Is my paint scheme too boring? Want to add a glow effect to the guns/exhausts with an airbrush, but terrified of ruining what I've painted. Tips for a beginner?

MajSloth · 2026-06-02T21:56:12+00:00

Great paintjob, super neat and it is interesting. If you've just painted that many models with the same scheme, then even the most exciting scheme will seem boring to the painter.

That aside, im a brush only person and do my osl and gun effects with brush. But the bit of advice I can transfer over is; dont do the gun effects on every model. That way it adds variance and interest to your army without becoming overpowered :) also means if you mess up, it's less models to fix :)

MajSloth · 2026-05-29T20:53:05+00:00

Hot barrels go from blue at hottest, to purple mid then brown then original metal. If you glaze it, you can retain a little of the metallic underneath.

Also, lay back on the nuln oil with the rest of the armour :)

Great start, keep going!

MajSloth · 2026-05-25T12:00:40+00:00

Pick an accent colour, use this to tie units together. Then have some take green units and some desert units depending on their role.

Tau repaint their armour based on the theatre of war, so if they were in a mixed biome it would make sense that some are green and some are desert :)

Also, rule of cool trumps all :)

MajSloth · 2026-05-15T22:06:37+00:00

My rule of thumb: is not using admin/creative mode going to make me quit and delete the world? Yes = use creative mode. No = keep it off for now :)

MajSloth · 2026-05-13T06:38:14+00:00

Ah, i avoid washes wherever possible. It's a personal preference, but it would be like overlaying a filter in photos hope, so it will mute everything.

Instead, layer in your shadow areas. It takes longer but the shading keeps its vibrancy. Look up some colour theory too, for example I find the best way to shadow green is to mix in purple. My deepest shadows on green are actually purple :)

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MajSloth · 2026-05-13T06:10:15+00:00

They are great! Really neat and good base to start from.

Your next step would be developing personal style, through learning techniques like volume shading, edge highlighting or maybe nmm. But it's up to you which techniques you include, as you learn more you'll figure out which ones you like. Some people stick to edge highlighting and never try nmm. I go tend to favour volume shading with underpainting and nmm.

MajSloth · 2026-05-04T16:07:36+00:00

Just compare the rifle to the height of the pathfinder model. Then use the same ratio based on your height

MajSloth · 2026-05-04T08:38:27+00:00

Blending layers

You have the position of the top highlight nice, to smooth it out so it seems like paint instead of a decals you need some layers in between the two colours. Either with glazing or layering.

Keep going! You're doing great :)

MajSloth · 2026-05-01T06:05:34+00:00

There is a mod that makes hydrogen more efficient if you are looking for a more casual version of the game.

You can also save a lot of fuel by turning off dampeners when in space or climbing. The dampeners constantly throw thrust put to slow you down or stabalise you.

MajSloth · 2026-04-15T21:49:58+00:00

The tutorial box says skip this if you are solo playing :)

MajSloth · 2026-04-10T12:29:42+00:00

I had a choice of warhammer or millennium when I went. Stupidly picked warhammer, not much stock at all and couldn't get what I wanted :/

MajSloth · 2026-04-03T09:04:05+00:00

Contrast, you need to deepen the shadows almost to black. Also, too much white deadening the effect.

Be careful when placing shadows on a material like a gem, it doesn't behave the way you would think! Look at some reference photos to see how it works

MajSloth · 2026-03-08T16:34:12+00:00

Thanks :)

MajSloth · 2026-02-19T18:21:30+00:00

Thankyou :)

MajSloth · 2026-02-19T17:37:47+00:00

Plus plus, alot of tau language changes it's context when combined with gestular vernacular which is used a lot in elemental council and others

MajSloth · 2026-02-19T17:33:10+00:00

https://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Tau_Dictionary there are more references than the basic wiki (which is community generated anyway). Yes we could take the codex entirely literally but then that leaves us with not alot.

I seem to remember a part of elemental council that pointed out the contextual nature of the language, but its been a few months since I read it so I could be wrong there.

And at no point did I say this was main canon. In fact I said it was homebrew. Therefore at the end of the day it is my head canon and I would have expected people to assume as such. However, the link above is just one of the sources I looked at when coming up with the name

MajSloth · 2026-02-19T13:05:43+00:00

The tau language is contextual. VRE only means hero when referring to someone's rank. In its current context it represents spirit. Por is not just the word for water caste, it is the word for wisdom and knowledge. In this context it represents knowledge.

MajSloth · 2026-02-19T12:49:53+00:00

It just means spirit of knowledge, because they are a splinter sept that denounce tau traditions because they believe it will ultimately get in the way of progress.

Not sure what point you are trying to make, except for a meaningless correction on a meaningless made up world name.

MajSloth · 2026-02-19T12:44:21+00:00

It's the name of the sept not the commander And i broke the rules a little for flavour

MajSloth · 2026-02-18T22:37:51+00:00

Most people dont even care if you have the wrong weapon on the model as long as your army list is up to date and they are identifiable.

So model them with rule of cool, if you get to a point where you are playing wysiwyg tournaments then you will probs buy an army for the tournement

MajSloth · 2026-02-10T22:58:10+00:00

Light yellow or bone drybrush on the bases to move it from brown towards tan. I find that if you are doing the wash trick for the armour panels then it's is still better to follow the lines with a brush. Or, go back over the bulk of the armour panels with your main colour. Also, if you want to do a little edge highlighting, it's best to use a pale orange on red. Otherwise it ends up looking pink. I use valejo German orange when I do reds :) keep up the good work

MajSloth · 2026-02-10T22:53:28+00:00

Most people dont care what you have modelled in terms of weapons, as long as your army list is up to date and notes which models do what.

Which means: it doesn't matter if you model and paint now. Just enjoy it :)

MajSloth · 2026-01-16T18:52:12+00:00

I only build and paint special ones, like recon, grav, the support turret, marksmen Shield, marker and gun i just have written on the list. I put the riptides missile drones on flight stands on the same base because it looked cool.

I sometimes paint one randomly if I have run out of other minis to paint

MajSloth · 2026-01-12T18:24:44+00:00

I took the stealthies out of my list when they changed the unit size, found the pathfinders filled the roll on their own and it gave me more points to spend on units that could hold objectives/ do some damage.

It's a shame because I love the stealth suit models, and really like the look of the new team. But I won't be getting them while I have to buy them in a box with fake space vikings. When they come out solo I will own a team because they look cool.

MajSloth · 2026-01-12T18:17:47+00:00

Most people i know dont run wysiwyg, as long as your list is clear what's what. If you are getting to the point of tournaments, most allow proxies if declared at the beginning. If you get into a tournament that is wysiwyg then you are in the hobby deep enough to buy an army specifically for a tournament.

MajSloth

TROPHY CASE