My Tau expansion has began to take shape. After a solid call out by TJ I have elected to have another challenge army. This time....white.
I didn't like the red under armor cloth so I went with black. I did however use the red as a contrasting color on the shoulder guard. I plan on going back to do the tau markings on the helmets and guns to both add detail and squad markings. I've found in playing that when you put a gun line of 60 models down...you really need some way to separate squads...
While I was down in NC with Chuck and TJ, we talked a lot about using rattle cans to do high lights and have a variety of base coats without the use of an airbrush and I've found that its an easy alternative if you don't have one. Two brands I've looked at are Liquitex Professionals and Montana Gold. They both have different qualities but can both be used if you don't have an airbrush and you're look to put down some nice basecoat. For these guys I used Neutral Grey 3 with a very light Celestra Grey drybrush.
Then I painted on Ceramite White, washed it with Drakenhof Nightshade then went back with White Scar and painted around the plates. Lastly red fade on the shoulder and a dap of gold on the gun end and done.
I plan to go back and finish a few spots, like the hoofs leaving them black with a little more high light but not much to notice. Then I'm still in the market for some interesting looking tau base and I'd like to get a hold of some funky alien looking static grass. I saw a company once that made orange and purple and red static grass but it appears they are out of bussiness, sadly.
That's what I've got so far and I'm just about done with the second squad...with only 3 more to go. I'm trying to swear to doing all of the Fire Warriors before I get to do the fun stuff like the rip tide so that I actually finish the hard part of the army first before I get to go crazy on the large models.