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This week in #HobbyStreak I have been painting up some old Tau Empire that have been waiting patiently in my Pile of Shame. Specifically, this is the T’au Combat Patrol box (Buy from Amazon | Buy from Element Games). I also was looking forward to the other large mech that I had only to realize that it is also an XV95, just like this one, so I’m going to have to figure out something interesting to do with that one. I’d like to put him on some kind of cool base. My problem is that I always think of doing cool bases after I have already glued them to the regular ones…

Cadre Fireblade

This is my first guy of the week, and I like a lot about him. I think that his armor turned out pretty well. It’s just an undercoat of Desert Sand (?) the Army Painter spray primer, and then a wash of Seraphim Sepia covered by a drybrush of Flayed One Flesh and then highlighted with Silver Grey. This is the same formula that I’ll use on all my Tau Empire in this army.

I wasn’t originally planning to make them into the primary colors of red, yellow and blue, but that’s how he ended up. I’m fine with everything except I think the yellow is too yellow, and the blue is too saturated. Still not a bad start to the week’s Hobby Streak.

Ethereal and Stealthsuit

Once again, the yellow is too yellow, and I also think that I’m not getting the highlights of Silver Grey down on the Stealth Suit. I will say this: I have always painted Tau Empire and thought that it was a slog to get through the rank-and-file troops so that I could get on to the fun stuff–the big mechs, but I’m quite enjoying the little Tau this time around.

Stealthsuits

Okay, you can see a pretty good progression of the Silver Grey highlighting from left to right, with good highlighting on the left and almost no highlighting on the right, and I think it’s obvious which one is better off because of it. You’ll see it better in the next picture.

By the way, for the bases I’m trying out Geek Gaming Scenics’ Base Ready. I didn’t think think I’d like not having the control of painting the bases but just using the color of flock in the bag, but I really do like it quite a bit (and I’m not getting any affiliate commission for saying that). If I had to do it over again I would have gone with something a little less forest floor and a little more alien world, but the Gungans lived on Naboo, didn’t they? (Bad justification, I know.)

XV95 Ghostkeel Battlesuit

Now you can see the full thing in all his glory. The Silver Grey works wonders on the highlights here, and the pop of Tau Light Ochre on the leg (there more on the back) really adds to it. If you’re wondering what the weird thing in front of him is, it’s a free stump that I took from a model railroad kit and, while I like the idea in theory, I should have used a different flock than the Base Ready I used on the base. Still, SUPER pleased with this guy and not sad that I’m going to have to paint him again because I have this other XV95 kit kicking around (Buy from Amazon | Buy from Element Games)

What did you paint this week? Leave a link in the comments!