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With the Tau's heavy anime roots, I wanted to do something that reflected that. First I was thinking something Zone of the Enders themed, but Jehuty colors really only work on the Battlesuits. So, I hit my artbook shelf and came back across this puppy.



I remembered that I *loved* this game. The combat was fantastic, the world was richly detailed and the characters were cool. So, why not theme my army around it? Planning on doing blue-gray as the base coat and putting white/red pinstripes down the armor of my units. I plan on basing some of the Battlesuits around specific characters, if I can.

Super early on, but I'm hoping that running a P&M blog will keep my feet to the fire to get it done, haha.

Here's the first units I'm working on, my Pathfinders. I'm priming them with Chaos Black to keep the colors muted, since they're advanced scouts. Other units will be primed with white to make brighter colors. I magnetized 8/10, plus all the special weapons and enough pulse carbines.



No idea why this ended up turned, I changed it before I uploaded it.

I'm using The Fang as the base color. I got their helmets and torsos painted today. They're going to need another coat on the torsos, but at least it's started!



I'm a bit concerned about exposed Tau heads. It seems like the color I'm using is going to be pretty close, so they might just blend in weirdly.

Thanks for looking!

Hmm, how about making the Tau heads a lot more pale? Almost white?

Got a little bit more done today. Mostly working on arms and weapons right now, got the first layers of The Fang down.




Plan is to paint sections of blue/grey, red and white on the guns themselves. Some weapons feature gold as well, but those are pretty much limited to the Lancers, the anti-tank units in Valkyria.

Hopefully I'll get something a bit more substantial done here soon.

 Malika2 wrote:
Hmm, how about making the Tau heads a lot more pale? Almost white?

I really like that idea, so when I was done with the weapons today and had some paint left over, I added some white to it and gave it a shot.



Think it came out a bit too dark. Might give it another shot.

I was thinking about having this for my imperial guard army! I'm glad to see someone else got this amazing idea and going through with it Keep up the good work!

 lugoffo wrote:
I was thinking about having this for my imperial guard army! I'm glad to see someone else got this amazing idea and going through with it Keep up the good work!

Thanks! Really looking forward to when I get beyond the beginning stages and can get some of the pinstripes down, then it'll start feeling a lot more Gallian and much less Blue Dudes.

Got a little bit more work done. Washed the Pathfinders with Asurman Blue, which gave them a really rich dark blue color. Darker than what I expected, but I like it.



They seem a little patchy under the flash. I could put down a third layer, but that might make them incredibly dark blue. Not entirely sure how to keep the layers even when you're washing for shading.

Nice side effect, the Shas'ui heads are MUCH more distinct!

Big update today, got the pinstriping down on these Pathfinders!

Originally I thought about putting striping down on the kneepads, like it is in Valkyria. However, my hands are way too shaky to put it on something that small. So, I decided to put the stripe down the middle on the chest armor.

To get nice crisp lines, I went out and bought some Tamiya masking tape and put a piece down just before the "ball" on the front of the chest armor.



I then put another strip on the other side.



Then I had to make the rest of the Pathfinders into little butterflies. Putting on the tape takes forever, about an hour.



Then I just painted on some skull white. Make sure that before you put down paint, you need to make sure that tape is tacked down. Smooth it down with the back of your hobby knife.

And here's the result:



Crisp.

I then flipped the tape around and moved it in a little, so that there'd be a strip of white, then red, then white.




Put down a few layers of Wazdakka Red, then it's time to see what I have wrought.





Not bad! Comes out real nice and crisp. Should look better on a blue not quite so dark.

Here's another example:



The vast majority came out real nice. However, remember how I said make sure to smooth it down with a knife? Yeah.

Seriously, DO IT.



Lots of cleanup to do here.