need to work on the more visible/front parts, I think I was a little too afraid of getting paint where I didn't want it and didn't get it everywhere I did want it.

The red stuff makes the bases look like they're from a completely alien world.

Not bad at all for a first army, in a few years you'll look back at your older stuff and go...what was I thinking. Time is all you need, and ask tons of questions from people that paint and game around you.

Looooooove those bases. Looks very alien.