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Recently got back in to 40k, after playing briefly 20 years ago. Building myself a new Tau army, and have very little paint experience. So far I have only painted one fire warrior to test my paint scheme, and wanted to get some feedback and tips before I tackle the rest!

I decided to go with something a little different color wise, with a majority dark metallic color to keep it from being too flashy, while having a bright electric blue accent color and a bright orange sept color. Was inspired by the Gulf Oil Racing livery scheme. Going to add orange tau graphics after I finish everything else, but otherwise he is done.

Edit: I have updated the pictures after tweaking a couple things, and added the Crisis suit as well. Full album with old pics here: http://imgur.com/a/KwZ6O





Aside from a little sloppy brush work, any ideas what I can improve? Thanks for the advice!

Emblem needs to be touched up a bit. Redefine the symbol on it. I actually like the scheme.

Looks completely fine as a simple tabletop quality paintjob. No problem here.

Spacewolverine is right.

You don't see a lot of metallic Tau around. That said, I like the color scheme on this model! As has been mentioned, there are some areas that could use some touchup work, but considering its the first model you've done in 20 years I think it's pretty solid!

It's quit 'noir'... I love it.

Interesting!!!

Paint scheme is sweet. Little touch ups here and there, but considering this is your first model in awhile, I think you've done really well!

I see where you're going with this paint scheme and I like it, yet another Tau theme that I might "borrow" for my own forces.

My only recommendation, the paintjob seems a bit "grainy" in appearance. I think that just a little more practice will get you past that quickly.

Thanks guys. I made a couple tweaks and have updated the first post with new pictures.

It does look a little grainy in the photos due to the metallic, the camera doesn't capture it well. Because the texture moves as you look at it it doesn't look like that in real life as much.

I like the scheme and the lighting effects.
For edge highlights, I think they're a bit too heavy handed here and there, especially on the blue-ish, non metallic parts. Thinner lines there would feel cleaner. If you like the thick highlights, I think straighter and more uniform lines would benefit the model further.
All in all very cool idea though!

 He_Man_Russ wrote:
I like the scheme and the lighting effects.
For edge highlights, I think they're a bit too heavy handed here and there, especially on the blue-ish, non metallic parts. Thinner lines there would feel cleaner. If you like the thick highlights, I think straighter and more uniform lines would benefit the model further.
All in all very cool idea though!

I completely agree, having trouble making them smaller and lighter though. What is the best way to do it? I tried using a mostly dry brush and dragging the side along the edge to just touch the sharp edge - it worked ok on sharp edges, but the more rounded ones like on the crisis suit left too wide a line. Using the tip didn't seem to work too well either. What is the technique?

In this model, as it's already done nicely, I'd just add the blue back over the areas where the highlight color banked into too much flat surface until it looks all straight and even, carefully drawing blue lines parallel to the highlight could work, closer and close, until you start thinning out the highlight finally. Thin paints, as always!

Generally, I'm sure there are tons of smarter ways to do it, but what I would do is using the side of a normal layer or detail brush, very dry and pass it lightly over the edge. As with every technique, it might take some retouching after that.
If the edge just isn't sharp enough to collect pigment correctly, I just manually paint the highlight line and keep adjusting highlight lines and regular color beneath it, until the highlighted edge line looks straight and natural. If you do this, it's more about being consistent in all the lines you draw, rather than achieving a certain, predefined, thinner or wider width.
Not the fastest way, but patience will ultimately give you the desired result.

If you're interested, you can also try a smooth transition with glazing, from flat surface to highlight.
There are many good tutorials for that. A bit fiddly, but it will greatly improve the effect.