Monday 21 October 2019

Tau XV25 Stealth Battlesuits.

Recently I was asked by a friend to paint up some minis that his wife had won for him in a raffle. I was happy to oblige this request as it gave me a chance to have a look at some Tau models.

My first task was to take a look at some colour schemes but to do that, I had to find a "Sept".
So off I went online to do some research into colour scheme, bearing in mind my only request from my mate is that the colour scheme had to be something I thought was cool.

So after trawling through google images I came across some images of a dark green scheme with whitish highlights, digging a bit more I found this scheme belonged to the N'dras Sept. Looking at the scheme, I could see it wouldn't be as simple as using Caliban green and Warpstone glow so time to buy new paints.
Fortunately for me I have the citadel app on my phone and it didn't take long to find the paints I was looking for.

Looking at the pack, the set comes with 3 battlesuits, one drone and what appears to be a crashed probe and possibly a beacon, anyhoo.

Starting with the usual, I spray painted the sprues with black matt spray for the undercoat, given the sea green colour scheme, a dark undercoat will help provide a murky undertone.
The bases I felt for these models, would need to be first thing completed, so I applied a couple of layers with Stirland Battlemire. A technical paint from Games Workshop which contains microbeads for texturing. Realising the the miniatures wouldn't have a lot of surface contact to stick to, I dabbed a little more where the feet would meet the base and pressed the feet onto the paint. This gave me an area to stick the feet onto once dry. To give the base a more frigid and alien look, I dry brushed some Etherium Blue on to the texture and applied the same to all bases.

First two thin coats applied to the models, consisted of Kabalite green following by a all over wash of Coelia Greenshade. I was surprised by how effective the wash had created light and dark tones over the models but had also filled into the recesses giving the models plenty of depth. Moving onto high lights I used Sybarite Green and finally dotting Ulthuan Grey over the sharpest edges and corners. I left part of the top half unpainted so that the whole miniatures wouldn't be all one colour. To complete this part I started with two thin coats of Celestra Grey, moving onto two thing coats of Ulthuan Grey and highlighting with White Scar. At this stage, the models were coming along nicely. To finish the models, I painted the inner plates of the attenas using the same paints Celestra Grey, Ulthuan Grey and White Scar.

Next stage was the gears and Tau symbols on the shoulders, thin layer of Screaming bell and a thin layer of Retributor Amour. I find that the Screaming Bell provides a warm undertone to the gold paint but also pairs nicely when you use Reikland fleshshade to fill in the recessed parts. A quick thin layer of Retributor Armour once more and these parts are done.

Moving onto the weapons, I opted to leave the undercoat on and not paint over with Abaddon black. As Abbadon black is a slightly darker finish than the black undercoat, I felt the lighter tone would work well when I used Dawnstone to highlight the black areas on the weapons.

To separate the miniatures between leader and followers, I painted the leaders helmet with Mephiston Red, shaded with Carroburg Crimson and dry brushed all the faces with Etherium blue.

One of the battlesuits I noticed had a knife in it's holster on the left leg. Very quickly I left the pommel black like obsidian and painted the holster in Dryad Brown and highlighted using BaneBlade Brown.

Last thing was the cannisters on the crashed probe which I painted using Leadbletcher.

Allthough there wasn't a lot of paints used with these models, none the less, these I believe would be a great starter set for anyone getting into Tau or even just Warhammer 40k.




I do hope that you've enjoyed reading the sort of guide on painting Tau in the N'dras Sept colour scheme and have at least found either useful, inspiring or both.

Sunday 3 February 2019

Necron Cryptek

I love Necrons, the lore, the look, the overall jackassery of being able to roll a D6 and if the dice shows a 5 or a 6, I can bring each model represented by the dice back on the table. Most of all the ease of painting Necrons.

A few months ago I purchased the new Necron Cryptek with the Canoptek cloak from Ebay for around £10, rather than spending £95 in Games Workshop for the ForgeBane box set and end up with models I'll never paint or need to use.

The model itself is a plastic model rather than the previous Cryptek model which is made from Finecast.

I started painting this model by first using the standard Chaos black undercoat on both sides of the sprue. Once dried, I started by cutting a couple of pieces from the sprue and glued to the base.
The idea with the model is to keep in the same scheme as my Necron army which is the Sauhtek Dynasty scheme but also to attempt to paint the model to the "Eavy Metal Standard".
For those not in the know, Eavy Metal is a company which paints models for Games Workshop in very high detail to use for Games Workshop's website and on the boxes that the models come in.
Basically painted better than the table-top standard.


As you can see these parts are made up of rocks, parts of the Canoptek part of the Necron model and a metal like rod.

Starting with Abaddon Black, I base painted the Canoptek pieces before dry brushing with Caliban Green. As Abaddon Black has a more matt finish that the Chaos Black spray, this and the Caliban Green paired very nicely.
Moving onto highlights, I started by thinning down Warpstone Glow with some water, removed the excess and taking a little bit of time, added edge highlights to the Canoptek parts. Finally added some selective highlights using Moot Green, this gave of the impression that parts of the sprue are lighting up more than other parts, sort of Tron like I think.

The stones next and starting with Mechanicus Standard Grey for my base paint and layering with Dawnstone. This I feel gave off a base tone for painting stone. I then started to selectively dab on Nuln Oil in spots and Agrax Earthshade over the stones to dirty them up. Once the shades were dried, I then followed this up with dry brushing using Iron Breaker to represent minerals in stone.

Finally moving onto the metal rod, I started with the traditional base coat of Leadbeltcher, followed by a layer of Iron Breaker. Moving onto a overall shade of Nuln Oil and layered in a more controlled fashion of Iron Breaker to brighten up the metal. Finally adding a thin shade of Agrax earthshade and highlighting with again Iron Breaker.
This gives the impression that Cryptek and its Canoptek Cloak have risen from Necron Tombs ready to leap into battle.


Moving onto the main piece of the Canoptek spiderling, the process so far is very much the same, drybrush with Caliban Green, edge highlight with Warpstone Glow and pick out the edges with Moot Green.
However that said there is an orb in the centre of the head, here's where it gets slightly experimental.

I started by applying layers of white scar as my base tone, being very careful not to cover parts beyond the orb.
Adding gradual layers of Beil-tan Green shade, this gives the effect of a deep green while avoiding the centre.
Once done I covered the orb with a glaze using Waywatcher Green.
I wanted to imagine that the orb was made from a glass like material with a lense at the centre and I feel this has come out nicely.

Next stage was to start painting the Cryptek's head. I started with a base coat of Celestra Grey, layering with Ulthuan Grey, shading with Nuln oil, layering again with Ulthuan before finally highlighting with White Scar. This ensures that the Crpytek's head is fairly bright compared to the contrast of the dark green and lighter green highlights on the majority of the model. The eye of the cryptek was painted in the same fashion as the canoptek spider and cloak, with the addition of using Waywatcher green around the eye on the Cryptek's face, this gives the effect of a glow stemming from the eye.

To finish this off, I added a base paint of Retributor Armour, a shade of Reikland Fleshshade followed up with a layer of Auric Armour Gold and a edge highlight of Stormhost silver. I feel that the gold adds an extra layer of depth when looking at the face, the added effect is that gold always seems to make greens appear a little darker.

Moving onto the Canoptek cloak, again following the same routine, however this time purposely leaving the large orb in the centre with only the base paint Caliban Green, the reason why will become apparent.
At this stage I started to notice that this particular model has so far been very easy to put together and all parts seen to fit nicely and as they should.

Now that the Canoptek cload and spider are painted and glued together, it's time to work on the golds on the cloak.
I wanted this part of the cloak to have a warm tint so I started with a base paint of Screaming Bell, the pot I have is quite thin but this works as it gets into the recesses and relatively easy to control. Once dry, I add another base paint of Balthasar Gold followed by a layer Gehennas Gold, shade with Reikland and a more controller layer of Gehennas.
At this stage you may be wondering, "Why base, layer, shade, layer?" The reason I follow this method is so once I have applied the first layer and applied the shade, it's much easier to brighten up again if you accidently or simply go for a heavy wash when shading. General rule of thumb is you edge highlight will always be brighter than the previous layer.
The finished result with the gold turned out nicely and gave an overall warm feel, I applied the same paints in the same order to the Cryptek staff.

This next stage I found to be very interesting, the application of OSL (object source lightning). The purpose of OSL is to create the illusion that there is a light source (I.E the orb from the previous section) which gives off a glow.
I set about dry brushing the orb and the cloak including the metal segment with Caliban Green in a circular motion to lay out how far the glow from the orb would reach. Then I dry brushing in a smaller radius with Warpstone stone. Next I dry brushed the orb with White scar before dry brushing the orb and surrounding area in a smaller radius than before with moot. Applying the Moot green to the smaller orbs help give off the impression that the orb was giving off a light source which has reached part of the cloak.
Both the underside of the Canoptek spider and top section had an orb which acted as a light source. I applied the same paints as before which helped created great light sources for the model overall.

At this point, I went back to the cloak and dry brushed the edges of the gold with Stormhost silver to brighten up the gold even further.

The main part of the Cryptek was painted in the same fashion as the metal rod, using Leadbeltcher as the base paint, Iron Breaker for the layer, Shaded with Nuln Oil, layered again with Iron Breaker, Shaded with Agrax Earthshade but this time re-layer with Iron Breaker to brighten up most areas.
This however is where I got very experimental. I decided that because the cloak and the spider both have a light source, that this light should reflect onto the Cryptek.
To achieve this, I took some Caliban Green and really thinned it down with water so it effectively became a glaze.
Being careful so as to not apply too much and have the glaze pool over the model, I started to map out where the glow would reach the Cryptek. I was amazed at how easy and effective this process was.

I started work on the staff, starting with the orb in the bottom section. I started with a base paint of Leadbeltcher however because I wanted the orb to appear as a gemstone, I applied some Waystone Green technical paint as this particular contains a gloss gel that when applied over a metallic paint, it gives whatever you have painted, the effect that the object is a gem of some kind.
I then applied the golds in the same order as before along with the top section with the same order of greens however this time, careful highlighting the edges.
I then added a glaze of Caliban green to simulate the glow from the orb within the Canoptek spider.





I was now at the point of the whole model painted and glued together, the last stage was the base. I wanted to keep the base in line with the rest of my Necron army which is a simple scheme, sand.
The process was simple, watered down PVA glued then fine sand with small stones poured over the glue. I like to imagine the Necrons marching on a tomb world which is completely desolate and arid, essentially a desert.
You can see from the picture below, the effectiveness of applying the Glaze over the model to where I think the light should hit.
I opted to not apply the Glaze to the ground as in my mind, the light in the orb is being directed upwards.


I had an absolute blast painting this model and loved every minute of it. Overall although I paid around £10 for the model, it can also be bought now from Games Workshop for £20. I have to say this model makes a fine additional to any Necron army and all though not as powerful as Vargard Obyron or Imotekh the Stormlord, the fact that it has the Canoptek Cloak means that the Cryptek can cover a good amount of distance where it is needed.
I hope you've enjoyed reading this and if you're considering painting this model, then hopefully this article will serve as a guide to painting this fantastic model.

See you in the next post.