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Hello,

I recently started collecting again and purchased some Tau from my local GW. The store manager was very helpful and helped me pick out some paints and brushes. He offered to show me some painting tips but at the time I was in a rush so I had to decline.

I have four citadel paints. A dark red (base), black (shade), light red (layer) and a bright red (layer).


I have no idea what I am supposed to do with them

I sprayed a mini with skull white, applied the base paint and then applied the shade a couple of hours after. The next day I used the light red (layer) to highlight some of the prominent armour and helmet.
I then went over everything with the bright red. My assumption was that the area that has been given a light red layer would look different but it just looks the same.

Any help would be great!

Your mistake was covering everything in the bright red. The lightest color (final highlight) should only be used on the most raised areas and in small amounts to give the illusion that light is hitting it. The idea is to make a gradient effect going from dark to light. For armored models like tau , you would probably use the bright red only on the edges of the armor.




For example, you can see on these guys that the segments between the armor are dark from the wash (shade), the armor itself is a midtone color (your light red) and then a lighter color was used to highlight the edges of the armor (bright red). You don't have to do it this way but this is the simplest method of doing highlighting. Things like cloth are little harder since the raised areas and edges aren't so clearly defined but you get the idea.

Thanks for the reply Greenizbest.

The pictures were also helpful. I may leave the highlighting initially until I have painted all of my firewarriors.

Would you suggest that I paint the figures on the sprue?

Painting bits on the sprue is something of a bone of contention between people. I've found that its really only useful for small decorative bits that might be too fiddly to paint when glued on but don't have enough area to hold by themselves. Bits like pouches, holters, etc.

It really just comes down to personal choice in the end. Some people find it easier, some don't.

Painting on sprues is a bad idea even just for the fact that while the parts on the sprue you can't really remove mold lines and "leftovers" from the points where the bits are attached to the sprue - and of course those attachment points will then be left unpainted. And so forth.

Personally I don't like painting on the sprue because by the time I clip them off and clean up the mold lines, I will have to repaint half of it. I do, however, paint some pieces separately like backpacks or arms if they would be blocking other parts of the body.

If you are not up to painting highlights, you can always try painting using a lot of washes.

By painting this way you paint darker from white - use reasonably light colours for each of your block colours, then wash using a darker shade to add shadow. You can then re-paint highlighted areas with the original colour if needed.

You can even paint almost entirely with washes if you really want to. These nids are painted almost completely with washes and inks, with only the odd bit of tone added with undercoating certain bits in other colours.

My Eldar are painted similarly, undercoating white, then using a paint thinned to wash consistency to paint the models complete with subtle highlights. A final thin wash of black with a water wash over the top (to wash the black off the raised parts) adds shadow to the recesses.

Thanks for the helpful replies.

Now just to decide on my paint scheme.

I am thinking of doing the armour plates in red and the cloth in white with a black shade/wash so it looks darker and a little more defined.