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Having recently sold my Space Marines I went back to an army I have played a couple of times before. The Tau. I picked up the codex, read through it, made a list posted it for feedback, changed it a little, then ordered the models.

So for the first post here is my workspace o' shame

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ThzcItc4a4E/VL7cT6zXCMI/AAAAAAAACrU/fCHDEKJtTCI/s1600/IMG_20150120_160116.jpg

So there is a finecast commander
Ethereal
Darkstrider
Longstrike
3 crisis suits
3 stealth suits
Riptide
3 devilfish
3 firewarrior squads
2 pathfinder squads
Piranha or whatever it's called
3 broadsides
Hammerhead
A god awful lot of drones

I've put most of the riptide together into instruction steps. I still have to putty the joins and sand, then put the smaller parts together to make larger sub assemblies. I'm thinking of a way to magnetize the riptides main gun.

Speaking of magnets, I'm going to attempt to magnetize everything I possibly can.

Anyway the goal is to have it totally playable in a few months, nothing gets played until it is painted and finally no more than 2 kits going at once. I'd like a primary one then something smaller like fire warriors going while I wait for parts to dry, cure or whatever on the main kit.


Assembled

Longstrike
Ethereal
Darkstrider

Painted

lol nothing

How are you going to paint them?

I'm going to attempt to imitate this paint scheme. I really like the grime, wear and dirt but it's so simple (3 colors).

I've been playing with the priming technique and I think I can do it.

The SO has been home the last two days so my hobby time has been pretty much zero. I did manage to squeeze in a couple of hours today.

I managed to get the blister packs put together. (Darkstrider, Longstrike and Ethereal) and my opinion is finecast is messy and better avoided if at all possible. I was looking over my Finecast commander and one of his jetpacks is messed up. I'll have to contact GW to see if a replacement is available.

It looks like the two halves of the mold slid, certain details just don't line up.

The riptide is in two pieces. Above the waist and below. I primed both and laid down a base coat on the bottom. I still have to do the arms the hold up is do I magnetize when I know I'll only ever play it one way or do I just glue to move this along. If I magnetize I need to order magnets.

I also put a Firewarrior together and painted the base khaki color on to test the color scheme and try out watercolor inks. What I realized there is I shouldn't rush these builds. So having already broke a few of my rules I've decided to hit this again renewed tomorrow. Sorry for the lack of pictures I'll post them later.

So today was a good day. I painted a firewarrior to try out the paint scheme

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Then I started in on the riptide,

I painted the base colors then "attempted" to use a watercolor wash



after the cleanup this is what I ended up with.



I had to fight this cleanup. I'm not sure what I did wrong except for waiting for the wash to completely dry, either that or I missed a lot of the gloss. Anyway, This is what I ended up with







So I have to say, I'm not happy with the riptide, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it, I can finish the head and base then maybe see how I feel then. The other option is to ebay this guy. I'm just not sure.

While I wanted dirty and damaged, I think the dirty look is over the top on this one.