Tau: Tanks (part 15 - Devilfish 5 Finished!)

And the last Devilfish is complete!

Phew.

I'm taking a short W40K break to work on some models for other games (yes - there really are other games!) and will be back in a bit. You'll see these tanks again in the not too distant future when I've finished their interchangeable Hammerhead/Skyray parts.

But for now, Anglo-Saxons beckon for Saga!

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Tau: Tanks (part 14 - Devilfish 4 Finished!)

And another Devilfish comes gliding silently out of the night into the battlefield...

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Tau: Tanks (part 13 - Devilfish 3 Finished!)

And another Devilfish rolls off the Tau production line.

Three down, two (and a boatload of drones which might wait until next year) to go.

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Tau: Tanks (part 12 - Devilfish 2 Finished!)

Trying to keep things rolling on - here's another finished Devilfish.

Sorry that the next few posts are going to look a bit similar - one DF is very much like another at the end of the day, and I have five of them!

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Tau: Tanks (part 11 - Devilfish 1 Finished!)

Finally!

I've got one to a standard where I'm happy to call it done!

Now I'll be the first to admit there's a lot more that could be done to this tank. Nevertheless I only ever aim for what I consider a good tabletop standard and I think I've got to that point.

To be brutally honest, whilst I'm still gung-ho for this hobby I'm finding it very difficult to get to actually *do it* in a way that's enjoyable at the moment. It's all a little "snatch & grab" a few minutes here and there which is a bit mojo-depressing.

As such it's a bit of a morale boost to be able to claim something is actually complete (eve if I could have taken it further).

Anyway - here it is:

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Tau: Tanks (part 10 - Devilfish 5/Hammerhead 2 Airbrushing complete)

That's it - the airbrush is now packed away and possibly won't be seen again this side of Christmas.

All that is left now is brush-work and decals.

Devilfish chassis 5 kitted out as a railgun totin' hammerhead

Angle 2

Angle 3

Hammerhead bits removed and Skyray turret added

Different Angle

Angle 3

The colours in these photo's don't do the models full justice - the "black" bits haven't come out quite as dark as they really are. I'll try and do better when I take my final pics when the tanks are fully finished.

So what is in the pipeline to keep me busy with the airbrushed packed away?

Not much (in no particular order):

• Saga Saxons,
• Baneblade to Gorgon conversion,
• A small gaming surface for playing Saga/Frostgrave,
• Saga Normans,
• Frostgrave Pirate Warband,
• Another unit of Fire Warriors,
• Frostgrave Arab Warband,

And when that's all done and the airbrush can come back out, it's either going to be some Heresy-era Word Bearers, or some Vampire Counts. Or both!

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Tau: Tanks (part 9 - Devilfish 4/Hammerhead 1 Airbrushing complete)

Still plugging away at my Tau tanks. I'm on now to the tanks that have extra widgety bits on top. I've built these so that I can remove the turrets and drop in a Devilfish hatch and also swap out the sensor array on the under-turret for a cannon.

I've shown this tank here as an Ion-equipped Hammerhead, but as I can swap the Ion-cannon for a Railgun, swap the whole thing for a Skyray launcher or field it as a Devilfish.

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Tau: Tanks (part 8 - Devilfish 3 Airbrushing complete)

I'm still managing to make progress on these tanks; not as fast as I'd like but I'll be damned if real life is going to kill my hobby-time!

So, I've managed to complete the airbrushing on my third tank. The three I've done so far are all dedicated Devilfish. The two that still need airbrush work (and all five of them need details added by brush) are built so as I can swap bits out so they can be fielded as Devilfish, Hammerheads or Skyrays.

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Tau: Tanks (part 7 - Devilfish 2 Airbrushing complete)

I'm making frustratingly slow progress on this part of my Tau project as "real life" keeps throwing me curveballs. Still at least progress is being made.

Another set of airbrushing finished. Well, almost. As I look at the photos here I've just noticed I've completely omitted painting the top hatch on this model! What (as Bugs Bunny might say) a maroon!

Three (and a hatch) to go...

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Tau: Tanks (part 6 - Devilfish 1 Airbrushing complete)

I've made some more progress this week and have managed to complete all the airbrushing work on my first Devilfish.

I've still got work to do - I need to get my brushes out next and paint in details like the Tank Commander, lamps, viewports and some edge-highlighting on the dark-grey bits. Then it's decals. varnish, finished!

Apart from the other four tanks...

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Tau: Tanks (part 5 - some progress at last!)

Life has suddenly become very busy and tiring for me. Real life, that is - not hobby life.

I did however, manage to squeeze in a couple of hours work this week on my Tau tanks and have made a pleasing amount of progress.

They now look like this:

Two Devilfish - overexposed :(

Same two tanks from the top

My other three tanks - a Devilfish (front and center) and two multi-puropse chassis - see below

Same three tanks

One of my multi-purpose (or given that this is a Tau army should that be Porpoise?!?) chassis fitted out as a Skyray

Same chassis, same configuration

Same chassis as an Ion-Cannon fitted Hammerhead

Same chassis, same configuration

Same chassis fitted with rail-gun

Same chassis, same configuration

Ahh - magnets!

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Tau: Tanks (part 4 - slow going)

I've been finding it difficult recently to get much work done - I've had to do dribs & drabs of work in 20 minute bursts here and there. I'm still making progress but not at anything approaching the speed I'd like.

Here's what I've got so far:

Here's one tank from a few different angles:

I've a small amount more airbrushing to do - the top hatch on the shown model needs doing. Some components are not done (a few back doors, the hammerhead/skyray turrets) and all the drones need to be done - I'll tackle them next. There are a few corrections that need to be made in a few places where a bit of overspray got away from me.

Then I can get my brushes out and add some details before doing decals and finishing off.

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Tau: Tanks (part 3 - engines)

Work hasn't been progressing as quickly as I'd like on this project but I'm still making progress which can only be positive, I guess.

I've focussed on the engine pods in my last session. I added a little grey to the black areas to pick them up a little as the contrast with the hulls was too severe. The main Devilfish hull in the photo below hasn't had this treatment yet:

I've added the same engine glow as I've used on my other Tau models, but haven't gone back over the edges of the vents yet with black - I'll get to that when I detail the models.

My intention next is to get the hulls of the other tanks up to the same stage as this one and then apply the grey highlights to them all to get them to the same stage as the engine pods. I've got a few errors to correct too (bits of overspray here and there).

After that I need to turn my attention to a bag of bits I haven't looked at yet - turrets, hatches, railguns and suchlike).

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Tau: Tanks (part 2 - more basecoating)

I've not managed to get as much done as I'd have liked over the last few days. Real life got in the way.

What I have managed is to black-up all the parts I want to blacken on one of my tanks just so I can make sure it's working as an overall scheme. I've used the same scheme on my other Tau models so I'm not in much doubt, but there is a lot more to blacken on the tanks than the other models so the balance of dark-to-light is skewed by comparison.

I think it's still working though.

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Tau: Tanks (Part 1 - basecoating)

Well, it's been a long break but I figure it's time to get back to work on my Tau.

I still have a fair amount of work to do to finish this army (Stealth suits, Battlesuits, Drones, Aun'va, O'Shova, not to mention a shedload of alien auxiliaries) but I decided I'd start by getting some paint on my tanks.

I have 5 tanks in all:

• 2 x Devilfish
• 3 x Tanks that have been magnetised so can be Hammerheads, Devilfish or Skyrays)

I covered magnetising the tanks in some previous posts (here, here and here), so this is just about painting.

Onto a rattlecan-grey primer I add a layer of Minitaire "Nautilus blue"...

Then a deliberately mottled layer of Minitaire "Werewolf Grey" (which is actually pale blue). I try to mainly pick up the places where I would expect light to catch...

Next I add some Minitaire "Snow White" again to pick up highlights and lighten the colour of the model overall.

Here's the model with the engine pods in place.

Next I'll start picking out all the dark bits of the model. I'll be doing that again with the airbrush (my intention is that 90%+ of the paint on all the models in this army should be applied using the airbrush).

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Tau: Working with Skyrays - Part 3 (Quick Tip)

Here is the last part (aside from actually getting some paint down!) on my series about making the fullest possible use of GWs Tau Skyray and Hammerhead kits.

• In the first part I covered the options that were available in the kit.
• In the second part I covered rebuilding the front underslung turret.

This is the final part and covers modelling the main weapons to make them interchangeable so you can field your Skyray as a Skyray, Hammerhead (with your choice of weapons) or Devilfish.

I'm not the greatest modeller in the world so feel free to improve on anything I'm suggesting here if (and when!) you see a better way of doing it.

First - the easy bit: The Skyray

I only magnetised this so that the missiles can be removed as fired in-game. I think they're designed to push-fit but I found they weren't a good fit and wouldn't stay in place. 

I glued some pieces of paper-clip into the slots

Added some magnets to the missiles. I'm undecided about these particular magnets and may replace them with smaller, inset ones.

And it fits together like this (the engine pod at the back is just to balance the turret)

The second part - the Hammerhead turret. 

I shaved down some of the details on the "block" so that the weapons could fit totally over it and added a magnet at the back...

And another at the front

In order to mount the railgun I fabricated these small bits of, er, things. For scale they're small - the hole is just beg enough for a small magnet and the entire piece fits inside the hole at the bottom of the railgun, nearer the front than the back

You can just see the, er, "thing" in place complete with magnet on the right-hand edge of the hole.

When dropped in place over the block on the turret the magnet holds the railgun in place and stops it tilting forwards

The Ion Cannon is a little more tricky - there's nothing inside it's hole to glue a similar "thing" to so I had to glue a boatload of bits of sprue into it, front and back, in order to be able to mount magnets. It's a looser fit and so needed magnets both front and back.

Not a great photo but you can just make out the bits of sprue and the magnet inside the hole. It's a similar view if you look into the hole from the back of the gun. Two magnets are required to secure this weapon

And here it is in place

Painting of the tanks is going to need to wait until early 2015 as the Christmas Holiday season is a busy time for me and also there's a short "sabbatical" project I want to do too.

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