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So, I have been looking all over for how to paint my army - color schemes, techniques, etc. the thing I have noticed - every tau army is painted the same:

FWs: One color cloth, one color armor, paint the tau symbol black with white lines, different color on the gun, usually dark handle and accents with the same color as either the shoulder pad or highlight.
Suits/Vehicles: very 'blocky' style - or done like standard military camo

the thing is...I have a fetish for lava themed - I will be basing all my FWs on lava bases (old cork and layers color method - not TOO fancy). So i got the colors I want, but I am not sure what to do. I am building the first box of FWs - and what I am THINKING of doing is doing something non-standard:


There is a tutorial on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5kp0qwJMPc - jump to about 2:25-2:30), I know that he is painting armor - but have been wondering two things:

FWs/Etherals: Would painting the model in this theme seem 'reasonable'? doing the basing in black, then 'stone' the armor and weapons and adding the lava patterns throughout the armor/clothing. I would still be coloring the symbols (using the lava colors) and the helmets will have either a more plain appearance or have the lava through a major part (for the 'ui). The eye piece will be layered to have the lava look to it.

Suits/Vehicles/Drones: Honestly - this is the biggest part - I think they would look AMAZING - but in the terms of how a vehicle would be designed or the like, would the patterns just look wrong? The eye piece will be layered to have the lava look to it.

I am not TOO into the specifics on a lot of the fluff, but I see that the stealth suit reactive technology could be added to pretty much the entire army in a less effective version, making their camouflage more natural rather than what we would know as camouflage.

So: is this going to make them look horrible? Is this a mistake taking a novel approach to them make them not seem like they fit? If it is (either in general or for specific models) - what would you do differently? What recommendations would you give?

As always, thanks for your time

~J~

First thing, they are your models, paint them in a way that makes YOU happy…
Lava theme? Maybe… remember they are “Fire Warriors” so in your case it’s just a different type of fire…
I’d paint one or two mini’s up see how YOU like it.. if you like it then go with it, you can even post a picture of them finished and there are tons of guys on Dakka that will give you an opinion…