Hey,

It was a week before GD a dew months ago, and I decided I wanted to do a 40k squad and spend some more time with my airbrush.  Thus, the Tau Stealth Suits were decided on.  I wanted to do a monochrome piece, and decided to do so with just their lights and other flashy bits in colour.  I assembled the minis, and spent an age filling every last gap with putty, then I undercoated black.  I took black and white W&N inks and airbrushed them acros the models, black from underneath, white from above, and various shades of grey from the sides.  Then I got some dark blue underneath, touched up various parts with a small paintbrush, and shot them with a coat of satin varnish to seal the inks in.  I then re-undercoated all the shiny bits, the lights, dials, sensor arrays and so forth in black, and painted them all like gems, going from black to white.  What? Still no colour?  well now there is – I took the appropriately coloured ink and layered it over the gem to give it it’s distinctive rich colour.  Except for the orange lights, for them i used a tamiya paint, simply because it gave a better colour finish.  I got the airbrush out again at this point, lined all the minis up on their base and then sprayed the correct colour ink from where the light shined by removing that particular mini.  This helped tie the squad together.  This whole process had taken about 20 hours over the course of the week.  Now, nearing the deadline, I got the white oil paint out and started on the line highlights and the bright spots, blending any rough airbrushing, and mixing it with inks to highlight the reflected light from the sensor arrays and gun ports.  Apart from some quick basing, the minis were at this point complete, and I could take the trip to GDUK2009, ready to get a finalist pin, but not a trophy this year.  Doh!  aah well, bring on next year!  As ever, I’d love to know what you think, any feedback most appreciated before re-embarking on my quest for the slayer sword this year.

All the best,

James

ps.  I just can’t seem to satisfactorily photograph the colour reflecting from the armour, but if you click on the images it blows up into some (very) large ones to see the detail on.

pps.  Here is the CMON voting link if that’s something you care about

The official GW picture on CMON for voting too. Isn’t it interesting how much difference the photography makes!  One day I’ll take a satisfactory picture of one of the members of the team and upload that with a good background…One day…