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Hey friends. Recently picked up some Tau as I have been away from the hobby for a lil while, I previously played/painted Space Wolves.

So I've painted a few models and I have came to the conclusion that it's immensely aggravating painting Tau when they are assembled. Everything outside of Fire Warriors I buy from now on will be painted before I glue these guys together. I just don't know the best way to go about doing that yet, making this post in hopes that some of you already do something similar to what I want to do and don't mind offering your advice so I have a general concept of what to do before rounding up another batch of models to work on.

What tools, accessories would I need to make this work? Any suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated.

Nothing special I am afraid to say.

on the firewarriors, with some poses, it is a bit easier to do chest armor detail if you paint them before putting on the gun arm, but it sounds like you may have noticed that.

I usually assemble, primer white, then airbrush my base color (I use a desert sand color - I don't like their "orange" default color).

If you could be a bit more specific about some of the troubles, please share.

best of luck

Okay I will try to be more specific and give more info.

I use a airbrush to prime and give the models their base coat.

Okay and now for what I find most annoying..the legs/arms where the joints are..where you paint black, or whatever metal color you are using.

It just seems like it would be significantly easier to paint these pieces before they are glued. Maybe some double sided tape would work. Seems like I would need something that leaves the pieces suspended in air so they can dry before laying them down and smearing the paint and such.

Do you not pin arms and things for marines?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUCuokzElBw

And that's what it will be. Cork, paperclips, hand drill.

This guy seems to have a solid "system" in place. Thanks for the link.

Ahhh....

Depending on the angles, I either just careful, or do touch up.

If its really complex, or not going to work well, then I will paint the part separately. Of course, a lot of it depends on what parts of the model you paint different colors.

best of luck.

I'm in the same boat, I've part assembled my Tau but I fully built my Pathfinders and Fire warriors which was a bad idea.

I'm just starting on the Vior'la scheme, so far all I've done is primed them black and built up to white (I don't know why but to me this looks better than priming white) and started painted some red details.

I tend to paint in a production line and add one colour to all the models at a time then move on to shading later.



The front plates on the Stormsurges are not attached so I can paint the cockpit and crew inside, and I've not glued on the main gun or attached flamers.

There's also some ghostkeels with their leg plating and guns off that need detailing.

Airbrush is a good tool to use IMO.

Pledge Floor wax cleaner is good for thinning your ink/shade/wash.

If you only use a little super glue when attaching the Tau to their bases you can pop them off easily with a craft knife