Tau: First experiments with paint - Part 1

I couldn't resist any longer. I'm nowhere near finishing building all my models, but I'd ordered some paints the other day for this project and I had to try them out. I just couldn't not do it any longer.

I made a commitment at the beginning of this project:

• Every Fire Warrior/Pathfinder/Battlesuit model in the army will feature a significant amount of airbrush work - Zenithal Highlighting is my intention,

and the paint I ordered was for just that reason. A set of Minitaire paints from Barwell Bodyworks. I had already primed my models using a rattlecan grey primer and set to work this morning on a few bits and pieces for testing purposes as much as anything else.

I laid out some masking tape, sticky-side-up, on a flat surface to stop bits blowing around as I painted them and painted both sides with "Nautilus Blue":

You'll note some of the pads have arms attached and others don't. I'm building a lot of this force out of ebay cast-offs and had to strip a lot of models down. Some came apart better than others.

I had some paint left in the airbrush so I shot it at a few fire warriors.

Next I went in with a highlight on the upper-edge and sides of the pads with some "Werewolf Grey" (which is clearly blue):

Less paint leftover in the airbrush this time so only three models highlighted.

And lastly I shot some "Snow White":

The photos (especially of the fire warriors) don't really do the result justice. The models have a nice "ice blue" sort of a look to them, which is exactly what I was hoping for so I'm very pleased.

I'm planning to get the rest of the arms and fire warriors to the same sort of level over the next few days and then brush-paint all the cloth bits of the armour. I'm also considering an oil wash to bring out some of the armour seams. I saw a really nice glowing-red effect on a Riptide Shield airbrushing video which I'm planning to rip off and am toying with the idea of picking out the Tau logo on the shoulder pads in the same way. 

This was my first go at doing anything other than basecoating or varnishing models with the airbrush and I'm very pleased with how it went. 

More Tau-related stuff: