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Hello everyone! I have begun a rather fluffy Tau project, and will be documenting my progress here for all interested parties to follow. My, how narcissistic.

Let's start with the FLUF!
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Somewhere on the edge of the Damocles Gulf, an isolated Imperial world, Cambod, fell prey to a marauding band of Orks. Fighting a long and bloody jungle war, the forces of the Imperial Guard have barely managed to hold the green tide at bay.

In desperate need of supplies and releif, neither of which were coming from the Imperium, the planetary governor reached out and made contact with a nearby Tau colony. Hearing of their troubles with the green menace, the Tau commander sent a detachment of his finest. This small contingent reported the state of the world back, and the Tau quickly sent and entire Cadre to contain the Ork threat.

Bolstered by the Tau forces, the Human occupants of Cambod were able to fortify their settlements, and have cut their ties with the Imperium. A decade later, the humans and Tau live in an integrated society, striving to rid the planets Eastern continent of the Ork warbands.
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Right, first actual bit of work, I got some fine cast Sniper drones I'm using as a prototype bed for the pain scheme. As this is a paint proto, the brush is very sloppy, and it needs touch up. What you is my basic scheme:



All paints are Reaper, this model primed in black. The main body is Olive Green (09035), with the trim in Olive Drab (09158). The metal grills are a wash of Sparkling Blue (09104) to fill the recesses, and then grill edged with Blackened Steel (09205) to try to create the effect of energy glowing dully behind the metal grating (this shows up much better on the rear exhaust, and my camera is not helping). The purple bits are Amethyst Purple (09024) and are the color I am using to represent stealth field bits.

I'm thinking about thinning down some Amethyst Purple to fill in the panel seams, maybe create the illusion of "stealth field glow". Thoughts?

This is going to be the basic pattern I use for all my models.

To do list:
--Test camo stripes on drone.
--Assemble my first human Pathfinder.
--Resolve camera troubles, and no longer use my phones camera.

Looks good so far. If you're going to filll in some panel lines with the purple you might want to put it on top of white in the line instead, to make the glow stand out more. I'm looking forward to seeing more than the drone soon.

Sorry for the long time between updates, it should be maybe once a week.

First, old business:
-I've decided that all of my sniper drones will have different camo patterns to test everything out. I'm very pleased with my uniform pattern (already pictured on the drones), and will use that for the rest of the army. The first pattern I'm going to try for the sniper drones is broad orange stripes, with thiner zig-zaggin black stripes in them, Like a tiger. Rawr.

New business: partway done with a test of my Human Pathfinders.
-Fluffy wise, they are remnants of Combod's 67th Jungle Reconnaissance detachment. After Shas'El Vor'kel reinforced the local garrisons, and eventually integrated the Gue'vesa and Tau forces, the 17th integrated Pathfinder core was formed.

-I'm using primarily FW bodies. FW arms, and legs, and pulse carbines from the FW sprue. I'm sawing off the Tau's goat feet, and adding the Cadian boots. Using frag grenades, because, well, they look cooler. Sawing out some Tau heads so that they look like empty helmets. I'm using some heads from westwinds separate head system, and Infantry rucks from secret weapon minatures. The Tau Pathfinders will be using the helmets and backpacks from their sprue. Being Pathfinders they will not be wearing the shoulder pads.


Here is the first test. Here I've cut the hand off the FW arm, and the Cadian arm off of the hand, and attached the two together. I have the head, helmet, rifle arm, and grenades left off so they can be individually primed and painted. Right now, he is supposed to be giving a "follow me" hand signal.

Ooooh, very nice conversion. I've been looking at doing something similar with my Tau. How did you do the foot swap? Any chance of a step by step with pics?

Slight Fluff Nitpick - Farsight wouldn't help humans against the Orks. He is opposed to working with other races at all. Instead he'd at best subjugate the world, at worst depopulate it. So I'd suggest that it's a main-stream Tau world that intervened.

If you want the army to be Farsight counts as, I'd suggest that while on the world helping the humans their Ethereals, Kroot and Vespid were wiped out. Subsequent travel difficulties have prevented the resupply of certain types of equipment . . .


I would love to see a step by step of your conversion process.

I will have to ret-con the fluff. It's been a while since I've read very much, and my books are all at home to check myself, thank you.

The boots are pretty easy, I'll do a step by step on the next guy.

Also, sorry about the image quality, All I have at current is my phone camera. My actual camera is not working, which is ironic, because my job is fixing cameras.

Hah, same colour-scheme as my Tau, what a co-incidence! Only I use GW colours and add some bronze just for the bling of it!
Anyways, great work!
I prefer the plain old firewarriors, but that is me

Hey, been pretty busy for a little while, but I've got an update, finally.

So, ret-coned the fluff.

Now for the sniper drones.
All three are painted, with minor revisions to each one.


The original paint pattern.

Number two is fairly identical, except that instead of 09024 Amethyst Purple for the stealth field bits, I used 09105 Sparkling Amethyst. Sadly, the pictures of number two were not good enough to bother uploading, but I'm ok with that, number two is kinda lousy. I primed it with white, and I don't like the way it seeps through even thick coats. I will stick with the black.


Here is number three. I added more panels of stealth field bits, the panel separation lines have been filled with a wash of Sparkling Amethyst, and the dimples in the top have been filled with 09104 Sparkling Blue (as well as the depths of the engine port).



Here are all three together, with the early stages of the camo for tiger stripes being done.

Next, I began to work up my first camo pattern test on the shield drones.

Step 1, I laid some very broad orange stripes as the base. I used 09218 Lava Orange.


It was hard to make myself put such broad stripes on. I don't even have a brush that wide. What I ended up doing was penning the out line of the stripes with a detail brush, and then filling in the shape with several applications of of thinned paint. Not quite a wash, but a touch thinner than usual. By allowing the borders of the stripe to dry before filling, I was able to keep the paint from flowing too far over surface. The panel inset lines did bleed however. Here's another picture.


The final step was to take my fine detail brush and paint the black detail lines in the pattern.




The basic structure of the black detail is similar to that of a lightning bolt: a somewhat squiggly line that "Y"'s in several places. I also left occasional gaps in the lines, and adjusted the pattern to give a more organic look.

Given the base in lightning bolt detail, I'm calling this pattern "Electric Tigers Tail".

I'll be watching this, loving the colour scheme!

Iranna.

Very nice camo mate!

Yeah this is an awesome colour scheme you've got going. Purple and Green have been my favourite colour combo since The Incredible Hulk first put his spandex shorts in the wash with his red and blue football kit

I officially dig the tiger camo.

Also, puppetswar should be putting out a line of heads in the near future that would be good for Gue'la auxiliaries.

So far for heads I've got some of the separate head system heads from westwind productions. They look good, but not quite as large as 40k scale heads. So, they look a little more realish in size, but not quite "propper".

I will hopefully have photos of (most) of my first pathfinder up very soon.

Ok, well, after a good bit of sawing and painting, here's my first Pathfinder test model.






So, the body, ruck, and signaling arm are spray primed black. The head and gun arm, as well as the helmet and grenades, are brush primed black.

The head is Westwind Miniatures swappable head system... I can't remember which one specifically. The ruck is from Secret Weapon Miniatures.
The hand and both feet are from a Cadian box. as you might think, I just sawed them off and attached. I don't have any green stuff, so the attachment lines are rough.

I'm very proud of the boots. They are primed black, then base coated in Ruddy Leather. Then, I applied a kind of a thick wash (thinned than usualy, but not as thin as a wash) of Pure Black. The effect is very similar to old, worn leather. Then I applied a very dry brushing of a mud color to the base of the boots to give the impression he's been slogging through muck.

The metalic bits on the rifle were given one very light coat of Blackened Steel to mae them appear worn.

The ruck is Oiled Leather for the majority, and Ruddy Leather for the straps. Some Tarnished Brass for the buckles.
I'm not too crazy about the sept color, I may change it.

Currently working on moddeling a Crisis suit, shield drone, and Tau Pathfinder with a markerlight. Will soon be painting Sniper drone spotter, and maybe using another Sniper drone to test a camo pattern.

Been a while, mostly due to internet access.

First off, decided I am sticking with the "Electric Tigers Tail" pattern for my sniper drones. I will probably also use it on vehicles. Here's my who Sniper drone team. Not the Failcast in full fail on the right.



Coming up next is my XV-8J: This variant is used for engaging personnel, and interdicting of light armour in the thick Jungle terrain of Cambod. Some clever SGT has helped is Tau companions by adding a chainsword to the beast to help clearing dense foliage. Also, he has a shield drone. The drone the top of a gun drone, and an XV series shield.







There's more images in the gallery, but I won't waste space here.

Two Tau pathfinders.





Look, he's scanning!

Now, my 2nd human pathfinder. He proves that in the Grimdark of the 41st millenium, not only are Gingers souless, they are also heretics, and traitors to the Imperium.




Now, for the current PF squad, four man. I plan on expanding it to eight.



So, I have a few things to do. I'm going to start weathering the XV-8J, possibly the sniper drones. I need to add some depth to my gingers face, going to do a compliment wash and some highlights. I also need to work on eyes, I'm having a hard time with that. The three layers I use for the boots (Prime in black, base coat in ruddy leather, and thin wash in pure black) is pretty much perfect to convey the feel of old and really worn leather boots. In fact, they look much like a pair of Danners I wore for three years after basic.

I have a bit constructed to represent a markerlight. Looks like the large painters we use now, if the Tau had made them. Problem is I need something like the binocular arms from a tank commander to hold it. Unless I sling it on a backpack, but where's the fun in that?

I have ordered another sniper team (make a full three including the metal one I have at home. Yes, I field sniper drones.) as well as two Piranhas. I will probably do one with each weapon system. The piranhas will certainly be getting the Electric Tigers Tail, and at least one human pilot of copilot.

Oh, lovely work indeed
The Sniper drones looks especially awesome though, the tiger stripes really makes them stand out

But, I want to see some jungle-kroots!

They ought to love Cambod, what with its jungles and diseases and other funny stuff any kroot must really dig

Well, thank everyone for the props. I might do some kroots, but I think I need to hone my skills a good bit more first.

Annnnnd back with another minor update.

First, another Tau Pathfinder. This one is aiming at something.



Now a human throwing a grenade. Had to have one eventually (I ran out of other hands).



The Tau don't seem to grasp the importance of long range comms for recon work. Thankfully our former IG buddies can show them how it's done.



Finally, this shield drone has taken some hits, but is still dutifully serving it's master. (Although, I don't know how well it's showing up. I'm using blackened steel over a black chip to give the scoring effect)


Well, that is all for now. I'm going on leave in a couple weeks, so I'll be able to upload pics of some of my more fun, yet less painted, ventures.

Been a long time since I've updated, but here we go.

For the last little while I've been working on my Remora pack. I personally love the look of the Remora, and intend to use them in coordination with my pathfinders, and eventually tetras, as pretty much predator drones. For the basic color scheme I inverted what I did with my Sniper Done Teams.



Here are my two Remora, as well as the last two Sniper Drones I had around, and a shield drone. I still need to apply stealth field effects to the Sniper Drones (Reaper paint Sparkling Amethyst on key points, and filling panel lines), as well as some kind of shield effects on the shield drone. the Sniper Drones and the Remora both need an application of my "Electric Tigers Tail" pattern. As I've detailed in another thread I'm having some trouble deciding what to do with the camo on the Remora. I have settled for now on scaling it up to the Remora size, and seeing how it looks.

Also, obviously, I have to paint the other Remora.

The Remora I have painted is my first attempt at a few effects. First, trying to put lens glare on the drone eyes.


The autofocus on the image was a little twitchy, so it's hard to tell that on the main eye I applied WAY too much white to the lower glare, but other than that, I think it went well.



I also tried to apply a little engine glow inside the vent grill. I think it looks ok, but I definitely didn't use enough white this time.

Well, I will hopefully be posting the camo test on the Remora in a few days.