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It has been a long two years without Warhammer in my life. I just so happened to have been visiting family in the Maryland-Virginia area when I happened upon a local Games-Workshop. Short story; 40K is once again part of my life. Before long I was back home, rummaging through ancient, deeply buried caches of bits and dusting off long forgotten boxes of armies. Most of what I have is Tau. A lot of Tau. A lot of old Tau in various stages of disrepair (not to mention a myriad of paint schemes). So I set about my work with gusto....

And hit my first roadblock. The paint. Luckily, there is this thing called The Google. There is also this stuff called Super Clean, you can grab it at your local Walmart or Auto hobby shop. It works great with plastics and metals. I soaked most of my models overnight. The results are pretty good. Though black primer tends to be more persistent on some models than on others.

I have always hated the Crisis suit model, so I've been looking around The Google for some ideas on converting my current stock of paint-stripped models. I happened upon this post http://advancedtautactica.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=3077&st=0&sk=t&sd=a. The OP is Tael, and he's got some great ideas about Crisis suits. So once again, I set about my shameless plagiarism, I mean work. This is what I've arrived at so far, the Crisis suits are going to take up the bulk of this project log for the time being. I'll update with more pics when I make more progress.

Great to see some tau love, the suits have so much potential missed by GW. You're definitely on the right path with taels designs.

Look forward to seeing what you come up with mate.

Update: New pics of the legs and an armless mockup. Trying to get a nice fluid pose.

Awesome profile of the battlesuit, consider me subbed

First three suits complete (almost). Still missing a couple of things; there is a bit that needs to go on the tip of the lascannon 'vents' on the back of the jetpack. Also, I'm getting around to magnetizing all of the weapons for these dudes (using two 1/16 x 1/32 for each hard point). The bad news is that the bits that went in to making these suits are quite costly if you buy them independently (I had most of them just lying around), so I may only have enough for 3 more suits. That's probably just fine for now, but when I start getting above 1500 points or so I'll start looking at alternative builds. And also, yes, they are headless. The heads are on sticks.

Here's an initial pic from my test model. The paint scheme turned out great. I'll post more later.

Very cool so far!

Have you thought about bulking out the arms to match the legs?

Have you thought about bulking out the arms to match the legs?

Interesting you should mention that because yes, it definitely crossed my mind. However, the weapons (yet to be painted) are underslung and magnetized along with the arms for ease of switching. You'd be surprised how much just re-positioning the weapons can add to the bulk of the arms. I'll post pics of the full assembly once I get the rest painted up.

Meanwhile, more pics:

Amazing Battlesuit! Love it! Can't wait to see more.

Finished Kroot. Didn't put as much effort into the hounds, due to them being metal minis. I just hate that all it takes is a stiff breeze and the paint chips off them (but finecast costs are exorbitant). Also, investing in a decent camera might be in order, the pics don't really show the full color range on the models.

Whew, being away on business has a negative effect on one's hobby. Lucky for me I stowed away a fire warrior team in my baggage. And although I'm slightly alarmed that my selection of hobby knives went undetected through the airport screening ( in carry-on, no less), I have managed to get some initial concept work done on them. I'm quite pleased with what I have so far, here's a preview:

From the front


From the right


Aaaaaand... From the left


I know what you're thinking; "Hey, his arms are off!". Thats okay, don't panic, I still haven't figured out what modifications I want for the pulse rifles. (Addendum: much easier to paint armless)

Awesome crisis mods man. And I love that hair that you added on the fire warrior. Looks ace! keep it up =)

This army is going to look grate.

I'll repost with the first 500 point increment some time next week.

I'm loving this blog
What colors did you use for your suits?

 swampyturtle wrote:
I'm loving this blog
What colors did you use for your suits?

All paints used are from Citadels new line of paints. This simplified the process, and I actually had to strip and repaint a couple of models because the tones were slightly off from the previous color line.
Anyways...

1. Base in Balor Brown over whole model, excepting the faceplate and the torso sensor suite.
2. Wash in 50/50 mix of Agrax Earthshade and water over areas covered in base color
3. Heavy drybrush in Tallarn Sand until you get a yellowish tone over the whole model. Note this is also the color used on the rim of the base
4. Light drybrush in Ushabti Bone. This is the final color and I debated stopping here, but the sharp lines of the model are obscured a little, see next step.
5. Fine highlight on sharp edges with 50/50 Ushabti Bone and water. These are subtle highlights and I have to be very careful not to get solid color over drybrused areas where I don't want color. (Note: reall asspain to recolor those areas)
6. Detail model with Khorne Red giving unique markings to each model to emphasize the tendency towards individuality in my army's theme.
7. Fine highlight edges covered with markings in Wazdakka Red.

I forget the teal color I use for the lighting effects, but I mix that and white with gradual shading.

And that is essentially it. Good question.

By the way, the idea for the fire warrior conversions came from this image:

Original artist unknown (if anyone knows holla so we can give credit where it is very well due)

And that (hopefully) translates to what I'm doing here:




Still much work to be done, ONWARD, FTGG!

(...NEEEEERRRD!)

Looking good so far!

These are just too awesome. I pray my friend doesn't see this and force me to attempt these conversions.

What did you do for the middle of the chest? I didn't see that in either your blog or Taels.

 Brother Chaplain Kage wrote:
What did you do for the middle of the chest? I didn't see that in either your blog or Taels.

Behold! the power of the Power Point!





Caveat to the above. There was a lot of initial cut work involved on the torso, and unfortunately it's not an exact science. the more exact the cutting tool, the better the result. I use a jewelers saw. Fill in all the gaps with green stuff and boom! mission accomplished.

Excelletnt... fried of mine is thinking of starting a Tau army, but he's not overly fond of the normal look of the suits.

Looks really good, love the test model. Not sure how i feel about the giant targeter on the chest, but other than that no complaints looking forward to seeing some more from this army in the near future

Young Logan

 Young_Logan wrote:
Looks really good, love the test model. Not sure how i feel about the giant targeter on the chest, but other than that no complaints looking forward to seeing some more from this army in the near future

Young Logan

Background for these fellas is that they come from an outpost world on the edge of Empire territory. While their Earth caste engineers are talented, they don't always have access to the best resources or the most cutting edge technologies. The suit conversions I am treating as 'field modifications' representing the Cadre's attempt to improve the capabilities of their current inventory of suits until they can get their shipment from some far-off Empire forge world.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Here's a quick shot of the first three crisis suits painted. Still three more to go, but they wont be finished until after the rest of the 1000 point increment. Terrible quality image, I know. Deal with it.

 Archive wrote:

Great conversion work! Original and still Tau-y I'm also a fan of the paint scheme, which you've executed quite well

My only CC would be the bases: with all that conversion lovin', and great paintjob, the bases really leave something to be desired.

Keep up the great work! Subbed for sure

Cheers,
Rawson

Yeah, I'm still trying to find some weedy grass clumps for the base to break up all that yellow.

That Firewarrior is awesome, haven't seen anyone do anything like that with them before. I've been looking for a way to make my firewarriors look a bit more unique and that is a great idea.

How did you do the collar and the helmet?

 Mentlegen324 wrote:
That Firewarrior is awesome, haven't seen anyone do anything like that with them before. I've been looking for a way to make my firewarriors look a bit more unique and that is a great idea.

How did you do the collar and the helmet?

Collar is green stuff, helmet is just careful cutting with a hobby knife and the crest is also green stuff.

Fire Warriors almost done. Posting pics this afternoon.