Hello, everyone!

[Veneficae]

Greetings to you all!

I'm Veneficae (or Matt, whichever you prefer is fine with me), and I happened across this website looking for Tau painting tips, and loved all that was here. I read the comments in the topics I came across and found everyone to be quite polite and with a wealth of knowledge they were willing to share with others, and thought that this would be the perfect place to get tips on my painting skills in general, as well as Tau-specific.

For those liking background information, I'm a Web Designer by trade, although my job for almost two years now has had very little design aspects at all, so I've been forced to work with limited creativity. Maybe that was one element to my re-introduction to W40K, I'm unsure. All I know is that I bought $300 worth of Tau and paints, and am enjoying doing the best I can. Hopefully everyone here can give me pointers and guidance to hone of techniques, .

Here's three images of my current array of painted Tau - not very many, and $300 only got me one squad, a Piranha, all the paints and brushes I needed, as well as the basing kit and static grass, PVA glue, and so on.

Regardless, here's those three images (right-click to open, as it seems to open them in the same window as the forums...):




I'm going to be filling in an Admittance Form shortly, if you were wondering why this appeared beforehand.

I look forward to getting to know you all.

See you all around the forums,
- Veneficae

EDIT: As you can tell, I need a lense for my camera that allows me to take closer shots, . It's an 18-200mm, so it's better mid-range than focusing on Tau nostrils. I'm looking into getting a more suitable lense, but in the meantime, I'll do what I can.

[mangozac]

It's hard to give feedback without some better shots - the sooner you can get a macro lens the better.

The biggest thing I can see at this point is that you have some pretty nasty mould lines remaining. A lot of people don't care about them, but ask anybody whose focus is modelling over gaming and they will tell you otherwise. Most can be removed by dragging your knife blade across the line, otherwise it's best to have a fine set of jeweller's files. On organic shapes I've even seen people brush some plastic cement along the mould line to remove it.

Basing is going to make a massive difference too!

[Veneficae]

Thanks for the comment, Zac.

I'll be sure to grab the macro lens before I submit my next image.

I'll have to get myself a modelling knife, I guess, as I'd be more likely to get a cheap nail file and very gently slide it over the mould lines. Though a knife would have other uses, so it sounds like a purchase to me. I usually use scissors to surgically remove the pieces from sprues, or twist them off gently if the piece is small enough, and then get a cheap nail file to cautiously only remove the remaining part from the cut or twist. I've never focused on the mould lines and such over the guns (those were the most visible in my images, I thought), thank you for pointing them out I shall go over the models with a file before I paint in future.

I was going to leave basing until the end so I could base them as a batch fairly quickly, and then add individual touches to the bases while the other base materials were drying. I've got some Dark Eldar remnants I've not built up yet that are going to become victims. This weekend I'll be finishing off my Piranha, and I shall base that before moving onto more Fire Warriors.

I also need to practice my brush strokes and learn paint with a wet palette, because I tend to dip the brush in and get a sufficient amount onto whichever area I want to paint, then dry wipe the brush and spread the paint evenly so I avoid getting it into crevices. As a result streaks are visible... I just don't like the idea of tipping out such a small pot of paint and then trying to maneuver it back into the pot at the end.

[mangozac]

You don't have a knife?!?

Before you do any more modelling go down to your local hobby store (not GW) and buy the equivalent of an x-acto knife and a pack of spare blades. For 90% of mould line removal that's really only all you need. Actually, you know what, head over to my and check it out. For basics I would recommend the following tools as bare minimum:
- Knife (with spare blades. Change them once a fortnight).
- Cutters (get them from an electronics hobby store such as Jaycar for best value)
- Tweezers (very pointy ones)
- Jeweller's file set. Again from Jaycar.

I also hope that you're using plastic cement such as Revel Contacta (in the blue bottle with needle applicator) rather than superglue.

It's a fair call leaving the basing until the end, but it's nice to finish just one to have something inspirational

That sounds a bizarre painting technique you're using. All decent painters will tell you to use a palette of some kind. I personally use the lid from a yoghurt tub as my palette. I use a matchstick (or even a brush, being careful not to get paint up into where the bristles enter the ferrule) to move a small amount of paint from the pot to the palette and then add water to the paint using a brush. Additionally if I'm planning to mix up a little bit of custom colour I'll add a drop or two of retarder into the mix. As you use up the paint on the palette just keep scooping out a little more with the brush.

Using this technique you can control precisely the consistency of the paint. Adding the retarder can also help with the streaks by letting the paint "level out" before it dries, but this is generally unnecessary other than in the middle of Summer.

Also keep a tissue or rag handy so that you can remove extra paint/moisture from the brush when necessary.

Does that make sense?

[Veneficae]

Yeah, it all made sense to me, .

I'm more into the painting side rather than modelling at the moment, so I've not got a knife, no. The scissors I use are exceptionally sharp as they pull apart into two knives, and I forgot that I do have tweezers. And I am indeed using plastic cement, I use an old tube of the Citadel variety, and recently tried to unblock an older Revell variety in the small container with ultra-fine nozzle, the same as you have in the Tools thread. It was way beyond guitar wire, though, and it only occurred to me last weekend to get a pair of the aforementioned scissors and snip the blocked end off. It is now the primary gluing apparatus, with the Citadel tube for a backup.

Also, one question I do have with modelling (although basing-related): What do people use when making rocks, broken flooring, and columns out of polystyrene to cover the little indents the foam has? Is it just a bit of PVA mixed with sand then applied, and painted over? I thought of varnish but I thought it may eat the foam away, so I'm not entirely sure what approach to take when making those. Was mostly for a diorama idea I've had, .

[mangozac]

I use a bit of guitar B string to unblock my needle, but another trick I've tried successfully is to pull it from the bottle and heat up with a lighter.

With polystyrene you need to use the dense stuff so that it doesn't have those kind of indents. Otherwise the other option is to coat it with a thin layer of spackle.

[Veneficae]

Cool, thanks for that, I've got a fair amount of polystyrene from my new TV Mum is trying to make me take to a dumping site, but now I have a use for it! The glue needle itself was over a decade old, as I used it when I collected as a kid, and there's no lighters around or I may have attempted that. I didn't think the needle on mine was removable though I shall remember that for if it gets clogged again, however unlikely as being older than I was previous has the advantage of caution over recklessness of youth, . Sounds funny saying that considering I'm 21...

Either way, thanks for all the tips.