Tau Stealth Team

I started work on expanding my Tau cadre with a Stealth Team. I really like the XV25's (I'm probably in the minority here, as I think these look way cooler than the older XV15's). I wanted to paint them using the box art, as the color scheme looks pretty neat too, a sort of maroon colored armor, with black stealth plating. I started off assembling main systems such as body, fusion blast and arm, and then painting the various components with Chaos Black. I don't like assembling the entire model first and then painting, as it's too difficult to get into the nooks and crannies when they're all together. All the parts were given a dry brush of Adeptus Battlegray. The armor parts that are going to be the maroon color were then painted with Scorched Brown, followed by Red Gore. The edges of the plates were outlined with a mix of Red Gore and Skull White. The black armor panels were edged with Adeptus Battlegray. When it was dry, the black panels are coated with Badab Black to mute down the gray lines and help blend them in. The vents in the gun were painted with Royal Blue, then Ultramarine Blue, and finally Ice Blue to simulate the energy inside the weapon. Sept markings are painted on carefully using Skull White - use box art for reference of Tau characters if necessary. Little lights and gauges were painted on various parts of the weapon, and armor. The red lights are Blood Red, then Flaming Orange; green lights are Goblin Green then Camo Green; blue lights are Ultramarine Blue then Ice Blue. The sensor eyes on the suit are Mechrite Red, followed by Blood Red, then a darker spot of Red Gore in the middle, Flaming Orange curvature at the bottom of the eye, with a highlight of Bad Moon Yellow. A spot of Skull White at the top left of the eye finishes it off. The sensors will be painted with 'Ard Coat after the models have been sprayed with Matte Varnish, so they will look shiny and more glass like. The antennas and screw parts on the suits are painted with Shining Gold, then Burnished Gold highlights.

A similar paint scheme was used for the Markerlight Drone. The stealth field generator was painted with Tausept Ocre, then Bubonic Brown. The edging was done using a base color of Skull White mixed with Bubonic Brown. Make sure you use white to start with in order to get it light enough to see the difference when painted on against the Bubonic Brown - you basically just want to tint the Skull White paint.

The figures were pinned to Back-to-Baseix desert bases painted in a kind of martian scheme. Where the suits are cloaking, the desert scheme was painted up the legs and onto the suits, with a jagged energy line denoting the seperator between cloaked and uncloaked. The energy line is painted with Royal Blue, Ultramarine Blue, and Ice Blue.

Update: Two of the team are completed now, and I'm just finishing the final guy. I'm finally getting a level of skill on the energy wave moving up the armor, and it's looking pretty good. Just have to add some additional wargear to the last team members suit, and of course an antenna and missing arm. Might do something interesting with the last guys base too.

Update: I've finally finished the Stealth Team. I ended up repainting the cloaking field energy line on the second suit, because I kind of mastered doing it well on suit 3, and suit 2 looked a bit substandard. So I tweaked that again, and finished the base on the drone. I'm really happy with the team, and I might look at adding some additional members to it in the future. Now I'm back to concentrating on finishing my second Firewarrior squad.