Riptide, yep another one ;)

[DeadPanda]

http://i844.photobucket.com/albums/ab3/joenortonjones/IMG_1498.jpg
http://i844.photobucket.com/albums/ab3/joenortonjones/IMG_1497.jpg

Yes yes, I know everyone and their dog is painting Riptides at the moment. Anyway here is a progress pick. 1 with the original head, and an alternative larger one. Which would you go with ?

[Iceman]

Stick with the original heads. I know they look small in pictures but not so much in person. The larger head looks like the robot "Number 5" from the 80's movie "Short Circuit."

[ElectricPaladin]

Stick with the original heads. I know they look small in pictures but not so much in person. The larger head looks like the robot "Number 5" from the 80's movie "Short Circuit."

GW has got to fire their photographers. EVery new Tau model looks better in person. The flyer looks sleeker, the head on the riptide looks better, everything.

[DeadPanda]

Yeah, short circuit was what I thought when I looked at the pic, I went with my gut and used the proper head.

Im trying to go with a forest themed Riptide, in my head I was thinking thick lush forest (Endor or BC Canada style) with the Tau advancing though the undergrowth, giant Riptides crunching over rotten logs and kicking up dirt and leaves etc. its by no means finished but I am nearly there. Needs a bit of tidying up and I am debating painting on battle damage, but not sure. Any thoughts ?

http://i844.photobucket.com/albums/ab3/joenortonjones/IMG_1502.jpg (http://s844.photobucket.com/user/joenortonjones/media/IMG_1502.jpg.html)
http://i844.photobucket.com/albums/ab3/joenortonjones/IMG_1500.jpg (http://s844.photobucket.com/user/joenortonjones/media/IMG_1500.jpg.html)

[Godless Zealot]

Looks great, love the colour scheme. :)

[ElectricPaladin]

Looks great, love the colour scheme. :)

The color scheme is great. My riptide will probably look a lot like this.

[Lexington]

Gawl-dang, that is an extremely well-considered color scheme. Looks fantastic.

[DeadPanda]

thanks guys :)
http://i844.photobucket.com/albums/ab3/joenortonjones/IMG_6818.jpg (http://s844.photobucket.com/user/joenortonjones/media/IMG_6818.jpg.html)

I think he is done, but not sure. Battle damage or not ? nothing ott just a few chips here and there. I placed a rather large order for some more tau kits so if I do go the battle damage route then i will have to do them all the same way. Just not convinced about adding it. thoughts ?
one thing i have learned is to leave the camera work to the mrs.
http://i844.photobucket.com/albums/ab3/joenortonjones/IMG_6817.jpg (http://s844.photobucket.com/user/joenortonjones/media/IMG_6817.jpg.html)

[Tzeentch's Dark Agent]

Tidy!

I would like to see some battle damage, that'd be reet good.

[ElectricPaladin]

I think battle damage depends on the look you're going for. I always liked the idea of the Tau as so consummately professional so clean and neat and perfect, that they don't do battle damage. Things get damaged in the fighting, of course, but every last dent and chip is cleaned up between battles. I've done other armies - like my air-dropping Blood Angels - the same way. For my more down-to-earth armies, like my mechanized Exorcists Space Marines or Sisters of Battle - I do mud and chipping and battle damage. It's a creative choice - you have to decide which appeals to you.

[DeadPanda]

I think your right. I think I will leave the model as is for now, I'm happy with it and I have some Pathfinders I'm itching to start on next. Still undecided on how to kit them out but the sprue looks great.

[heretic marine]

http://i844.photobucket.com/albums/ab3/joenortonjones/IMG_1498.jpg


look, it's WALL-E. nice job on the model overall though.

[energongoodie]

I'm really like this. Looking forward to more of your stuff :)

[Wolfshade]

Love it DL, and I am slightly dissapointed you didn't stay with the Wall-E/Johnny 5 vibe :(

[rpricew]

Great looking paint scheme. Have a modeling question though... do you think the seams where the model is put together could be filled in properly? I have a Riptide that I'm putting together, and like the Devilfish engines, the seams are just blatant. Especially if you wash the model. What are your thoughts?

[DeadPanda]

You could yes, I had thought about using liquid green stuff to fill in the majority of the seams but personally I'm a bit crap with it, I know others who could have done it with green stuff and a lot of patience. I guess the most annoying seems are the ones in the vents above shoulders. They could be difficult to even out.
I will say though GW really hit the mark with this model and it was a joy to build and paint. However on reflection I could have done better. It's now on eBay to fund another one which I plan to put more effort into.

[Kawauso]

Damn fine job.

The colour scheme you've chosen looks fantastic and I love the clean look it has - I agree that you should avoid the battle-damaged look with Tau, in general.

I in particular like the orange you've chosen for sept markings. Very striking against that military olive colour.

[Wolfshade]

Looks similiar to the blog colour scheme: http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/wnt/blog.jsp?pid=8900072-gws

[DeadPanda]

Thanks for the kind comments, as I have had a few compliments on the scheme so I thought I would share a quick rundown of paints I used.

Main armour was airbrushed with, sewage water as base, rotten wood as mid colour and then mummy as highlight. All 3 of these paints are from the Minitaire range by badger and can be found on eBay.

The OSL is, spell singer blue, sky blue and Snow White. Again all Minitaire paints.

The orange was based citrus orange, and then highlighted using warning yellow (looks orange). All Minitaire.

Gold was rich gold by vallejo. It's alcohol based if you haven't used it. Fantastic paint but you need to use alcohol if you want to thin it.

The black areas were just airbrushed with model air black and highlighted using model air USA grey both paints are vallejo model air paints.

I used an oil wash to darken the lines in the armour. First I satin varnished the model then made a wash using black oil paint and white spirit. Cleaned the model up of any over run using a cotton bud dipped in white spirit and let it dry. Finished with Matt varnish,

I actually used the main armour paints as an experiment. I had been using these colours for plague bearers and thought used differently could be good on a riptide.

I was thinking, if I did do another space marine army, this scheme would be quite good for the Raptors a Ravenguard successor chapter.

[Psychosplodge]

IDK how you part with your models after putting so much work into them...

[DeadPanda]

IDK how you part with your models after putting so much work into them...

It helps me fund my hobby ;).

[Psychosplodge]

:D
I'm too much of a hoarder to do it like that.

[Wolfshade]

:D
I'm too much of a hoarder to do it like that.

He isn't a proper collector like us splogy

[Tzeentch's Dark Agent]

I need to get rid of 3k of Vampires, 1k of Beastmen, and a bunch of Marines.