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I am having trouble painting my battle suits.

I can get my fire warriors just fine(sorta)

My kroot and vehicles come out looking decent, but my battle suits look like I just dropped globs of paint on them.

any tips or advice for saving my battle suits?

Got any piccies so we know what the issue is?

Yea, I will get on up asap.

I agree, pics would help people point you in the right direction. I painted my tau, and am unhappy with them as well. I have started to repaint a few suits to start with, and am going for battle damage and dirt. My friend who also plays tau, thinks they should be clean, polished suits, we agree to disagree. His tau looks spectacular I admit, I just felt mine would be the tau guys who see action!

Anyways, I guess that gives you 2 approaches to look at it from? Without pics though I am afraid that is the best I can do.

I present to you... Poontangler's sorry excuses! for battle suit painting.


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Shadowsun came out good.



So did my additional kroot

are you thinning down your paints? it looks like they are going on too thick... and you are losing detail

Disclaimer: "I am far from a good painter, but I like Tau!".

Start with the hard to reach areas and work your way out. Keep your brush clean. Keep a water cup and a towel nearby when painting, after every time or every other time you apply paint clean and shape your brush. This will keep your brush from having stray strands, and keep it in usable condition longer. Thin your paints, that should be on dakkas main page as it gets thrown around so often. If you have several thin layers (2 or 3 depending on the color you are using and the color you are painting over) it will come out better than 1 layer applied thickly.

Painting over white is tough, as every brush slip shows. I prime black and go outward, my suits are not white! I guess I would not recommend black primer if painting white suits! Shadowsun is nice, she turned out well. You could try that route for your other suits, although it may be better for "stealth" type suits! For lenses, a good way to make them stand out is paint them like gems (I am sure there is a tutorial for that).

I checked out your battle reports, you get plenty of games against blood angels which seems like it would be tough for tau. Seems I beat them about 2/3rds of the time when I play Tau as well!

As the others have said 2 coats is better than one, the paint appears to be too thick, thin 'em down and it will work wonders.

I paint over white undercoat with no problems but I normally go for lighter paint schemes anyway.

Prime with grey... that way the white won't be too dark but yo you can still see where you've missed.

Hrm, grey, wish I had though of that, but I will have to simply repaint them. Thanks for the advice guys.

I also fight Tyranids and IG pretty often, I want to put up battle reports of me facing them.

You could always strip them... as if you're paint is thick you will have no detail..

How do I strip them?

Soak them in Simple Green cleaning solution. Simple Green will not warp your models. Some people use dot 3 brake fluid as well or easy off oven cleaner, I have not tried either so cannot vouch for them personally. Use a cleaning brush that has plastic (not metal) bristles to scrub them off.

Thin out your paints with a little water. I had that porblem with my first army (Tau)

Simple green you say? I shall try this. Thank you for the assist guys.

No worries, let us know how it goes!

And after that, blackline or paint a wash into the recesses for more definition. All the best.

Strip the models with Simple Green or Dettol and start again.

I like grey primer because it avoids the extremes of difficulty in covering that both white and black give in opposite ways.

Thin your paints and add some Acrylic Polymer Media -- it helps restore the 'stickiness' of the paint without diluting the colour.

Paint neatly. Your battlesuits look like you have just globbed paint on them because, being completely honest, that is what you have done.

Organic objects like Kroot and cloth folds can let you get away with a bit of a globbing technique, but the sharp lines of mechanical objects really show it up.

If your brush slips, wipe off the excess with a tissue or your finger before the paint dries.

Dark lining the crevices between armour panels always helps the look of Battlesuits. Don't make it black, make it a darker shade of the base colour.

Extreme colour contrasts like pure White and Black don't usually work well together. Try light grey and dark grey