Yes, the Skyray box has the devilfish, hammerhead, and skyray sprue(s).

This information makes me exceedingly happy.

Though, to me it makes little sense, as it is cheaper than the HH

The doors are magnetized, you missed that? Mwuhahaha (evil laugh), my magnet-Fu must be strong then!
And sorry @ Monk: yes, the backdoor is magnetized too! In my Devilfish the backdoor tended to drop, which I "solved" with a miniscule bit of putty between the door and hull. So with the Sky Ray I wanted a more permanent solution.

The mount, hmm... maybe I will sometime. At the moment I have no plans with the mount.

The interior will have some guns in the rack, maybe a helmet or 2. I wasn't planning any big mods, but who knows?
As I am still fairly new at this, I tend to stay a bit on the conservative side.

Sorry, I missed that part
In that case, well cool. You can always add a sturdier mount later (or what it breaks... honestly that's what I think will happen). That's harder to do with the door.

Since I promised to show all steps, here a little update:

Before i can start to assemble the Sky Ray, the inside must be -mostly- done.
I allways sand all parts and test-fit them untill I am convinced all will fit nicely. With grey I primed all the parts that will be directed to the inside of the Sky ray.
Now it's time to airbrush all the parts. I never seem to use stock colours. I just mix some stuff untill I am happy. This is bleeched bone/ skull white and some Bubonic Brown, all watered down a lot.
My airbrush is a new toy, which I am still learning to use properly. But boy, am I happy with it!



Then i just have fun detailing parts. Imagining wear and tear, corrosion, whatever happens to come up. I believe in happy accidents, so little bumps and scratches I encounter in the plastic are incorporated into the paint scheme.




The floor is a crazy mix of Tiles painted with catachan green mixed with black, and in between watered down Mechrite Red. Don't ask me why I chose this scheme.
Guess I wanted some contrast with the light walls. I have this crazy bottle of Catachan Green/Black/Dark Angel Green which I use for all the dark greens of my army. I mixed it with some Astronomican grey for the bench.

Below you can see the assembled parts and the snapshot i took from the inside. Now isn't that a cozy room?

Man, I wish I had an airbrush. it seems like it makes doing any vehicle parts so much easier.

I did my interior, but not with the detail that you did, mainly because no one will ever really see it. =\

Patchoro :
Even if that mix seems a little strange, it works very well for the floor of the Devilfish! It looks suitably new and worn from tau'cyr of use at the same time. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if armies painted in that color mixture started popping up, since from what I can see it looks pretty slick.

As is everyone else, I'm very excited to see this beast as it completes painting and construction!

hey guys,

I promised a step by step log of my Sky Ray, but I fear the content of this update may be too basic. if so, please tell me, and I will only update on more notable progress.

Since I have a fundamental dislike against mold lines and gaps in vehicles they just have to be killed!
With some Humbrol model filler I fill all the gaps and gluelines. I know, it looks like a mess!





The filler comes in a tube. I squeeze some of it on a piece of paper, plastic whatnot. With a sculpting tool I apply the filler. This stuff dries up fast! You have to apply it within 5 minutes or it won't stick to any surface. the upside of this is that within a few minutes you can start to sand it. The filler doesn't become that strong, so sanding goes quite fast and easy.



Time to prime this baby! I use War Painter gray primer spray.



As you can see I haven't placed the engine intakes yet. I glue them in quite late in the building process, just because I consider that easier.
Those will be primed black.
Above picture looks a bit better then the real thing. I still have to do some touch ups and reprime those.

So far this rather mundane update. Hope you guys haven't fallen asleep...

I am going to have to try this on my next 'Fish to get rid of some of the extra lines. What did you use?

@ crunchy_monk: unless my brain is reading something that isnt there, i believe he said it was this stuff: http://www.emodels.co.uk/plastic-kits/h ... 10823.html

I must say that the fish exterior looks absolutely flawless and that I WILL be 'stealing' this technique... Can anyone say if this can be done just as easily with green stuff? I'm not 100% sure how green stuff behaves during sanding.

Thanks. I do declare some oversight on my part, as he DID say what it was at the beginning of the previous post.

Oh well....

I have tried it with greenstuff and it is quite difficult. I'm not saying you can't do it, but...

@Patchero:
I would say that this is a perfectly acceptable update, ask the mods though. Anyways, like I said, I've been trying to fill in mold lines with greenstuff... not working out. I'll grab some of this putty stuff! Thanks for the info/update.

Edit: Looking at the link tehlegend shared, it doesn't seem to be in a squeeze tube. How do you keep what you don't use from drying out?

The link shows the box. Within it is a squeeze tube. So no worries.

Another day, another update.

I've airbrushed the Tank with fortress gray. Then masked all surfaces which are supposed to remain gray with Tamiya masking tape, which is way, way, waaaay better then the ordinary sticky tape I used the first time.



Then i airbrush the tank with my silly mix of charadon granite/dark angel/black.



Remove the tape and: presto!



Now this camo pattern isn't ready yet. It has to be lightly airbrushed with fortress gray to blend in better with the base colour.



You'd think that since I did this before the second time would be easier. Think again!
The first time I hadn't a clue what I was doing and I had thinned that last layer of fortress gray way too much, which resulted in a great effect.
As I have stated before: I am a firm believer of happy accidents.

Now this time I was a little more experienced and the mix was okay. And that ruined my effect! Arrgggg! The camo pattern was way lighter than the first tank!!
(in real life it looked worse then the picture suggests)
I tried some fixing but all to no avail. So I was forced to go back to fase 1 and do it all over again. Sigh...
Crunchy_Monk started awhile ago a topic about painting tips. (http://www.advancedtautactica.com/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=16361)
I said then: never give up, it is only paint. You can do it again until you get it right.

Which I did.



The second time it turned out just fine. Now on to detailing.

Yeah, I realized after I posted that was probably it... good to know anyways.

I actually think I prefer your method of posting small updates frequently. And I totally couldn't see a difference between the two tanks in your first attempt.
The tank is looking good, you're a really fast painter. I guess having an airbrush could help a little...

I've been hearing good things about Tamiya... using painters tape on my models did not end well. Theirs is specially formulated for models?

Looking superb! I really like the way subtle camo effect enhances the visuals of the 'fish. Irt will really look nice once you have both of them painted up, side by side.

The base is done. I allready painted the cockpit and nose with my magic mix of charadon granite/dark angel green and lots of black.
The lines in the hull are traced with thinned chaos black.
Just to show that when you like painting a somewhat weathered army you can also do a clean paint:



From here on it goes downhill for the Tank. It's time to inflict some wear/tear/damage upon the poor machine! Mwhuhahahaha!
Hmmzzz... explaining my method becomes somewhat fuzzy from here on. First of all: I went a little berserk on all this nerdy stuff and hence forgot to take pictures of -let's call it- progress.
I end up in a zone where time means little and so efficiency is out of the window.
I'll try to retrace some steps:
Filled some areas, like doors with orange.
Drybrushing with lighter shades for subtle wear/tear.
Paint some specific damage with lighter shades for scratches, dark for dents.
Deep impact damage I touch with a little dot of mitril.
Highlight damage / highlight black lines in hull / highlight all coloured areas.
Paint symbol, paint cockpit window (mechrite red, highlight with mixed in white).
Painting damage, adding detail and highlighting is a fuzzy area. I often mix tasks just to keep me focused.
Now I do smears, smoke, dirt (drybrush), oils (with inks)

Then suddenly time restarts and I suddenly seem to have twin Tanks!





Detail:



Things to do:
Weapons (haven't even began the Sky Ray)
Turrets
Highlighting hull curves, highlighting engines.
Airbrush engines and add some smoke.
Equipment front turret
Drones
Glue Engine intakes and paint some cool engine glow
Stuff (neverending WIP: detailing)

Adding sensor spines etc etc. Any suggestions for loadout and placement?

This is some incredibly awesome work. Those tanks are A-grade and top notch. While I like the sand theme the best for tau models...this is an exceptionally well painted scheme.

Patchoro, I do not like how fast you are cranking out tanks. Please stop making us all look bad. You need to spend two months working on a tank like I do.

Seriously though, this is some great stuff! I really like the weathering effects; very simple but effective. Very well done! As for the weapons, I always like the look the SMS gives to a Skyray. I always felt that it emphasizes the missile platform role.

I absolutely love your kroot ^_^ Very colorful and lively. I think I am going to take your cue and try and add some looted parts, since I have some extra marine stuff laying around.

Let me ask you, what do you think would make a good color for Kroot in a desert themed Cadre? I have been mulling over what color I should paint my kroot, and I just cannot make up my mind. >.<

Don't worry, only the basing goes really fast, thanks to my airbrush. It makes a big difference. Surfaces are quite easily covered.
My speed drops to almost zero when I start detailing. This can take forever when I enter a somewhat autistic mode. (See pictures below)
The drones will be equipped with the SMS, it just looks so cool! Somehow I don't like the look of a drone with a burst cannon. IMHO it looks a bit unconvincing.


I would advice you to google a lot of Kroot images and search ATT. That helped me a lot. I opted for a contrasting colour to make them stand out in my army. However you have to make up your mind for yourself in this matter.

Detailling
I have finished the Hammerhead gun. Currently I am experimenting with rust effects. I used a mix of blazing orange with Citadel skin wash, heavily watered down.
I am quite pleased with how that came out:





Here a closer look at the Railgun.



Notice the rust in the black area? Yeah i know, crazy detail. Hence above remark about production speed dropping to almost zero.