That'll Do, Pig

Well, they ain't exactly pretty, but they'll do.  Here's my first squad, all duded up in their gloppy-white armor.

Further painting is on hold until I get a new brush.  The one I used on these guys never actually came to a point, which made being precise (and I use that term both relatively and loosely) a stone bitch.  Right now I'm thinking of ordering this Reaper set of 3.  They're not the bestest brushes on the market, but the price is right and I've already sunk so damn much into my cadre that I'm cautious of further nickel'n'dimeing.  Given that shipping from just about anywhere is going to amount to a significant portion of the cost of the brushes in the first place, even that minor of a purchase is on hold for now.

So, next up is assembly of the Sniper Drone team, two XV8 Crisis Battlesuits, and two XV88 Broadside Battlesuits I bought a few weeks ago.  I'd forgotten that there were two XV88s.  Since I already paid for them, that was a pleasant surprise of a reminder!

The Shapers Sent Us to Serve

As promised, pictures of my wife's handiwork (in more ways than one).

It's definitely an alien life form...

But it's a charming one!

A picture is worth forty-thousand words.

TITAN POWER FIST!!

Portrait.

Profile.

I always was an ass man.  The black/red/white hair-spikes look really good in person; she was inspired by the similarly-styled (but different colors) models in the Codex: Tau Empire.

Making a Liar Out of Me

Within the last few weeks I posted to the Shack (in response to something K0LM posted, I think) that my wife would never voluntarily paint a miniature.  Well, words, if I could find you, I'd eat you.  She passed by the table while amrbean and I were getting ready to play the other night, caught sight of a Kroot Carnivore, and declared that she wanted to paint one.  And she meant it, apparently.

I've been barred from posting closeups until she's completed it to her satisfaction, though.

Assembly Line

I tried a little assembly-line painting last night, and either I'm doing it wrong or it just doesn't work that well with how fiddly Tau are.  The 5 additional helmets you see down there took me a good hour+ to complete and I don't really feel a sense of accomplishment for it.  I'd probably have rather spent the time getting a single model further along.  That said, I'm going to continue trying the assembly-line method for at least these 5 guys (burgers anyone?) and see if it picks up any when I'm painting something aside from helmets.  But I doubt it.

Hmmm...echelon formation doesn't really work with a macro lens.

Not Too Shabby

I got my first Fire Warrior to probably 75-85% complete.  I could spend forever trying to make him perfect, or I could move on to the other 23 waiting in line.  This guy will get a few more dabs of color here and there and a little bit of a Badab Black Wash in at least a few places, but I'm effectively done with him.

For reference, I'm trying for an effect that's an amalgamation of a Star Wars Imperial Stormtrooper and Hikaru Ichijo's Skull 11 from Macross: Do You Remember Love?  I had the brilliant inspiration last night that I should do my (soon to be) 4 XV8 Crisis Battlesuits in Roy/Hikaru/Max/Milia colors.

The lines aren't particularly clean, but WTFever, it's my first one and I'm proud of it.

It kinda looks better in the pictures than in person; the blue and red kneepads and the green optics pop out much better due to the harshness of the flash.

Our model: Skull 11 VF-1 Valkyrie, piloted by one Chu-i Hikaru Ichijo.  Assuming I spelled his rank correctly.  I've got better (read: much more expensive) toy-versions in the attic, but this one is 3-year-old-proof.

And So It Begins

Painting.

Not sure I'll ever be good at it.  Not sure I'm patient enough to ever be passable at it.  Not sure whether or not I enjoy it.  Not ready to give up on it quite yet, though.

I did give up on trying to thin the paint with water on the big piece of tile on the left there.  I couldn't get get a good consistency, and it was drying out real fast.  (That turned out to be a problem in general; I eventually had to close the pot between each dip into it for more paint.)  What I wound up doing was simply wetting the brush, giving it a light dab on the paper towel, then getting some paint directly out of the pot and going at it.  I guess in theory I'm diluting the paint still in the pot by doing so, but whatever, it's such a miniscule amount of water.

This is a Fire Warrior that's been primed black and given a bit of an undercoat in Astronomican Grey (a Citadel Foundation), with an eventual topcoat to be done in white.  I need a brighter light to help with determining what's supposed to be an armor panel and what's cloth; I'm positive I missed some armor.  I'm kind of aiming for an Imperial Stormtrooper-esque look (white armor, black cloth/seams), which is not at all original.  Oh well.  I plan on gussying it up a bit with the colors from the Macross: Do You Remember Love? version of Hikaru Ichijo's VF-1 Valkyrie (the red one, not Fokker's yellow one; sorry for the random link, but those were the best images I could find quickly).  The eye-lenses will be green.

(I guess captions go below pictures.)  Ready to begin.  Hello, Shack!

Still getting used to this whole macro lens thing.  Need a flat-topped thingy to blu-tack the model onto.

Not sure what I'm going to do with the backpack.  I mean, god damn, the lines and dots there are tiny.

I'm undecided on whether or not to keep the seams on the helmet visible.

Don't know what I want to do with the gun.  Trying out a few patches of (what will eventually be) white in an asymmetrical pattern.

I am Fire Warrior.  Rawr.

Albino Kroot

Pretty much finished priming all the assembled models I have this afternoon.  Unfortunately the white Rustoleum "plastic primer" I used on the Kroot was real thick, and it globbed out most of the detail on the models.  Part of me doesn't care 'cause A) I don't like Kroot and 2) they're much more complicated to paint than FWs and battlesuits, so my desire:patience ratio to do so was already very low.  But the perfectionist in me is eventually going to want to try the stuff discussed here. 

My ad hoc priming station.

Poor Kroot.  Those are the veteran FWs that survived this past week's game vs Mike.

Mechanized elements ahoy!  The one with the burst cannon attached is my Devilfish, the other is a to-be-magnetized Hammerhead.

The real reason people love and play Tau.

Paint It Black

I see a grey tank and I want it painted black
No greyscale anymore I want them to turn black
I see the tanks skim by ranked in their warring rows
I rotate my railgun until my target blows

More priming.  There are a few places I'm going to have to spot-check (inside nacelles, around movable turrets, hatches, the like) when I don't have a 4-month-old a few feet away in a bouncy-seat and a 3-year-old careening about demanding Dada's attention.  All in all, though, not bad for a rank novice splitting an hour's time between the kids and the hobby.

In the background are a GF9 GFT030 pin vice, bit, and rod set and some neodymium magnets of various sizes.  I'm going to try magnetizing the Hammerhead's multitracker (registration now appears to be required to view the forum, which wasn't the case earlier today?) so that it's convertible to a burst cannon, allowing the tank to moonlight as a Devilfish.  Unfortunately when I assembled the current Devilfish several months ago I glued the commander hatch in place, so if I want to make it convertible (into a Sky Ray, unless I can dig up another turret or figure a way to convert the Sky Ray's missile wing turret into a Hammerhead turret) I'm going to have to do something funky with the hatch.  Like...chop it out.

I think I've got a better grasp of what a macro lens is for, even though I still don't have the least idea how to make proper use of it.  The first 2 were done with the Nikon D50's kit lens, and the other 4 with an AF Nikkor 50mm.  Whatever that means.

Uninspired First Post Title Goes Here

Had a busy 40k evening.  Did my first-ever mini-painting in the form of priming all 24 of my Fire Warriors, then scooted out to Home Depot to pick up an 8'x4' sheet of .5" plywood.  Had them rip it at the 2-foot mark, of course, so now we've got a regulation size standard playing surface for the rematch scheduled this Thursday (which will be streamed via justin.tv).

My wife's reaction was a predictable, "You realize that storing it in the open is so not an option."