Well not quite got the fluff all written, but as it'll be probably be forever before I get a web site done, I thought I'd start posting some images.

So before I start... this is my painting philosophy... Simple is better, just because I'm lazy.

I'm used to painting epic and 40K is a gap filler, but love Tau, so its something I've picked up in 40K. Because epic is so simple and takes less time to paint, I have less patience for 40K and sometimes I get bored of it quickly. So I keep things simple. With my fire warriors, I do a base colour and one black wash over parts of the model and maybe repaint with the base colour again if the black drowned the colour out too much. Nope, I don't bother with highlights. It's basic, but it looks good enough and I'm happy with it. I reckon I could do a good master piece if I'm not lazy, but that is rare occurence. I have done some very nice epic deamons with multiple shading and highlights, so I dare say I have some skill. (hmm... no smiley face for bloated head).

This is two of the test colours I did before choosing my final one. I may still do some FW like this to distinguish them as a different team.


This is the Team commander... I didn't paint this, my wife did. It was her first and last model she painted as this Tau army is for her.


A close up of one of the FW and the whole FW team. You're probably counting the figures... yes there is more than 12 there in one shot, but I didn't realise until later that a team has only 12. If you read my post in the members profile, I don't play 40K!




Added these here as I didn't want to break the continuity of the three commanders. My PathFinders

These are the few gun drones I did. Just a base coat of spray paint followed by a second coat of colour. No washes, no highlights. Just very careful painting to not cross the lines.

My first team of BattleSuits. No conversions as I was still a bit afraid to try and no magnets... well actually just two for the head so I could turn the direction they are looking at. I kept the painting very simple as I wanted the colours to be crisp like that of a model Gundam. If you seen any of these assembled figures, the colours are basic out of the box plastic and need no colouring. I like that cleaness and kept with it. So once again a base coat of spray paint folowed by a base coat of colour. I did however did some shading on the energy weapon outlets.

Rather clean plasticy looking colored panels! It looks great!

One thing threw me, and continues to make my left eye twitch in utter confusion:

Missile Pod, Flamer, Multitracker?!?

Why? no, but.. but.. why? why?

it could be a drone controller and two shield drones Calaban

I love the vibrant colours ... I sort of copied a staff workers colour scheme for my tau, though he was flattered , and my scheme is quite camo-ish. Wish I'd gone with a ninja turtles look now though.

Those look good. I'm really anxious too see the commander though

haha, I guess they are Drone Controllers without the drones. I guess it makes sense to have both Battlesuits in that team have Drone Controllers to give a total of four drones, but then I don't play 40K. Anyway, they're not glued on, so I could change them if I want.

Anyway... last post for a bit. The sniper team is very basicly done as my wife liked the look and I lacked the enthusiasm to paint at the time. They also need retouching due to moving houses, some of the paint has chipped.


The Piranha, probably the second 40K vehicle I ever painted. The first was an Ultramarine Land Raider which I did do some wash and minor highlighting. But after finally painting all the large surfaces on this trying to make it look smooth using gloopy paint, I got lazy and decided it looked just as good as it was and didn't need any further work.




So I'll leave this for a while until I get around to finishing my three commanders off. There's still a bit more addons, weapons and head to finish painting, which unfortunately I need a break from.

Shas'O Kwan is the main leader, an all rounder commander. Shas'O Tung is the close combat specialist commander and currently has the most configuration becuase of the blades and shields. And finally is Shas'O Jhin who is a ranged/heavy specialist commander and requires the most work. All three have at least 24 magnets.

The piranhas look great, how did you get them too stay up tilted?

The flying base with the gimballed ball and socket on the end- they come with Piranha kits, as well as Land Speeder, and I presume Viper kits. (I got three of them from my box of three piranhas a while ago, and I love em! They are even strong enough to tilt and hold a hammerhead at 45 degrees!

I'm going to just use first names as it makes the fluff easier to write. Also this is a brief so still got details to iron out.

Fluff - Kwan and Tung are twins and joining them is Jhin who is a close sibling of the same age. The three trained together and the skills of each rubbed off each other. They graduated and went their own way, each progressing up the rank at the same rate, even though worlds apart. All three attained their Shas'O status relatively close time scales. Each developed a slightly different style of command, Kwan being the most versatile, while Tung favoured a close assault and Jhin fell in love with heavier weaponry. During one large engagement, the three commanders got called to the same world and it is this event that brought them together for the first time since their graduation. It was during this time that they shown a unique bond as each were able to predict and act upon each other's situation even before anything was communicated. It was almost as they could read each other's thoughts, a unique bond that was not quite psychic.

The three became know as the Ta'ro'cha (three minds one purpose) and sometimes they call on each other's assistance as they know each other's strengths and weakness.

Due to Kwan's versatile, she always got her Fio to customise her battle suit to the required situation to the point the Fio got a bit fed up of her changes. During one battle, she encounter a human who had salvaged a destroyed battle suit and configured it for his own needs. Fighting the urge to kill him, she decided to utilise his abilities and he became her aid and even designed a magnet power relay system. This mounts a coil that is magnetised by the suits power to pull the weapon into place that then locks together. The coil is then switched off. The energy relays were redesigned so that it could connect the power between the suit and the weapon without intervention. If the weapon was damaged during battle, the locks can be released to eject the weapon, the coil can even reverse polarity to force the weapon away if the locks fail.

OK... onto the more interesting stuff. The first two basic configuration of my Shas'O Shan'dral Kwan.

This is the first conversion I did with a XV8 and was inspired by the Tau Wargear guide at GW. But I also wanted to make changes rather than making numerous battlesuits, hence the magnet route. This isn't the original configuration, but I'm trying to show how things are added as I progress. So this is the original design stripped bare.

Standard Type 1 - Magnet Count: 31 (oops forgot the ones on the side of the jet pack and 2 behind head)



As this was my first conversion and I didn't have any spare parts at the time, I didn't do the stabilisation system. Instead I had this orange rod that i decided to represent the power core unit that was ejectable when the suit goes critical. The rod actually extends to the front of the armour where another magnet sits so this thing doesnt fall out, but can be gently pulled out. If you don't pull it all the way out, it will pull itself back in due to the magnet on the end of the rod.

The three white plastic bits on the outside of the round plastic was suppose to extend into the armour, but the small holes I drilled broke into the larger hole, so I filled them in and cut the rods off.

Paint wise I used a simple Regel Blue with the Space Wolf Blue and decided to add some simple highlights to the edges. I left out the highlight on the arms because these were originally covered with armour plates when I did the highlights. I tempted to do a bit more like add some Tau markings, but so far decided to leave it until I stop making addons. Only recently aquired a spare VX8 to test new addons.

Standard Type 1 - Magnet Count: 33 (Fusion blaster has a magnet on both sides!)


This uses an alternative left arm that is more angled to the torso that was originally designed to hold a large shield to protect its front. It was also an experimental magnet elbow joint that didn't go well so occasionally snaps apart even after super gluing together. This uses a standard right arm compared to the first configuration that is slightly extended.

The Flechette Dischargers? on the shoulders is home made using plastic card. The circles are sliced from Tau Rifles and the indents painted on. One side needs a bit of tidy up with green stuff where the plastic hasnt joined too well... but I'm bloody too lazy.

You can see the red energy lights on the Plasma Cannon in this shot and I went with red instead of blue because I was already using blue armour. So I wanted something to contrast my existing colour scheme. Hence any energy weapons that I have done this are in red to keep the army consistant.

I really enjoy seeing all of the updates to your army, it's a solid, basic scheme that really draws the eye and has been done in a very clean style. Keep posting. Thanks for sharing. You inspire me to work on my stuff.

That is some especially clean painting. Have you considered adding highlights to those firewarriors? It would really make them "pop". The bases are also pretty cool, they are basic, but they get the job done well.

Normally I'd try to make you add some battle damage and/or weathering, but it's your call. Hope to see some more updates, but with some more highlights!

I'm an epic painter more than anything and 40K is a break from that. So i tend to keep things simple. I also have a life time worth of epic to paint, so it's unlikely i will revist my Firewarriors to give them that extra 'pop'. I stopped highlighting after doing this battlesuit, purely because I got lazy and enjoyed too much doing the conversion bits.

My current problem is space to display my models and as the shelves have spare height room, I'm currently building rough terrain pieces (a power station using an old CoolMaster Jet CPU Fan) that have a few levels to it and a double Tau tower with a walkway. Rough as in meaning thrown together with little care. So will be a while before i do any new painting.

Close Assault Type 1 - Magnet Count: 35


My wife calls this the rabbit head. Simple targeter cut so the front and top fits neatly to the front of a standard VX8 head. Pulse rifle and some wire to the side and two drone atenna's fixed to the top. The power cells from fusion blasters are used as Directional thrusters on the shoulders.

The usual circle icon on the side of the jet pack was sliced off and a magnet drilled into place. This allows the Shield Generator to sit in place neatly. In the previous configuration without the Shield Generators, a replacement circle icon is used. This can be seen in the side view just under the Shield Generator. This is the circle slot base from an epic infantry. The black indent lines are actually carved rather than just painted this time.

Overload Type 1 - Magnet Count: 45 (phew think I got all of them, unless I still forgotten any)


Phew, think i got all the magnets count right now that I keep finding ones not in use in previous configurations. This is close to the original with the exchange of the special weapon and head and an underslung weapon (yet another magnet in the arm).

The Advanced Fragmentation Projector is made from Fusion Blaster barell, Flamer Pack, slightly padded out Burst cannon Body, and then three pulse rifles. With a bit of extra plastic on top of the Burst Cannon Body to increase the height to fit with the tri pulse rifles. 2 magnets on this weapon to allow it to be mounted under arm or on the right arm. Currently only this right arm allows an under slung weapon to be mounted and this limb now contains 3 magnets.

And last, the Iridium Armour on the shoulders, leg, chest and around the neck are basic plastic card with the indents drawn on. All these have magnets giving a total of 8 additional magnets. The leg, chest and neck armour shows where the other magnets are that wasn't in use in the previous configurations.

So that's every possible magnet used including the four on the side of the jet packs where the Shield Generator and Directional Thrusters are. Other than the spare magnet on each weapon that is unused, there is one other... guess where?

Man, this is all your guy's like first stuff, my first model was horrible. I feel like such a rookie. I still don't really even understand highlighting, and washing. and like any other paint technique. Although i'm not that bad at conversions.

I like the paint scheme, but I have to agree, some highlighting would really enhance the look, if only just to do some edge highlighting.

hehe, no highlight on this one either. Shas'O Tung is a close assault specialist, but still retain the main mentality of firepower. The main weaponry used (Burst Cannon) was based on a conversion in the WD that showcased several VX8 conversions and I kept a similiar colour scheme too.

Standard Type 1 - Magnet Count: 29 (i think)

Very basic design here as all the conversions have been removed to show the basic model. It uses one of the commander heads with the side bits cut off as I thought they were not part of the model. There are a lot of redundant magnets and doesn't have the ejectible power core as I had other plans for this model.

Standard Type 2 - Magnet Count: 34

The shoulder armour are made from plastic card and actually sits snuggly around the existing arm's shoulder pad. It does however slightly restrict the movement of the arm. The wing tip has a magnet allowing it to be detached and also twists and turns as it is stuck to a small steel ballbearing mounted in the shoulder plate. The plate lines are painted.

The design of the Burst Cannon mount is based on a conversion published in the WD. However I wanted the Burst Cannon to be an entirely seperate piece so I could mount them differently (I didn't have any spare Burst Cannons at the time). Using bits of plastic card I created a mount case that contains a magnet that attach to the side of the arm. It then extends to the front of the hand so the Burst Cannon can sit in the mount to look like it is slung under the arm. I used some tin sheets to save myself some magnets and also due to lack of space. The two Shield Generators have magnets, that then stick to tin sheet of the weapon mount.

Unfortunately this design isn't very sturdy as it relies on the magnet to hold it up and the shape to keep it in place. I'm tempting to redesign this and add an additional magnet to the bottom of the arm, but yet to try it.

You're a real magnet freak?!! You spent more money on magnets then for your models ^^:P
Your conversion look awesome!

In particular i like the Head of your "Overload"-Suit

I quite like the way you paint. But, but, but, there is one thing that made me feel.... that your painting would rank second is the way you wrote your tau fluff and the modifications.

Very unique, and very flexible. I like the way you paint your commanders different color schemes and the story behind them. Fantastic work!

Really good work Lextar. I'm moving this to galleries, you should be alble to post some more here shortly.

Could you clarify?

If I'm reading it right, I think Russ29 is saying that your painting is excellent, but it's your conversions and fluff that really "steal the show."