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Anvildude wrote:
Does he have a daughter named Zeetha?

Yes, but she's been lost for quite some time now. Good job spotting the reference :3

Why not treat the symbols to some of that glow in the dark UV paint, and watch them shine?
Or an LED between the backbody and the wing section (big tau symbol, like a backlight?

Errr....neither of these can really work here. I don't plan on playing in the dark much, so the UV paint wouldn't exactly shine much. And it is WAY too late in the game to add another LED to the model. That has to be done before the model is even built, as it requires drilling and cutting and soldering and all sorts of other things that at this point would ruin the paint job, not to mention destroy parts of the model in the process.

Right now, what I'm trying to figure out is a color scheme or effect I can do on these symbols using paint. They don't have to be the same on both, necessarily.

Looking good! Love them both. Darkblade's colours are really coming along.

If I'm honest, I'm not too sure about the hole through the GK head at Darkblade's belt though - looks a little ... Severe? No. Too cartoonish or something like that. It's like it's too large and obvious, there's no subtlety to it.

... Wait this is an army with naked tau chicks and pimp suits. Never mind.

It's still WIP, and one of the next few steps will be to put a black wash over the hole to dull it just a bit.

I took a moment to apply a little something I picked up from Grogsnik's pic of the coat he sculpted. I noticed something that I had failed to do, which was taper the coat in toward the waist. I went back and (VERY carefully) pushed the wire until it bent inward around the model's waist, giving it a tailored look. Eventually. Hopefully. Stupid Saudi mail, give me my green stuff already!

Hooray for everything! The mail came in today with three packages for me, one of which was my shipment from Spikey Bits that included primer, paint and an excessive quantity of green stuff. This is my first time buying it in the large tubes instead of the tape strips, but it doesn't seem like it will cause any real problems for me. If nothing else, this is going to give me plenty to use on my robot pimp coat.

Another fun thing I got was a universal clip-on macro lens for smart phones. After trying it out, I can safely say that it doesn't seem to do much more than what my phone was already capable of. It helps a lot on the standard camera app that came with the phone, but I recently discovered that you can get better results just by installing better camera software.

Hokay, so I'm going to try to finish up the two suits I'm working on and then move on to sculpting on the pimp suit again.

Lucky you!
Didn't know about the camera software stuff - which apps are out there/are good?

The one I have installed is called CameraMX. It's free and has so far worked great for photographing miniatures. It also has a built in photo editing and effects suite so you can adjust your pics if (like me) you have issues with lighting making your colors look wrong. Only down side to it is that it takes a little longer to load than most camera apps.

Awesome, cheers. I'll check it out

EDIT: Also a chapter came up in this thread (just over half way down I think) that I thought you might be interested in... Please do write the fluff

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/575122.page

There's actually a character like that planned for the next book in the series I've started. I don't have a good name for the character yet. At first glance he's a little bit of a knockoff of Inigo Montoya, a spaniard sword master out for revenge. However, things get weirder from there. You see, he started out in life as a charity case taken in at a local academy, where he displayed remarkable aptitude for the sword and was taught by the instructors and other masters until he became something of a virtuoso. Eventually he grew bored and set out into the world for adventure.

While contemplating his newfound quest to find a quest, he spent the night drinking heavily at a rowdy tavern. Various local bravos would, from time to time stand up and give a boast proclaiming their great deeds or their martial prowess, occasionally vowing to defeat a rival or perform some other great show of skill. Our swordsman, *very* intoxicated, got caught up in all the enthusiasm, leaped up onto the table and, loudly and publicly, vowed to avenge his father.

When he sobered up, he realized just what he'd done. You see, his father wasn't dead. Or wounded, even. He was alive and well, dirt farming as always just outside of town. Worse still, his boast had spread like wildfire and he found himself the talk of the town. If he hung around, he would surely become a laughingstock, and so he set out at first light and booked passage on a ship sailing far, far away.

Of course, that ship sank, very predictably. He spent several days adrift under the punishing sun, nearly starved to death, drank a TON of seawater, had numerous heat strokes, invented a new form of yodeling out of sheer boredom, and by the time he was dragged aboard a passing ship he had completely lost his memory. He now only remembered two things, his masterful skill with a rapier and his quest to avenge his father.

No longer knowing where he came from, who his father was, or why he needed avenging, the swordsman fell in with the piratical crew that harvested him from the sea. Every boarding action is for him a chance to find and kill the man who slew his father, and he enters every duel bolstered by the knowledge that his vengeance is finally at hand. He accuses barmaids of having slain his father with terminal syphilis, fishmongers of poisoning him, and just about everyone else of having stabbed the man cowardly in the back.

The pirates find the swordsman just too amusing and useful to toss him off the ship.

This smacks of Bourne. Love it!

 bossfearless wrote:
There's actually a character like that planned for the next book in the series I've started. I don't have a good name for the character yet. At first glance he's a little bit of a knockoff of Inigo Montoya, a spaniard sword master out for revenge. However, things get weirder from there. You see, he started out in life as a charity case taken in at a local academy, where he displayed remarkable aptitude for the sword and was taught by the instructors and other masters until he became something of a virtuoso. Eventually he grew bored and set out into the world for adventure.

While contemplating his newfound quest to find a quest, he spent the night drinking heavily at a rowdy tavern. Various local bravos would, from time to time stand up and give a boast proclaiming their great deeds or their martial prowess, occasionally vowing to defeat a rival or perform some other great show of skill. Our swordsman, *very* intoxicated, got caught up in all the enthusiasm, leaped up onto the table and, loudly and publicly, vowed to avenge his father.

When he sobered up, he realized just what he'd done. You see, his father wasn't dead. Or wounded, even. He was alive and well, dirt farming as always just outside of town. Worse still, his boast had spread like wildfire and he found himself the talk of the town. If he hung around, he would surely become a laughingstock, and so he set out at first light and booked passage on a ship sailing far, far away.

Of course, that ship sank, very predictably. He spent several days adrift under the punishing sun, nearly starved to death, drank a TON of seawater, had numerous heat strokes, invented a new form of yodeling out of sheer boredom, and by the time he was dragged aboard a passing ship he had completely lost his memory. He now only remembered two things, his masterful skill with a rapier and his quest to avenge his father.

No longer knowing where he came from, who his father was, or why he needed avenging, the swordsman fell in with the piratical crew that harvested him from the sea. Every boarding action is for him a chance to find and kill the man who slew his father, and he enters every duel bolstered by the knowledge that his vengeance is finally at hand. He accuses barmaids of having slain his father with terminal syphilis, fishmongers of poisoning him, and just about everyone else of having stabbed the man cowardly in the back.

The pirates find the swordsman just too amusing and useful to toss him off the ship.

This is just brilliant. Hilarious.
I think.

So now I'm idly contemplating the idea of a Jetseer and some more eldar jetbikes in case I want to do Taudar. Rather than go for a Craftworld theme, I would go with something like corsairs or exodites. Maybe a combination of the two. I like the idea of a sort of feral, sci-fi wood elf look to them with lots of woad and not much else on them, riding chopped-down crotch rockets almost buck naked, one hand on the handlebars and eldritch fire trailing from the other. I'm wondering if I could actually build a group of elves who look like they would really kick your ass. Part of it is wanting an excuse to get my hands on a Wraithknight kit. And of course, naked elf tits.

I really want to say elf tits again. Elf tits. Super classy up in here.

...


...

Watching Bellator at work right now and this guy (with a name like "Spirit Wolf," you know he's a tool) got kneed in the nads. But you can tell he's faking how bad he's hurt by it, and he's milked it enough to get the fight stopped because he'd been losing from the start. Freaking sad to watch a guy wuss out like that.

Finished! Edit: Not quite finished! I see a few places where I still need more cleanup. Thank you, zoomed-in camera lens. Thou art a merciless witch! Also, this is my official test to see if the word "witch" gets filtered by the forum. Edit again: Yes, it seems the filter changes it to witch. Which is a highly inappropriate use of the word witch.

XV-88 Broadside ace, Shas'Vre Chump, member of the Order of the Plume.



Yes, he knows what it means in your language. No, he is not amused.


Some more angles, as well as a shot without the lights:








Parts list:

Broadside body and main weapons
Sentinel Missile Launchers on the back
Menoth Vanquisher flail
Rhino hull chunks on the base, because Ultramarines can suck it
Chest lens from Bandai option kit
Various bling from Space Marine kits
Feather from High Elf infantry



Chump is actually the reincarnation of a lone Fire Warrior from my original Tau army, wayyyyyyy back in 3rd ed, when assault was king. I inherited a large number of second hand tau models after tons of people jumped on the very first tau bandwagon, when they first came out, and then jumped off the bandwagon a week later, when it turned out they required actual skill to play. After the first couple of learning games, I was all but undefeated with them for the rest of 3e.

Chump is meant to be the lone Fire Warrior with photon grenades, who should have been nothing but a speed bump to the charging Wolf Lord and his full bike retinue. However, due to the vagaries of fate and only the one guy actually getting into base contact, Chump survived the first round of melee. His return stroke knocked the fangs out of one of the bodyguards. They broke and ran, escaping Chump's paltry initiative 2 only to run screaming into a crossfire between two units of crisis suits, cut down to the last man. Chump has retained his strange proficiency in melee, training extensively to make use of the XV-88's augmented strength and utilizing a flail crafted by Astartes artisans to maximize each strike, since it's unlikely he'll ever get more than one chance.

I like that guys story...

I want to give him a cookie... he earned it

EDIT: also, why the smiley missiles?

 IHateNids wrote:
I like that guys story...

I want to give him a cookie... he earned it

EDIT: also, why the smiley missiles?

Can you give me any good reason why not?

because its not challenging to blow up people who are stood laughing at your ammo...

I said "a good reason".

then im fresh out...

 IHateNids wrote:

EDIT: also, why the smiley missiles?

Because the joke is on them

Why does your broadside have a space marine purity seal?

Wait, the smiley face missiles aren't supposed to remind us of Ecstasy pills?

 BrotherOfBone wrote:
Why does your broadside have a space marine purity seal?

I've covered this a few times throughout the thread. This cadre fights alongside a large renegade Imperial/xeno alliance and so the battle honors accumulate from all sides.

Now that I have green stuff in large quantities, I couldn't help but put some more work in on the pimp coat. I've finally got the rough structure of the coat all laid out:





As I have said before, this is meant to be the bottom layer of GS, so the splotchy, ugly texture is by no means going to be an issue. Once this cures in a few hours, I can go back over it and start laying down a smoother layer, as well as filling in the few remaining gaps and adjusting the shape a little bit at a time.In the end, I will hopefully wind up with a much more tailored appearance than what I have right now.

 bossfearless wrote:

 BrotherOfBone wrote:
Why does your broadside have a space marine purity seal?

I've covered this a few times throughout the thread. This cadre fights alongside a large renegade Imperial/xeno alliance and so the battle honors accumulate from all sides.

... That still doesn't justify why Space Marines/Guardsmen are handing out purity seals to Tau. Guardsmen wouldn't have any, and Space Marines only give them to their own men, and even then they're only granted by the Chaplain who sure as hell wouldn't ally with foul Xenos.

 BrotherOfBone wrote:

 bossfearless wrote:

 BrotherOfBone wrote:
Why does your broadside have a space marine purity seal?

I've covered this a few times throughout the thread. This cadre fights alongside a large renegade Imperial/xeno alliance and so the battle honors accumulate from all sides.

... That still doesn't justify why Space Marines/Guardsmen are handing out purity seals to Tau. Guardsmen wouldn't have any, and Space Marines only give them to their own men, and even then they're only granted by the Chaplain who sure as hell wouldn't ally with foul Xenos.

*coughcough* Space Marine/Tau battle brothers *coughcough*
*coughcough* Ultramarines *coughcough*

You talked about doing eldar as an allied force, how about using the dark eldar jet bikes? They look more in line with the half naked look you'd be wanting with the skintight clothes and such. They are also posed more aggressively and have neater looking weapons. As for looking more natural, you have greenstuff so cover the bike body to look like tree bark, you could even add foliage/flock to it. And I yo ever did an exodite avatar I would love to see you do this.....

Ultraforgeminiatures.com tree woman

Just a question about the type of Dubstep your Tau are. Slow Dubsteb or fast Dubstep? Personally I think Tau of these colors seem much more like fast paced Dubstep fans.

Other than that Great work! It looks amazing and the LEDs add a nice effect to your force!

I'm curious whether they're "Pop" Dubstep or "Legit" Dubstep. IIRC dubstep actually originated on the mean streets of Britain and has a lot more vocalizing and 'cut' than most people think.

Basically, the difference between WUBWUB and Skrillex, magnified.

Uh oh. Anvildude, are you becoming some kind of Dubstep hipster? Anyway, I imagine these guys as a king of medium Dubstep in both beats per minute and overall severity of the noise. Not quite "takingabigdumponyourface-step," but much harder than "chill-step".

@Theophony: I don't mean that I actually want to make my space elves tree-huggers and have them riding tree-mobiles. I was thinking more along the lines of "wild" elves in the sense that they are entirely unregulated by either the craftworld or the kabalite philosophies. The pissed off teenagers of the pointy eared world. Although, if I did an Avatar, you already must know that it would be a giant naked woman of some kind. I mean, it's me we're talkling about.

For the jetbikers I was thinking of a kitbash between Hellions and Reavers, using the Hellion legs and arm holding the chain, and the Reaver jetbike body minus most of the body panels. The resulting model would (in theory) be a mostly naked elf (all the details sanded down with muscles and bodypaint painted on) standing up in the saddle with one hand holding the reins of a giant, flying jet engine. I might go for even more of a dieselpunk look to them by adding Nob Biker bits like big exhausts and custom pipes, larger vints and burners, and do an LED rocket exhaust with transparent flame bits lit up from within like my pimp cane.

 bossfearless wrote:
I was thinking more along the lines of "wild" elves in the sense that they are entirely unregulated by either the craftworld or the kabalite philosophies.

Exodites? They're kind of like Amish Eldar, they left to go live in the woods before things went bad for the Eldar, they're very low-tech and ride dinosaurs and dragons and stuff. Your Tau could easily have corrupted a group of them with their influence, and now they're biker drunks or something.

Eh. Not quite where I was going with it. I don't hink this group would fit into any of the known niches for eldar in the established 40k canon. And they might eventually be based on Raging Heroes' dark elves kickstarter, when they eventually put that out. Still waiting for my Jailbirds to become available to order. Pouty face, engage. But still, it lets me put all the polish I want onto my Tau before becoming distracted by another shiny project.