Greetings and salutations.

Some pictures of my dudes.
They looked much better painted when I was just viewing them by eye.

Shas'o Sa'cea Wi'nona Ry'dr (O'Ry'dr)




Fire Warriors





Crisis suits







A shield drone what I made


I have reinforcements in the shape of three Broadsides on the way (in the post). Also, a bunch more FireWarriors and Kroot to paint up.

C&C welcome, and all that jazz.

I love the colour scheme, grey and orange work so well together! I almost painted my cadre that colour too

Thanks, man.
The orange really pops against the grey without overpowering it completely, I feel.

All my guys are just out of the box. I'm not confident in my skills to attempt a conversion like what you did.
I'm gonna have a go at (or at least a really good think about) converting my Broadside team leader when they arrive.

There is also an incredibly green kroot hiding in the background of one of those pictures.

Have a go at a conversion, all you need is the right tools and some patience but do think through what you want to do first and how you want your model to appear as it not always easy to change something once you have started. My Shas'El was my first conversion I did (it's on the lower concourse somewhere) and the Shas'O was my second, so you don't need lots of modelling skill to make something look effective and different, just some patience. So my advice is just try it!

I will have a go.
I've been planning out mentally what is required to convert my Boradside team leader to be holding a huge twin-linked rail rifle (a pretty standard conversion as far as B'sides go I think) and scoping out other threads in the Lower Concourse for inspiration.
I think it will require some kind of armoured cables to connect the 'rifle' to the backpack, and the Tau range is a little short on things like that. So some thoughts about that need to be... thunk.

I promised myself I would get through my backlog of dudes before starting on the Broadsides, so I have 11 Kroot and 4 more Firewarriors to finish first. I did finish my Monat though, the one who had the black legs and arm in the pics above.

There are some great bits on the kroot sprue that can be used for cables. I used some on one of my broadsides...

I think there are about six of these in a box, might only be four but they're great as cables.

Good shout, Space Pope.

So here is some stuff that I've finished recently.

A kroot


I was testing colour schemes on this guy. Catachan green I thought was too dark, so now he's goblin green.

Shas'vre Vior'la Tash A'yarr (who is from a different Sept from the rest of my guys, since he's a monat tankhunter I decided he was from Vior'la to reflect his more hot-blooded nature. Also, he was the only survivor of an absolute curbstomp of a battle I had against a 'nid horde.)




Broadside Teamleader

I know I made a big deal about converting this guy, but my skills were supremely lacking and this was the best I could manage. The other two will have thier railguns mounted on thier shoulders.

This is where the magic happens

So, painting light grey armour panels gets very boring very quickly. I still have not painted or even glued up those four outstanding firewarriors. Two Broadsides remain in the box they were posted to me in. The other one, pictured above, acquired a black basecoat and a dark grey undercoat, to be plainted with a lighter grey later, before I got bored and took a break from painting for a couple of weeks.
Drones. I have a metric buttload of drones (gun, and scratch build shield and marker (TA + antenea from vehicle sensor spine)) still to paint (light grey), two broadsides (light grey), and a crisis suit to take the team up to three members (guess what colour).

Kroot!
I love painting kroot.
Mine are very green.
They are likw Gurkhas, I decided, and the Shaper is called Kuhkri.

My Tau are very clean an very bright, almost cartoony in their not quite primary colours. This represents how naive they are. They are unprepared for how dark and gritty is the universe that they inhabit.
None of my dudes have chipped paint or damaged plates because in my mind the Tau are hypercompetent engineers. Any damage would be fixed and faulty equipment repaired or replaced as soon as possible. Fio'El Jim'yl Fixit is the guy ultimately resposible for keeping the Tranquil Fury Interdction Cadre's gear all working within tolerable limits.
I'll see about modelling him somehow at some point.

So I took a break from painting dudes for a while because painting grey armour gets really boring, as I mentioned before.
So here's some new stuff.

Enjoy!

Kroot!



Broadside!


I have two more waiting to be constructed and painted. This one is the team leader, so his railguns are mounted on the arms rather than the shoulders.

Devilfish APC




Ethereal



I'm going to do some writing on his sashes, there's room for maybe four or five characters on each, so suggestions what to write would be nice. Some kind of reference to another media, given that my Shas'O is called Wi'nona Ry'dr and my monat is named for the original security officer on Star Trek TNG.

Good placement and brush control, the Kroot particularly. Certainly setting yourself up for advanced techniques.

Couldn't make out much on the Ethereal; need a reshoot of that lad when you can

- Tael.

Thanks boss.

For whatever reason the camera did not want to focus on him, and those are the two pictures, believe it or not, where you can see the most detail. Perhaps he has some bit of kit that prevents him being actively targetted by primative human technology.

I'm going up to the GW tomorrow, to pick up a bunch of paints (more black needed) so when I'm there I'll have a look at some dark green washes for my kroot.

So I bought my dark green wash (Dakka Green?) and applied it to some Kroot. Gotta say it makes them look a lot better.

The Monat (T'asha Y'arr) was basically attacked by a paintbrush and a pot of Devlan Mud. He's looking pretty beat up now, really, which I decided is totally in character for him, based on some embryonic fluff I'm working on.

Basically, he's from a different Sept, doesn't entirely trust his new Cadre and flatout refuses to let their Earth Caste (particularly Fio'El Fi'ori Jim'yl Fixit) anywhere near his Crisis Suit. He has the psychosis after his old Cadre, except him, was wiped out by 'nids.

I put together a model of Fixit from some bits I had lying around, based mostly on the tank commanders you get with 'fish, and I'll stick up some pictures of him and accompanying drone with the next batch. I also redid the ethereal blurrily pictured above, too much gold I reckoned, and it completely overpowered the rest of the model. So new pictures of him and some washed kroots at some point.

Thanks for reading.

So here are some pictures of dudes you've seen before, but better!

As requested, ethereal. Better focus and fixed up colours.



Washed kroot!



Monat, who has been in the wars the last time you saw him.

No pictures today, so if you came here for that I will have to disappoint you.
Yeah, I don't paint the greatest looking dudes on the planet, but then this ain't a Golden Daemon entry. As long as my army looks good enough when it's looking at you over the top of their weapons I am a happy hobbyist.

So, pathfinders.
In accordance with the rules I have set myself, I'm working on some Pathfinders right now. Since no firewarriors in my army are armed with carbines, I can use the basic dudes as pathfinders (minus the armoured shoulder plate). Also, to make them stand out a little bit more (or blend in, aha, since they're scouts) they're fortress grey with battlegrey fatigues. Which I think works because the rest of my army is mostly space viking werewolf grey with black and ocassional bits of shadow grey. They're still grey and thus cohere with the overall scheme, but stand out a little less in an urban environment.

And now for the issue I'm having.
Their 'fish. Should it be the same concrete grey/urban camo scheme as the Pathfinders, or the regular grey of the other 'fish featured above somewhere?
I'm worried because it's such a big model that it'll look out of place compared to the rest of mine army.

I also got some Stealths, so I'm wondering whether to do those mostly shadow grey or mostly battlegrey. They'll have either SW or fortress grey shoulder pads to tie 'em in with the rest of my dudes.

Advise me, please.

So, uh, yeah. Some stuff, as threatened earlier.


So a side-by-side of a FW and "PF" in similar poses to try and judge if the colour schemes look too different or the duller grey of the 'finder works with the standard blue-grey of the rest of the army. Thoughts?
The gyro-stabiliser on his gun is silver because gold stands out too much against the grey. Also, lights and lens are green instead of red for pretty much the same reason.
The pattern - fortress grey for spacewolf grey, battlegrey for shadow grey, silver for gold and no orange markings - will be carried over to the Pathfinders' fish once I get around to putting the thing together. It's a camo thing. They're not meant to stand out. Also, I imagine that a pathfinder's career paths leads from a pathfinder team to a stealth team rather than a crisis team. They're mavericks.



Some Stealths. Decided on shadow grey as the main colour here, but with some SW grey to tie them in with other the other units. There will eventually be a full compliment of six.


And a work in progress Railhead for some heavy firepower! I love the smell of submunitions in the morning. Smells like... victory!

I am in the process of turning a few more Firewarriors into Pathfinders by leaving off the big shoulder pad and giving them carbines instead of rifles, and I've (finally!) gotten around to putting together the other two B'sides I have. As I say every time I mention them, they will have their railguns mounted on their shoulders.

I really like painting kroot. I got 12 more.
I got a pretty simple method, and I think they look really nice.
Basecoat skin with catachan green, then goblin green over that, leaving recesses and folds and whatnot the darker colour.
Basecoat leather and the... I don't know what they're called, the chest and belly and quills, with graveyard earth. Leather will then be done I think it's bestial brown. Chest belly and quills are bleached bone.
All the green areas get a wash of Thrakka Green, everything else is Devlan Mud.
And then all the little spines, nails, eyes and stuff are picked out in white.

I like vibrant colours.

I think I will go for orks when I am done with the Greater Good, based mostly on the fact that they're also green, and a similar method will work for them.