I love the scheme, it's sort of erie and a nice change from the more commonly flamboyant colours of the Tau I usually see. I'm basing my Sept on your scheme in "homage" to it (aka, shameless ripping off). But seriously, great models. I think that you should get some pathfinders (maybe with cloaks like this guy's http://www.advancedtautactica.com/viewt ... p?p=197610) and stealth suits next, they would look perfect!
It would be interesting to see Kroot with that scheme

Hi, Darkwater here again with a partial update on the Blacksun Cadre. After some inner warfare of the "optimized player" in me verses the "this thing is cool player" I have decided to include a Skyray in my 1500 line up (The "This thing is cool player" won by compromising that the list has 10 66% chance to hit marker-lights). Figured I would throw up two WIP pictures of the Skyray as I was planning to finish today but the downpour of rain says I can only paint the things I have already spray based (Engines, Main Body, Turret/Wings). This vehicle is my personal manifesto of "I don't need no stinking wash!" as it is done completely with dry brushing and edging effects as all of my models are (I use washes on the stalagmites for the troop bases). Anyways hope you enjoy the model as the Skyray is one of my favorite looking Tau models (Hopefully we will get some seeker missile versatility in our next codex but until then feel free to make fun of me for running it as the only hope I have of making good use of it is launching 6 missiles at once at a 3 group of killa-cans my friend sometimes runs. BOOM!).

I love it! The colour scheme is very rare, but looks great. The glow effect is fantastic and the whole painting ist fantastic, too. I love every detail!

But where are the missiles? I want missiles!

The Skyray is one of my favourite models, too. I love it. Unfortuantly the missiles look more dangerously as they are in reality.


Although I don't like your Bases, I enjoy to watch your pictures. I hope to see the complete Skyray soon!

Best regards

Hi again finally got around to finishing off all the weapon systems for my Skyray and I have to say I absolutely love the finished results. Unfortunately even though I think my painting has gotten better over the few models I have done it hasn't gotten much faster just more intricate so my army isn't progressing through my army as fast as I would like but hey, what can you do? Overall I think this is my favorite model I have done so far and since I actually managed to take a picture that isn't entirely out of focus I thought I would share.

So without further wind-bagging I present to you my finished Skyray with two pictures (One actually in focus macro shot with a few drones floating next to it and a close up view of the missile and marker-light system. I didn't get around to magnetizing the missiles yet as all the methods look pretty difficult but for now they can be removed and attached simply by the natural tight fit of the mounting racks. I may leave it that way if they decide to stay in there well enough during games.)

Green, and also purple, are such alien colours to us humans, especially green and purple light, so that's really cool. Suitably... other.

One thing though, why do the air intakes on your jet engines glow?
Yeah, I'm picking up on small stuff in a negative way, because I am jealous.

I like your bases.

@Nightsever: I assume the engine technology used by the Tau tanks is plasma based (Tau seems to be addicted to plasma). With that power medium I figured that I could get away with reflective lighting coming through the intake as well as a heating of the intake fins. Also if anyone is wondering why my plasma isn't blue; it is because my cadre uses chlorine as a reactive gas for their plasma (Guardsmen use probably use argon for their las-technology while standard blue plasma uses a combination of Sulfur and Florine) to cut down on their energy signature (pseudo science, pseudo science, pseudo science!).

Well I think my hand just fell off since I just did a start to finished a Fireknife suit in one day. I have new found respect when I look at all the wonderfully painted full army's on this site that include 3-9 suits in them. At first take I never really saw just how many details that the model offered but considering the level of "jellyness" I am feeling in my arm I think I found most of them. On top of the paint job the head, multi-tracker, plasma rifle, and missile pod are all magnetized.

If anyone is curious about the head it's just a normal XV-88 head with the neck section clipped and turned on it's side. I then filled in the missing side section of the head with green stuff to make a full rectangle of the viewing port (The chin area of the normal head is open). Then I just stuck on the smaller of the two head antennae and called it a day. If anybody likes the look of it I could probably do a quick guide with picture since I have to do at least 2 more (2 more Fireknifes, my commander will have a special helm, and the broadsides will use the standard as I think they actually fit the lumbering broadside look).

Overall I have one more tip to all you painters out there; when you actually start painting details make sure you have a good light source. One of the bendy desk lamps works great for concentrating in on your models. I start to get eye strain after a bit on the more complicated models if I don't do this. This of course leads to mistakes which need to be corrected and adds unnecessary time to each figure.

So without further banter I give you my first suit I hope you all enjoy .

Got another quick update for you all. Finally got around to painting up my obligatory Devilfish transport for my firewarriors to zoom around in. I have been trying to use a wash on a few parts (Mostly the gunmetal parts and inset corners) but the effect comes out subtle at best due to the dark nature of the paint scheme. Also my Fireknife suit snuck in there to announce that I got some more green stuff and finally based him.

Hi everyone so far my conversion work has been pretty light. So I figure now I'm going to start on one of our heaviest units (Broadsides) so I'll have to go heavy on the conversion work. Below is a few of the converted pieces I have done to give you an idea of what I'm trying to do with them.

1) Head conversion to look more armored (No exposed lenses, the bumps will just be painted the same as the armor and the visor slit will have a small glow effect). This conversion is made out of a multi-tracker that has had it's antennae clipped and reversed to the bottom side then it was flipped forward to sit on the lens side.

2) Leg conversion is made by clipping two pulse carbines behind the gun sight and forming them together with green stuff. It bulks up the shin joint considerably while still keeping the tau walker look (At least I hope tell me what you think). Then after clipping the shin off the usual leg I shaved a small indentation on the top of the converted shin to fit into the curved knee joint. I hope this conversion represent the A.S.S. system well enough as I am now changing over my broadsides from target locks (Still proxying most of my suits. But in my last game my proxy 3 broadsides decided to fail 3 moral checks in a row without being killed before walking off the board on the 4th lets just say I could have desperately used those railguns shots while they where running away from my horrible dice rolls).

3) Arms conversion is a fairly standard one from what I have seen. Just some quick green stuff slapped on after drilling holes in the metal and plastic and boom arm mounted railguns. The SMS will be located on the back at an upward angle similar to how I mount the missile pods on my Fireknifes. Right now the connection looks a little iffy so I might decide to use plasticard to create a small jointing section between arm and gun.

4) Armored skirt. While not shown here I am planning to create and armored skirt that mirrors what the Firewarriors are wearing out of some plasticard.

Tell me if you like the conversions parts or hate them, I would love to hear any suggestions if anyone thinks something might look cool.

Love the legs. A bit skeptical about the head though. Have to wait till its painted up to say for sure i guess.

I'll second the legs. It's fairly simple, something you could repeat over other broadsides, and it represents the stabilising system... It's an all round great looking idea! And arms braces sound good too, give those railguns a bit more support when they're fired.

But then I also agree with Shinji on the head. I like the idea for the bulkier look, but I think the multi tracker almost looks too tall and thin. I would say to get a "bunkered" look it might have to be focused lower down and around the neck. I wonder if having antennae on the sides would help if you were going to go for a flatter head as well, but if you're all for making them stand out from the norm I can see why you wouldn't.

Hrmmm, guess I've got some stuff to think about with the broadsides. Now that you guys have mentioned it I'm starting to get a little iffy on the head as well. On top of that I put the suit together and the arm mounted railguns looked really awkward as they hit the back side of the jetpack/heat sinks so I'll either have to redo the entire pack or mount them on the back.

So I think I'll do the following:
1) Redo the head, probably use standard head and put a piece of plasticard on top as a small armor plate
2) Mount Railguns on the back of the suits and use the standard SMS arms
OR
2) Readjust the backpack to look similar to the XV9s single central vent and keep the arm mounts my head hurts from the amount of work this will take

Also since I have been stumped on what to do with my broadsides I finished my Fireknife squad minus the shield drones so hopefully this update will give you guys at least one pretty picture (Although the gems on the multi-trackers I consider absolutely abysmal maybe I will try dry brushing them because I just cannot seem to blend the colors well on that tiny a scale) to look at.

Hey darkwater.

I really like how your force is progressing. Your colour scheme is very unique and it has grown on me more and more as i look at it. I was particularly impressed with the glow effect from your vehicle cockpits. Id really like to achieve a similar effect on my tanks but painting glowing or lighting effects isnt my strong suit . I was wondering if you'd be willing to share your process or any tips you might have?

As for your broadside head, I think the multi tracker fine but might be worth cutting up a target lock and sticking it on the front so that the multi tracker has a face of some sort.

The legs are awesome. Really nice work.

I say as the model will look more "mech" the battlesuit I suggest putting the railguns on to as it will support the model better and give it a "heavier" feel.

Look forward to your work.

Orgun

Well dropped off the face of the earth there for a bit but I finally decided on a design for my broadside and painted it up. On the plus side based on what I saw from GW's latest release wave I will never have to work with metal broadside parts again so woo-hoo for that. Also I have forgotten who I stole this head construction from but If it's yours give yourself a shout out because it looks awesome IMO and I will be using it for my iridium armor commander.




@shadow kat: Sorry this is a bit late of a response but as far as a tutorial goes with pictures I'll have to wait till I get around to painting another tank. I'm probably going to grab a Battleforce this week since I need kroot, the firewarriors to turn into pathfinders, and I'll be able to upgrade the suit to a broadside. I found a place I can buy them for 88.00 so a decent deal that and the stealths and transport are free-ish. As for a guide I can give you a text run down of what I do on the windows:

1: Solid paint your main window color onto the window make sure its a solid coat and is uniform in color.
2: Water down some white 3 water : 1 paint and gently apply to window it will sink into the corners similar to a wash but won't change anything else. This gives the semi glare effect on the edges of the window.
3: Drybrush your main window color down away from the window first in one large arc then a smaller one to make the light more diffuse as you get further away from the window
4: Dry brush white onto the window in a left to right motion this will give the window a high white saturation in the center then diffuse white away toward the edges due to the curved surface
5: Add some very light white drybrush away from the window but sticking very close to it as your just getting the first rays hitting the ship closest to the window it should still be primarily the window color you first dry brushed down

I'm not sure how it will look with your color scheme as you use the traditional yellowish ochre and I think the effect looks best on a dark color so you might need to compensate by drybrushing heavier on your original window color. Sometimes the effect looks a little chalky in this case lightly wash the window with a color close to your original widow color then apply the white corner wash over that. Hope the response wasn't too late shadow kat.

Love the broadside. I think the legs go really really well with design. Great work!

Yay! finally got around to putting the finishing touches on my commander. If you can't tell I may have taken the Shield'o part a little too literally but I like him well enough if only I could only paint tau writing correctly without it turning out all wobbly I would be happy. Also I have almost finished up my pathfinder group (Converted from Firewarriors, sorry I'm cheap ) so I will post that as soon as I finish the last two of them.

Finally finished my pathfinder squad, I don't know what was wrong with me on these guys but they took forever to finish. I assume it was probably the green stuff pants and backpack holes that took me the longest. Next time I do a group of infantry I'm afraid I will finally have to break down and actually do them batch style instead of my usual 2-4 at a time. I hope you guys like the converted pathfinder weapons and a point for whoever can guess which bits are used for the conversion of the guns.

Well the foresight is the fire warrior grenade pack, not sure about the rest of it. lovely looking models, conversion and painting.

The bits behind the grenade pack look like half of the FW backpack.

Excellent color choice, I love the termite mound bases

Well done! I was really hoping the half of a Firewarrior backpack would throw people for at least a little bit, points for you .