Tau: First experiments with paint - Part 4

Still tinkering.

I know I've harped back to my mission statement a few times now, but I'm actually taking it quite seriously. Especially the bit about airbrushing on every model in the army.

I've been avoiding the airbrush for far too long before I started this project and I'm determined to address that.

I saw a cracking youtube video by Medows on how he painted a riptide - I was really struck by the work he did on the riptide's nova shield - I loved the fact that it looked like it glowed from within with fire and I totally wanted to steal his technique and apply it to my army.

I'm not ready to start on my own riptide yet, so I figured I'd start small - shoulder armour.

You've already seen in my First experiments with paint - Part 1 post that I'd used my airbrush to produce a graduated effect on the shoulder armour for my models - well I decided that I wanted the Tau Fire Warrior symbol to glow like Medows' riptide shield. It would help tie the whole army together as a force if I could repeat that detail across the whole army.

So I set to work - I started by painting the symbol red, then yellow (both from Vallejo model air primary colours paint set) and then added a (minitaire) snow white highlight.

I've done about 50 pads like this. Not all have turned out as well as the one above, but none are complete shockers either. I deliberately let the paint bleed out onto the main pad to achieve my first ever OSL effect.

These pads aren't done yet - I intend to apply an oil wash to pick out the seams in the armour panels and the "lollipop" fire caste logo a bit later on.

On the whole though, I'm well chuffed :)

Other Tau-related stuff: