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I am starting a new army! The exciting thing about that is of course choosig your color scheme for it. The army is a Tau army, and I am inspired by pictures I have seen of an Iron Hands SM army. The polished steel look with black looks freaking great. I have decided to use a purple steel as an offset color.

What my question is though, what do you all suggest to get that polished look? I have been thinking about a black undercoat with a layer of boltgun metal, steel highlights, and then hard edge with Mithril Silver for the final highlights. After that use a glaze of watered down black ink to my liking.

I have never attempted to paint something like this, so I wanted to check to see if this painting technique would work?

Are you looking to do it the easy way? or the hobby way? I would just spry them all with testors chrome then smoke or black/purple washes where you want the purple color. But that is just the fast lazy way.

just use mythril silver, or whatever the grey knights are covered with. Shiney Shiney.

I don't think i've ever seen the tau in a metal color scheme, and I don't think they'd look that great in it, given their anime-esc look

I've a WD that's got a Crisis Suit and a Piranah done up in NMM chrome that are amazing. Sadly, I've little to no experience in NMM techniques and can't give you any advice, but the results are amazing when done right (and horrible when they're not...)

Just a junk suit I used to test a colour scheme. Painted heaps before I got it though, but metallic with a non metallic offset colour on the Tau looks alright. Also this Crisis Suit looks better in real life.

Watsabi wrote:Are you looking to do it the easy way? or the hobby way? I would just spry them all with testors chrome then smoke or black/purple washes where you want the purple color. But that is just the fast lazy way.

Id say dont spray them chrome. I sprayed some of my Ork vehicles chrome as a base, and let me tell you, GW paints dont really stick to it. Infact it more rolls off, and pools up, scared of being next to the chrome lol. You have to basically rough up where you want to paint on the chrome paint. Not a good idea for what hes looking for.


Id say, base in black, do a heavy dry brush of boltgun metal, and edge with silver like you said. The make a dark purple wash and go crazy. I think that could look really cool, specially on tau. Ill watch for when you try it out

What you need is the model masters burnishable paint get the steel paint let it dry buff it with a paper towel till you get the shine you desire.
Then spray the sealer and paint the other colors with a brush.

http://www.testors.com/category/145623/Metalizer_Enamel_Paint

Thanks for the replies. I have the base coat done on my Devilfish and am getting ready to add the purple steele.

I will have to try with the Testors, that sounds like the effect I am looking for.

You can get it in spray and bottle form the spray works the best though.