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Hallo all,
So here is my first attempt at painting minis. I used artists grade acrylics, not gw or mini paint. Please critique and thanks.
Beast

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The finish could do with being smoother, but they work very well when you're not up close.

very well done for your first tau.

That's a pretty good first time painting there! I didn't figure out highlighting, or secondary colors, or blending, for years and years. I look at one of the models I painted fifteen years ago and I honestly wonder how it could possibly have actually won an award.

Something that gets tossed around a lot is the idea of thinning your paints. It's very good advice. Some people will tell you to use fancy stuff -- I just use a drop or so of water. The paints last longer, you can control the brush strokes more and they won't show as much, and it's easier to blend if you use lighter layers. It also means you can add more layers of color before the details begin to distort. And it will look a lot smoother, too!

Excellent work on the basing, too! When I'm about ready to base mine I paint the entire base in a light brown color. You can use green, brown, whatever color you think looks best. Keep the lip clean of basing and use it to mark individual units, or paint a name on it. Here's the way I based mine -- you don't need to fill the entire base with grass, and sometimes it almost looks better if you don't.

Great advice guys; thanks! I ended up overworking the pieces badly; 5 or more layers in some places. The next patch I hope to be a little more in control. I'm also using painting acrylics, not miniature acrylics.

I tried to base only a portion of the bases with grass, but had control issues with the glue.

The finish is noticeable thick, probably because you aren't using miniatures paint. While I don't know if you made that decision for cost reasons or something else, but for the orange, you might think of using a Foundation paint (Dheneb Stone) to basecoat the armor. Any paint you put over that would cover better and be smoother (less coats).

Superb! It is nice to see a truly unique painting style once in a while. I really like 'em and would say dont change a thing about your technique. The only issue you may have will be painting vehicles, you may have to invest in some mini paint for those.