I will love to be able to paint them, but I hate painting them maybe due to an inborn lack of patience for such tasks.
I tried the painting of miniatures several times already. My first time was long time ago, with the release 3rd Edition of Warhammer fantasy, at some point around 2002. I got the starter box with humans and orcs at the Spiel Messe in Essen and divided it with someone. I took the orcs :)
Assembled the big guy, tried to paint the little ones and some of the beasts...
Never finished, never even played...
:(
[jump in time]
Later I tried again, this time with the Tau from Warhammer 40K. I think that already in or around 2002 when I got that orc army for Warhammer fantasy, I also saw the Tau army; they were the new kid on the block coming to the Warhammer 40k universe and I liked them the moment I saw them.
I don't like Warhammer 40k. The gothic setting is not something for me; but the Tau, they are really cool. They really resemble the Japanese samurais they are apparently based on; they even got mechas if you are into that stuff.
Anyway, in some point around 2012 (yes, like 10 years after the orcs) I partially convinced some friends, partially was convinced by them to try Warhammer 40k and that means pore or less, painting miniatures again.
I got some Tau forces second hand on line, some of them were already painted (at very good) other were covered in paint (if you get my meaning) and some were just black coated.
They were mainly in the classic desert orange that the Tau usually seem to be.
i tried to replicate the nice painting job on the same tones with one or two drones and, well, it was more or less fine for me.
But I wanted for my Tau forces to be a bit different, so I got some other colours and tried to paint a few further drones...
I played the game three or four times during this period, against an orc army. The game didn't really catch amongst the group, the interest faded away...
No more painting, no more Warhammer 40k
[small jump in time]
Runewars !
I saw the announcement of this game, got tented, but discarded it.
Some months later, saw the release of the starter box. Got tented again. Saw the announcement of the Army Painter Guide to painting the armies. Got very tented. I read all the news and downloaded all the stuff.
Told to a friend, but surprise, he already had bought the starter box. Tried the game. Looks amazing good.
Searched for my painting tools, brushes, colours, etc and got into the mood of painting miniatures (yes, again).
Not having anything form Runewars of my own (yet) I took my old Tau soldiers and decided to try again.
This time, however, I didn't look to them so much as Tau forces from the Warhammer 40k but more as Colonial Marines (yes, the guys from Aliens) or Starship troopers and since the humans in Runewars go, more or less, in blue I decided to try some blue colouring on the Tau soldiers.
Here is the evolution of my miniatures. There a lot of pictures, some are better than others, but I hope there are able to show what I did.
For colours I worked with some Vallejo I was having already and some Citadel which I got recently, namely the Citadel Base Painting Set, which includes the Macragge Blue.
Hope you like the outcome as much as I.
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Step by Step
Base Coat: Vallejo 72.019 Night Blue; maybe it was not my best idea. This colour is really very dark and on top of the black coating...
Well, it is difficult to see even after two layers.
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| Left model base coated with Vallejo 72.019 Night Blue Right model just black primer for comparison. |
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| Base coat Vallejo 72.019 Night Blue |
Over this base coat I tried some dry brush with Citadel Macragge Blue from the Painting Set to the armour as well as some Vallejo 72.067 Cayman Green for the trousers and arms and gloves.
The dry brush was excruciating. I did it twice and still barely visible...
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| Left model, dry brushed and base coated trousers and arms middle model, Vallejo Night Blue base coat for comparison right model, black primer for comparison |
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| Close up |
Further colours:
For the gun, the backpack and the little antenna on the helmet: Citadel Leadbelcher
For the feet/boots: Vallejo Sombre Grey 72.048
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| Picture taken with flash, not my best idea... |
Now, the Wash. According to the method from quick painting from the Army Painter, they base coat directly with a primer-base coat mixture, give some more base colours and them wash with their especial Quickshade.
I decided to try something similar using the Vallejo 73.207 Blue Wash
I have never done a wash before, therefore on some of the miniatures there was too much of it and they turned out too dark, others were not so bad.
I liked a lot the effect which it gave to the feet/boots. I think they look very good with such a simple sequence: base coat and wash.
The trousers and arms also look very good at this point, I think.
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| This one is my favourite so far |
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| This one is the second I liked the most |
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| This is quite dark, it was the second one I washed |
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| This poor fellow was the one I washed the first, therefore the darkest of them all |
Further I tried to dry brush some colour on them with the Citadel Layer Calgar Blue
It is a quite nice colour, however my skills with the dry brush technique are very basic, so I was busy with them for a while and did it twice.
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| Kind of Panorama view |
I cleared a bit the gun of the models where they turned out too dark because of the wash with Vallejo 72.047 Wolf Grey which seems to match the Citadel Leadbelcher quite well without the metallic hue.
I also gave some dry brush to the trousers, arms and gloves with Vallejo 72.062 Earth.
I considered Vallejo Khaki 72.061 or Vallejo Desert Yellow 72.063 for this task but found them not close enough to the dark green I was having already.
I have to do some more pictures with that last dry brush, so this is for now :)
I also attached a head to the headless guy who I used as black primed comparison. He is supposed to be the leader of the group, so he will get a separate entry, also I didn't paint him as the rest.
Basically because I was busy experimenting with those guys and I started painting him after I was already after the washing step for the basic soldiers. But, again, that is for later :)
