I've been slowly assembling and painting a Tau army for a while now. I didn't want to post anything till I had a decent amount to show. So here they are, Comments and criticism are welcome.
























Hope you liked them.

Hang on a sec, I have to go collect my jaw from the floor

These guys are beautiful, honestly. They look spectacular from a distance, and hold up even under closer scrutiny. Bravo, I would be honoured to have that army deployed across from me on the table top.

Very well done I particually like the markings on your kroot and the HH looks like its ready for combat

I hope you plan on showing more as your cadre grows

I REALLY like your hammerhead. It has very clean lines, and a VERY subtle camouflage effect which is almost unnoticed (that being the genius of it). Good job sofar.

Those look absolutely amazing!! The Hammerhead looks exactly like the 'eavy metal team's! The best T'au scheme I think I've ever seen (On the 'fish for sure)!

Excellent work, Manus. I especially like the detail on the Kroot.

If you would tell where you live I'de come and steal that hammerhead from you - it looks so delicious, just like a muffin yam yam!

Now serioussely - they look superbly! Especialy the kroot and drones, not to mention the FWs. I must say i envy you a lot.

I can tell a lot of time, effort, care, attention and love went into these models.
I can see you copied the codex, and tried to emulate the the eavy metal team, I'd like to congratulate you on successfully achieving the eavy metal codex standard.

Something constructive from me for you to choose to consider on future projects - Extreme Edge Highlighting. Its not a true way to highlight objects.

Hightlights are reflections of light. Light reflects differently on different subjects. You can get a glossy black pvc catsuit and get very bright white highlights, or you can get a dull matt black to a guns casing and it will only offer up a dull matt grey highlight. Essentially both are black though.

Tau militery kit in my opinion is matt, why paint something in camoflage, and then represent shiny bright highlights? Its like saying "hi I'm trying to hide with my camoflage, but the sun glinting off my armour is giving my position away!"

I painted my tau with very muted soft tones and highlights to represent that.

Just some food for thought really, I'll let you decide if its of any use to yourself.

Wow...

Those are extremely well painted!

It almost makes me want to go 'vanilla' again

Good work. Especially the HH

Thanks for sharing such a well painted force. The HH camo is so crisp and clean. You have a great idea for detail. Couldn't help but laugh when I saw the bloody shank of meat dangling off that one Kroot. It's so appropriate for a carnivore squad yet it's the first I see someone paint them in such g(l)orious detail.

Get back to painting and keep us posted.

Thanks you all so much for the compliments. I don't go into my local GW too much anymore so I don't often have to chance to recieve feedback on my work. I did go straight from the codex (obviously) and it truly makes me feel good to have my work compared to the 'Eavy Metal Team's. I simply liked the color scheme, and believe it or not, I hadn't painted models before this. That middle firewarrior squad was my very first squad of troops, you could tell more if I had included close ups of them. Gareth, I greatly appreciate the criticism, I love to paint and am always trying to improve my control and technique. I went with the extreme highlighting because these were my first models and there was tons of source material to work from. I haven't done a whole lot of searching for examples of the more advanced techniques, so I haven't branched out yet. When I get to my HQs, however, I hope to have a better command of my skills.

Excellent work, the hammerhead particularly, great brush control

A superb table top army indeed!

~ Tael.

That's a very good looking army. I love the GW offical Tau desert camo scheme, and it's very nice seeing it replicated this well. The Hammerhead in particular looks good enough that I'd like to bite it.

I also think you got a very healthy approach to painting the whole army, starting out with the basic troops, and saving the HQs for when you have the most chanse of having learned the most during the project to get the most out of the commanders. Many who start out just head straights for the HQ to ruin the coolest models first.

A very nice army, and this being your first army, does show you have great qualities for becoming a good miniature painter. You can clearly observe how to paint stuff fast, and that's very imporant when learning to paint. Look forward to seeing more.

Cheers

nice work, that hammer head is very nicely done.

The kroot with their war-paint, nice touch!

The Tau scheme is a good looking scheme and it's such a great painting exercise.

Please keep us posted, keep painting!

I have a quick question. "How you paint so good?" Man those are some nice models. Are you gonna use those for gaming or just showing off, cuz that would be my showing set. That speaks volumes of my painting skills. Anyway, "You go Boy" !

That Railhead is fantastic! I also like your kroot very much.
one thing, though-what are you using for your highlghts? It might look better if it was a little more subtle. other than that, you're doing really well.

You call that modest? I didn't even call my forces modest, and these are better than mine. Won't get much better than this mate.

I can't add anything to improve here.

You're good, keep it up !

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Awh well, some battledamage would do nicely, but that's personal preference. I dig a battle-experienced force, these look a bit 'fresh from the factory'. But hey, by all means don't listen to me, they look good as they are

These are absolutely brilliant! well done, I particularly liked your kroot.

I used Bleached Bone as the Final Highlight, though some of the less prominent areas of the HH are highlighted with Bronzed flesh. I've only mixed a few pots of custom paint (the darker camo color being one, and the Kroot flesh tone being the other) So I'm thinking of mixing a more subtle Highlight for my Devilfish and HQs. The next thing(s) I'll post here are my Crisis Suit Squad (3) which I'm currently working on, and my XV15 Squad. Regarding the Stealth Suit Squad; I've painted enough minis by now to feel comfortable with the codex scheme, but I never like the dark, muted red that they used for the stealth suits. I feel like the stealth suits may be a good way to come up with an alternative paint scheme that fits their role, but still meshes well with the look of the rest of the army. I've been think about a dark blue or green scheme... or I was also thinking of doing a mottled desert camo instead of the geometric pattern that is on my vehicles. Tell me what you think.