Hi, I have been meaning to start a log for my army for a while so here it is.

I have some fluff and stuff in the works but for now I'll just post some pictures while i have access to a decent camera.

Fire Warriors Scheme


Crisis Suit Scheme


Magnetised of course


Ok, The fire warrior picture refuses to resize its says its 640x480 but it seems bigger to me

Hey Firah, that is some good work there. You did an excellent job on those fire warriors. White is a rather difficult colour to work with but your stuff looks excellent! Great job!

Czar Ziggy

On to the friends of my Tau, Sadly these are not so good pictures due to my sisters camera not being available.

when I was a bit younger (in school) I used to collect imperial guard and had quite a large collection before I stopped playing. I recently found them all in a cupboard and whilst the paint jobs on them almost bought me to tears I decided to try to spruce them up, and so they are reborn as a mercenary company fighting for the tau empire.

This is the more presentable side of that collection (some of these are new)

other then these there are 2 more Leman Russ, a broken to pieces basilisk, a earthshaker platform and about 120 more guardsmen who look like they have been dipped in a paint pot.

And these! which came this morning. a salamander command vehicle and a Dkok command squad which will be converted a bit then ride in it .

Your Tau look Great its the Scheme I went for when I started and soon dropped after I realised white is one of the Hardest colours to paint I cannot really comment on the Guardsmen due to the Blurry photos But I suspect they would be good too going by you Fire Warriors and Crisis Suit So I cannot wait to see some more of your work.

And because I have not seen you about ATT before (heh I have been absent for a while now) I will welcome you here, Welcome to ATT enjoy your stay and such may we be able to help you on whatever war Gaming subjects we can

--WhiteFire--

Ethereal: I think he turned out pretty well.


Detailing on the honour blade.


And some work started on my Auxiliary Commander (not finished).


Something I was messing around with for his command squad.


The idea is that this is a communication drone for relaying orders from cadre command to auxiliaries but I'm not sure how it looks.

Pictures still from not so good camera so they came out kind of grainy .

I'm happy to see similar "hobbying materials" that I use on someone else's desk. (Bottles of JD and Jager). I really dig your color scheme and I'm looking forward to more pictures.

Anything to make painting 20 Kroot go down smoother

More Pictures!

More Fire Warriors painted, I started adding the squad markings to them now.

A Devilfish

Side View

This is most of my army so far, I have 6 fire warriors left to paint and a Sky Ray to finish then I'm allowed to buy more things

More "independent contractors" for the Tau Empire

Mercenaries are equal opportunities employers



And some questions for anyone reading:

1. Decals/transfers will matt varnish suffice to make them less shiny or are there better methods?

2. Pulse riffles, I'm at a loss as to what to do with the end of the barrels, should I sand off the protrusions so I can drill them or what?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Oh yeah, now this I like. Great color scheme and great conversions! This is the kind of stuff that makes me fall in love with this hobby all over again. Great job on that Ethereal! Where is the head on that Aux Commander from?

I am a bit of a fluff bunny myself (that only sounds normal in this context), so I'm curious what you had in mind for these guys!

http://www.hasslefreeminiatures.co.uk/pack.php?pack=1315

These are really good, especially if you are better at sculpting hair then me.

I have a bit of fluff in the works, i just gotta get round to typing it out

Regarding your questions:
1.) There are a few ways to make decal-silvering not appear. First you have to know that the "silvering" comes from tiny air bubbles that are trapped under the decal when using the decal on a matte surface. So the first step would be to apply a gloss coat over the whole model before applying decals.
For "melting" the decal to the surface (making it adhere to curved surfaces and so on), and setting it in place permanently there are special solutions from the usual modeling-companies (Revell/Tamiya/etc..). If also found that when using a clear coat of paint (matte/gloss doesn't matter) while the decal is still wet, the decal gets soaked in the paint, and blends perfectly in. I do NOT guarantee however that this works with every brand of decals, so best try this with a "leftover". This method is also perhaps not the best method for curved surfaces as there may be cross-reactions with the different paints and decal-solutions.

2.) I've been able to drill holes in the individual barrels of the pulse rifles with my smallest bit (0.3mm ~0.0118inch?), and I am by no means steady-handed or very experienced. Just get some very small drill-bits, a pin-vice and practice some holes on a bit of sprue. I've also found that using a fixing-pin for marking the location of the center of the hole-to-be helps a lot, since controlling the pin is much easier than controlling the pin-vice.

If you're afraid of ruining the barrels, I'd say just paint them black/gunmetal/whatever, and wait until you feel more secure with the pin-vice.

Here's an example of my FW's
(again, I'm not very steady-handed as you see, but it looks good from arms-length so it's ok to me )



I hope that helps a bit,
br,
steel

Cheers for the answers Steelshank I think I need to find a smaller drill bit, mine are a bit bigger then 0.3

First piece covering some fluff on my Cadre;

note: I don't know how small I can make this and it still be readable so Its hidden in a spoiler tag. I can resize it if its too big!

It's a little too small, actually . A size boost would be very helpful for readability. Or maybe I just have bad eyesight...

I missed this thread somehow, but I'll say now that I really love what you've done with your cadre. The entire collection is painted to an excellent standard, and everything is very crisp. The subtle highlights really make the whole scheme look fantastic. Also, the paint on your Devilfish has an unnaturally perfect surface. I suspect airbrush involvement.

Nice scheme and I definitely approve of a host of auxiliary types. The Sauroid lad is great and I like the mix of troops. You certainly capture that Merc feel. The odd conversions and swaps here and there really add to personalising the force.

I scanned through the thread, not sure.. have you mentioned what colour you're using for the main scheme?

Also, any chance of a shot of your Kroot?

The published article image is great, appeals to my designer sentiments a lot

- Tael.

HOLY CARP.

This is some fiiiine work!

Cheers guys



here's a link to a full size version: http://i1129.photobucket.com/albums/m510/O-Firah/40kDocument-1.jpg



The base Scheme for the army is Dheneb stone over Adeptus Battlegrey with Crimson Vior'la sept markings.

As for the Kroot:

I'm not 100% happy with them yet, I production line painted them all in one go and I don't think I did them justice but there were just so many



Thanks!

OK after work last night, and a bit this morning I have been working on my commander. The general idea is that the higher rank my Tau get the more sept colour on their gear (Shas'ui one shoulder, Shas'vre both arms and head ETC.)

General plan for how my Commander will look:



And work in progress:



Going to go by eye on this one and see how much of the suit I can get away with being red before it starts looking out of place.

Very nice background! How did you get it in that format?

Is there a chance we can get a brighter picture of the Kroot? I personally love the Kroot and I have found that washes are really an effective and easy way to get them looking good. Remember, Kroot have naturally oily skin, so a little shine from the wash is no biggie.

Can you break down that Lizard merc of yours? I have a bunch of those guys myself and I would love to put them to good use.

I also really like the direction your commander is taking. The idea of extra Sept markings is great. I'm guessing you're good at free hand?

This is some very impressive work, you went to far as to drill the barrels. Nice stuff!

The background is from here and the icons from some wiki, the astropath info and stuff is from one of the Eisenhorn books

Aye, when my sister and (more importantly) her camera gets back from uni I can do some decent shots of everything.

The Lizard guy is based on Fio'o Tael's Naga design.

Saurus legs, Space marine Scout torso, Saurus head, kroot arms (the hard part is carefully cutting them away from a kroot rifle to be repositioned on the lasgun), then greenstuff over all the gaps and cover them with pouches etc. from the kroot and imperial guard kits, finaly the shoulder pads are from the Valkyrie kit's gunners (but they could just be trimmed off any imperial guard). et viola one lizardy looking merc guy

On a related note, any info on other simple alien guy conversions that might want to join a mercenary company would be greatly appreciated

Thanks for the recipe for your main colour, appreciate the tip

I agree on the alien shout out, been dying to see more alternate allies made by the members!

- Tael.

Very nice models there.

A quick and dirty way to do the barrels on Fire Warriors is to use a hot needle.
I use either a T pin or sewing needle (the one with the eyelet for running thread through) held with surgical/fishing fly tying clamp. The clamp gives me a nice handle for accuracy and to not burn myself.
I tried using a sewing pin but I managed to break several of them from repeated reheating, the final time stabbing myself in the hand with a hot pin. (epic fail on my part there

And, only do this with your parents permission if you are under age!