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Oh question. I need to decide on colors for the missiles... What do you guys think?



Bone or Orange?

Bone looks unfinished, orange is a touch garish (nerf darts!!!), maybe mechanicus grey, possibly with a yellow 'tip'?

I like your work so far!

Hmm... I am wanting to limit the color palette somewhat. Looking at the fire warriors and riptide are there any colors from the current scheme that work best?

I think orange. It stands out from the scheme and looks 'dangerous'. The bone just kind of blends in, and doesn't really look like anything of note (from a distance)

Orange. Fits the whole amazon beastie vibe.

Hey! It's like Snakes... on a plane

 inmygravenimage wrote:
Orange. Fits the whole amazon beastie vibe.

Hey! It's like Snakes... on a plane

Man... don't tempt me to buy one of those crappy flyers.

Although the FW ones...

I think the white looks best. I get a GI Joe vibe from the orange.

If you have rail guns you then get Snakes on a train...

Orange. It's the 'business end' of the missile.

Great work as always. I'm really impressed with how very sharp your lines are and and smooth the larger areas are on your models. It is impressive.

So I decided to go with the orange missiles. Here is the completed Hammerhead Gunship. Finishing up the Skyray turret and missiles and I will post them when they are done. Also the Riptide base is almost dry... FRIGGIN finally. Pics incoming.





I used Testor's Decal Set and Decal Solution on the decals. It has helped them blend in nicely. Not quite painted on but close.

I can honestly say this is far and away the best Tau scheme I've seen. I absolutely love it, top notch work sunshine!

What he said. I don't even like Tau and I'm still looking forward to seeing what you do next. The decals came out excellent! I zoomed in on a couple of them in you gallery and you can't see anything except awesome. No lines, no shine, no 'just barely off center', nothing.

Impressed as always and of course looking forward to everything you do. And just a fanboy FYI, I still use your IG as a reference for people when they ask about head swaps or dipping.

*edit- typo*

 inmygravenimage wrote:
I can honestly say this is far and away the best Tau scheme I've seen. I absolutely love it, top notch work sunshine!

Wow thanks. I am really partial to it myself. I played them once before (sold that army) and grew to hate that scheme. I am really enjoying this one...


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 Skalk Bloodaxe wrote:
What he said. I don't even like Tau and I'm still looking forward to seeing what you do next. The decals came out excellent! I zoomed in on a couple of them in you gallery and you can't see anything except awesome. No lines, no shine, no 'just barely off center', nothing.

Impressed as always and of course looking forward to everything you do. And just a fanboy FYI, I still use your IG as a reference for people when they ask about head swaps or dipping.

*edit- typo*

High praise. Thank you. Good to hear about the IG. I still play them all the time. They are kind of my main force. They are waiting on a new codex before I add much to them. (Not much I want to add at this point.
Going for a higher level of detail on the Tau. Not sure when I can realistically field an army... I don't want to put grey minis on the table any more after playing with my guard.

Really wishing I had an easy to paint force and scheme to play with where I could crank them out fast. Hmm... Grey Knights are elite and small model count with easy color schemes... Ooh alcohol based metal might look dope on them...

No! Keep painting these! You WILL FINISH!

I must have discipline.

yes have some discipline. Tau look lovely so do your nids. really dig your ig too man. grteat work all around...keep on plugging away im sure you will get it done in no time.

not even a fan of the riptide models but yours makes me wanna purchase one lol.

keep up the good work man.

 alabamaheretic wrote:
yes have some discipline. Tau look lovely so do your nids. really dig your ig too man. grteat work all around...keep on plugging away im sure you will get it done in no time.

not even a fan of the riptide models but yours makes me wanna purchase one lol.

keep up the good work man.

Thank you! I will stick with it. I will have the Skyray pics up tonight.

well sometimes we all need a little motivation to spur us on to better works.

Quick post uploading the Skyray turret on the gunship I built. It is convertible between Railhead and Skyray gunships. The missiles are individually magnetized to keep track of what has been launched during a game!

Magnetization is always a great idea. It's fair to your opponent and helps you truly keep track of remaining resources. Plus it also saves you $$$ by having one model that is capable of filling multiple roles. I've been making it a habit to make sure all of my Champions have magnetized arms for easy weapon swaps. My Death Guard have has over a dozen glued Champions and some of them have never seen the tabletop as I play WYSIWYG and the load I gave them just doesn't fit my needs. Ugh.

As far as motivation and focus goes, it's not a bad thing to have a couple 'side projects' to go to when you get to the point where you'd rather throw your primary project out the window than work on it ever again. So long as you are doing something, you are a step closer to whatever goal you have in mind. I have reached the 'new hole in the wall that looks just like the model I was working on' point many times and when I do another project gets some attention. I'm motivated to model (regardless of the project) and I want to keep that going.

Hokey Smokes Bullwinkle! Its dry!

Soo the Riptide base is finally dry. Seriously it took weeks. Not joking... Like after I tucked my kids in at night and before I brushed my teeth I had a daily routine: Check to see if the #$%^ing Riptide was dry yet. Every night it was not. Now it is!

The base looks good I think. So if you have like two months to dedicate to letting a freaking miniature's base dry, then by all means go ahead and use Liquitex acrylic glazing medium (gloss) for water effects.

However, if you are human, and are used to things happening outside of the GEOLOGICAL FRIGGIN TIMELINE... use something else.

Anyhow, here are the pics. All of the magnetized options.





Also a closeup of the base that still haunts my dreams.



A few more shots of the model from other angles.





And finally a group shot of the army as it stands so far.



As you can see, the color scheme is really coherent and limited in color selection. It really pulls the army together as a unified look. So far I am really enjoying this project.


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Oh and also I should mention if it is not clear by the pics is that there are two possible angles you can position the magnetized weapons on the mini.

Hey, just stumbled upon this thread (thank you, Ms. Front Page ), and your Tau scheme is absolutely amazing !!!

Love the weathering on the armour, it looks awesome !!

(I'm currently building a weathered Tau army too, so I feel connected lol.... Though yours looks much better )

Keep it up !!

jsut a question...im attempting some swamp bases for some armies of mine and i was wondering how you did them...i was gonna take gws ard caot and use that to make watery bases...but that seems kinda expensive any tips or suggestions would be great man...love the look of your army

Lovely so far, and really hadn't appreciated the scale of the Riptide till now! what's next on your plate of fish? Also, nice water effect on the swamp, yoda would be proud to call it Home.

Really liking a more subdued and 'realistic' Tau scheme. That being said, though, I think the stripes could be brightened a tiny bit more just to add some depth and visual interest. Also, the stripes are pretty prominent on the Riptide but absent on the tank. I think even one somewhere on the tank would tie them together.

Yggdrasil wrote:Hey, just stumbled upon this thread (thank you, Ms. Front Page ), and your Tau scheme is absolutely amazing !!!

Love the weathering on the armour, it looks awesome !!

(I'm currently building a weathered Tau army too, so I feel connected lol.... Though yours looks much better )

Keep it up !!

Thank you. I am liking your Tau as well. They look like they have been to hell and back.

inmygravenimage wrote:Lovely so far, and really hadn't appreciated the scale of the Riptide till now! what's next on your plate of fish? Also, nice water effect on the swamp, yoda would be proud to call it Home.

He is a big boy... Next on the list I am torn between the Pathfinders, a Commander, or some Broadsides. Probably going to do the HQ next.

alabamaheretic wrote:jsut a question...im attempting some swamp bases for some armies of mine and i was wondering how you did them...i was gonna take gws ard caot and use that to make watery bases...but that seems kinda expensive any tips or suggestions would be great man...love the look of your army

I used Secret Weapon's Blasted Wetlands bases. secretweaponminiatures.com They also sell blank bases that are hollow so you can decorate themselves and pour in your water effects. I used the Secret Weapon Realistic Water which is simply repackaged Woodland Scenics Realistic Water. You can use Liquitex Acrylic Glazing Medium (Gloss) but I would only recommend it if you have literally weeks to let it dry.

Pekel wrote:Really liking a more subdued and 'realistic' Tau scheme. That being said, though, I think the stripes could be brightened a tiny bit more just to add some depth and visual interest. Also, the stripes are pretty prominent on the Riptide but absent on the tank. I think even one somewhere on the tank would tie them together.

Thanks. I think you may be on to something. Perhaps I will do some stripes on my next Gunship. The next one will be convertible to have Longshot in the turret so it is only fitting that its all blinged out.

I'm in the same spot as graven, I had no idea at all how absolutely monstrous the Riptide is.

Great job on the base, model is excellent all around. Impressive work as always.

More WIP on the swamp fighters.


My second gunship. This one will be a Railhead with commanders that I can swap out depending upon if I want to take Longshot or not. Pics look really washed up. It is the lighting. It looks like the other gunship did before the oil wash and weathering. I am going to do some more orange striping on this one per Pekel's advice. Not sure where to place it yet.

Also a few pics of my commander. Also really washed out. When I get him in the light box the gradient will show up better. He is a support style commander, with Command and Control Node, P.E.N. Chip, Multi-Spectrum Sensor Suite. To model the Iridium armor I gave him the shield and the shoulder pad from a Broadside. I used parts from the Pathfinder kit to model his support systems on his pack. I really wanted him to look like he had a bunch of communication devices on him.

Not shown is my first Broadside I am working on. I plan on fielding them as Missilesides with High Yield Missile Pods and Smart Missile Systems.

Some more progress on the commander. I am hating the mold crease in the shoulderpad. I should have greenstuffed it beforehand. It actually showed up much better when painted. I still may patch it... either take it off and remove the paint and redo it or see about replacing the pad with GW and doing it that way.

Otherwise I really like the model. It has been fun to paint. Doing a lot more of the orange and white on him as I wanted him to stand out from the rest. His shield will have a decal of the Tau emblem on it. The borders of the orange and white will clean up very well with the oil wash I am sure.



Anyways... the rest of my Swamp Bases are inbound, along with some realistic water and another Vallejo Liquid Metal, silver this time. Looking forward to trying it out. Ready to kick this project into high gear now!


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Hmm... maybe I can cover up the seam in the shoulder pad with battle damage? What do you think?

Commander looks awesome ! Is he made from the FineCast box ?
Anyway, I love the simple-yet-effective additions on him, sensors, knife, etc...

As for the "seam" on the shoulder pad, you should only try battle damage if you already have done some on the other suits... And if you're ready to do battle damage on other areas, lest it might look weird...
I'm not of a great help, I suppose...

That is quite helpful actually. There is chipping on my other models but it is more subtle. I guess I can try it and I can always strip it and repaint later if I don't like it.

Also yes he is made from the finecast box.

Commander is complete! I had fun with this one. FInecast is an odd material to work with but for a model of this size it is not bad. I had fun painting this one. I used Vallejo Liquid Silver for some of the metallic parts. Vallejo's Liquid Metals have quickly become one of my favorite tools in my toolbox. I really don't care about the hassle of using an alcohol based paint... it is sooo worth it. I wish the sheer brilliance of these paints showed up in stills because in person they are absolutely gorgeous.