Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I plan to make some very pale Tau (White and grey) but I dont think a black base would work well (I normally coat it with abadon black, THEN do the base colors I actually need, like Macragge blue or Leadbelcher) so would it be safe to use dheneb stone in place of abadon black?

Not sure I totally understood the question, but if you want the end product to be white/light, a white basecoat is definitely the way to go.

Waethion wrote:
Not sure I totally understood the question, but if you want the end product to be white/light, a white basecoat is definitely the way to go.

Basically what I do is two base coats. One of solid black, to keep the colors even. Then one of the "Detail" base, with the example of a space marine on the Citadel pamphlet, the color the body would be (Marcagge blue), the gun (Leadbelcher), other big things.

I wouldn't recommend using a paint for the first layer, but a primer. A proper primer (I recommend a spray, but there are brush-on primers as well) will bond much better to the plastic miniature than a regular paint will.

Primers come in various colors (check out ArmyPainter sprays for instance). Sounds like for your Tau you'll want a white or stone-ish one. You can then put down your base colors.

Waethion wrote:
I wouldn't recommend using a paint for the first layer, but a primer. A proper primer (I recommend a spray, but there are brush-on primers as well) will bond much better to the plastic miniature than a regular paint will.

Primers come in various colors (check out ArmyPainter sprays for instance). Sounds like for your Tau you'll want a white or stone-ish one. You can then put down your base colors.

I would get some if the Tau where my main army, but I play mostly nids now, and just have some tau from back when I was searching for the right army.

I second Waethion's comments and recommend not going with paint on primer. If you don't want to spend the money on army painter, go to your hardware store and look for Krylon paint and primer. Its pretty cheap like $6 a can, it is well worth the money to save you problems later and down the line you never know when you might want to base something white.

Perhaps you want something similar to this:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/576933.page#6494561 (referring tot the last image).

I used a gray base with layers, exact paint scheme should be in the thread.

Priming and leaving it as the dominate color normally looks like garbage as primer is either a matte (no shiny color and seems to absorb all light touching it to look dull) and a shiny (reflects light and seems to practically glow). What is recommended is to use white as your bases then either airbrush on another color of white, such as bleached bones over it. This will make your Nids either shine more or make them look softer in texture. I always use grey primer myself because I don't want either a hard edge feel or a shiny tone to my minis.


If you are dead set on using a primer to paint the majority of your models learn to use a wash to hide how flat and boring a primer is by itself.

If you want a white over-all tone do a white primer (matte or gloss, matte is the wiser choice) do a brown based wash, then do a thinned skull colored white over that. With another wash layer to top it all off. Your last wash layer should be watered down as well to allow the bone color to dominate all high points and make recessed areas darker. Let each layer dry fully before moving to the next layer.