Legacy40k's Tau Prototype Army Painting Log

[Legacy40k]

I've decided to post up the other army I'm currently working on along side my Ordo Xenos Guard.

I have a love of mecha... Shirow's work with Appleseed and Ghost in the Shell, Gundam, Patlabour, Evangelion... So it's no surprise that I eventually made a tau army. It should be clear to anybody that Tau were influenced by Japanese Mecha.

To that end, I think many people have combined model kits of each excessively, and more often than not, not very well making them look rather silly, using Gundam legs on a Crisis suit body for example.

While my Tau suits are unquestionably influenced by Japanese mecha, they do not make use of parts from Gundam or other model kits. I do however use detailing pieces intended for use on these kits but sold seperatly. (Dark Grey Plastic) They were ordered from Hobbylink Japan for those curious.

This army is a Crisis suit army. I realize that in 5th edition it's plausability as an effective army is still up in the air, but with almost no scoring units, it's effectiveness will have deteriorated from 4th edition. That being said, I'm not overly concerned, my goal is to make a really cool looking crisis suit army with weapon selections often being chosen with that in mind. It's not being made with overall combat effectiveness as the main goal.

[Legacy40k]

This was the first suit I made for the army... before I even knew I would going to make this army.

Originally I Just wanted a cooler looking commander farsight.. because.. well.. the actually model is REALLY boring. So I went about making this guy.

Since then I've decided that he'll be a "Counts as" farsight when I want to field a big bodyguard and less broadsides. Ironically going completly against the Farsight army idea of being battle hardened and without easy repairs after long campaigns.. this army is all brand spanking new prototype suits doing field testing.

The sentinal was it rough shape when I got it, unfortunatly not useable on it's own, but it cleaned up well for this use.

[Legacy40k]

A leg paint test for white. I needed a cool white as I intended to go with Snow Bases.

[Legacy40k]

I wanted something of a landing angel feel for it so this is the pose testing:

[gonzosbignose]

Mr Legacy

As a big fan of the other blog you do, rest assured ill have my eyes peeled on this. Ive never been a big Tau fan, but im sure you can convert the non believer for the greater good!

Regards

My name is Daniel and i am a wargamer

[hard94]

nice uber cool.
Mvh. Andreas

[Rahveel]

very nice, I too am a lover of mecha. seems to have a Gundum/Evangellion feel to it what bits did you use to make the wings?

[Legacy40k]

Head painting. I wanted to keep a bit of a farsight feel to it so I used the antenna from the Farsight model





Water test for the base.. I wanted to play with water effects basically:

[Legacy40k]

Picking the colour scheme, but not very happy with how it was looking at this point.




Farsights sword has some cool detailing on the tip so I painted on my own:



It was never meant to look like NMM for the sword blade.. I just wanted a neutral colour that didn't look like metal, some sort of a composite alien material.

[gonzosbignose]

You would put up and update as im typing my response


angel farsight looks amazing.

Love the pure white, with the hint of blue. and the bases is formidible.

The angelic spread of the back pack looks great, all be it a bit cliche'd with the tau antennae.... however it does look great nad fits in with the gundam/mecha look.

I like it, keep it up matie

Regards

My name is daniel and i am a wargamer

[Azriel45]

The water effects are really looking good. How'd you pull off the spray from the pipe?

[Legacy40k]

I wanted the shield to feel like it absorbs solar energy through the crystal in the middle and then powers the shield with it.



First time assembly:




It was all built in parts with a lot of hope that it would fit togeather. The wing/jetpack mounting point on the back. I orriginally sculpted it all with greenstuff, but I was having trouble keep symmetry and it was hell to drill into and smooth (I had not yet been introduced to miliput). So I ended up using the barrel of an Ion Cannon to build the back up and give me a point to mount to.

[Legacy40k]

The water effects are really looking good. How'd you pull off the spray from the pipe?

It was actually in a WD article.. but basically.. its fishing line gluen to the base and the pipe, then Woodland Scenics Water Effects applied to it, left to dry, then Woodland Scenics Realistic Water was used on the base.

[Legacy40k]

Final Images:

Crisis Suit XV-85x "Sword" (Cliche but suitable)

[Legacy40k]

[Legacy40k]

Long Range Anti Vehicle Broadside:
This was influenced by the work of somebody else that I saw on CmoN, Search for Broadside, it's green, you'll see it.

It took a very long time to figure out how to make the missile pods in a way I liked. In the end I had to cut off a section of the backpack to set them in. I figure since it doesn't have the jets in the backpack, much of that space was wasted so I figured I could get some smart missiles in there.

[Legacy40k]

Crisis suit XV-8 "Thrust"

I wanted to make a crisis suit that had a feel of more manueverability than the normal one so I started by redesigning the jetpack.

[Legacy40k]

Originally I wanted to do salamanders because this suit was going to be red and green is reds complimentary colour.. so it would stand out. I couldn't get the Snot Green to coat evenly though! So.. I remprimed and went with Templars, which worked out well, I really like the iconography of the Black Templars.



I've decided to go with a new design for shield drones for the suits of this army. The main reason being that the metal/plastic ones are too fragile and easy to break. so here's what I'm going with coloured to match the "Thrust"

[Legacy40k]

Long Range Suit with primer:

[9Niels]

The commander is absolutely briljant! Really gundam

I also like your broadside. I'm making sketches for something similair atm. Yours looked familiar, and I just browsed coolminiornot.com for it. I found something similair: http://www.coolminiornot.com/148285 Is this one by any chance influenced by that?