Hobby Progress

I know, I know, not something I usually post, but I’m really getting into painting and modelling my new Tau army.

As I think I mentioned earlier on the blog, I’m selling my old Tau army and starting from scratch. While my old army was fully painted and “OK”, I painted if for speed rather than beauty. I’ve also come a long way in terms of skill level when it comes to painting and modelling since I painted it (almost 3 years ago), and I know I could do better. So, it will be on the eBay sales block shortly and with the money I make from selling it (plus a Black Templars and Grey Knights  army I never use!) I’m starting from scratch.

I’ve come up with a paint scheme. My tastes run to clean simple schemes. I dislike dark “grimy” and/or overly “weathered” models. I don’t like them in general, but in particular, I don’t think it really lends itself to a Tau army. On the other hand I’m not fond of the bright multi coloured schemes you see in some Tau armies, nor the muted natural browns and greens on others. So I’ve gone for a Farsight colour scheme, similar to the one you see in the book, but not identical. In a nutshell, my primary colour is red, my secondary white, and I use green and bronze as highlights. Here’s a picture of a finished Riptide.

Nice and simple! I’ve got another one ordered and I want to try a more interesting pose with him. Little Geek and I went to see Iron Man 3 at the weekend (great movie BTW) and I think I might try for the classic “Iron Man Landing” pose – i.e. when he’s down on one knee with his fist on the ground, looking up. For those of you who have seen the movie (and can remember!), it’s the pose Iron Patriot struck as he landed in front of Air Force One, just before accompanying the president up the steps!

I’ve also been working on some Crisis Suits. Lots of people didn’t like the old suits, and were disappointed when they weren’t re done with the new codex. While it would have been nice to have new suits,  I’ve always quite liked the old ones so I’m not overly disappointed. However, in the past I put no effort into converting or reposing them, so they all look very static. Well, over the weekend, I worked on my first Crisis Suit conversions.

Here’s the first guy.

I went for a “coming into land” pose. It’s not terribly clear from the photo, but his right leg is lifted forward and off the ground, and the body inclined backwards, as if he had just landed. Since taking the picture I’ve fixed the magnet on the right hand weapon so it sits closer to the arm.

The second guy is in a “running forward” pose.

This one is taking a step towards the enemy.

They all need a little more work, in particular I need to work on smoothing off the elbows. For those interested the “recipe” it’s on Warhammer Tau. I made a couple of small changes, but not many.

One of the issues these models have is they’re a bit short and “dumpy” (especially now I’ve bulked out the body and head). What I would like to try next is extending the torso and creating a point of articulation at the waist. This will involve cutting the torso below the upper chest, but above the leg sockets, and then inserting a “spacer” between them. The problem is I’m not sure I can do that, given the height of the leg sockets. It might need some creative cutting and filling!

Has anybody done this, or seen a picture of something similar anywhere?

EYIG