Cadre of Mesme Ukos Refresh

Time to go home…

All of the finished models will be hanging out in the glass cabinets for now & fingers crossed, come back out again for the grand basing at the end of my project.

Yoda may say do or do not, there is no try, but I’m disagreeing with the old master and I’m going to try really hard to get to that final task.

My plastic risers were bought a very long time ago for the purpose of displaying my Tau so it’s time to put them to good use. First up are the Kroot on the multilevel risers – I love this shape, I may have to invest in another for the fire warrior squads.

Next are the drones – I’ve left space for aircraft to fly above them. The drones  for now can roomie with Ethereals, turret and Stealth Suits.

I’ve added better photos of my Ethereal’s to showcase the details I added to their outfits and bases, I especially love the little crashed drone on my ‘proxy’ Ethereal.

Then in go the sniper drone team, the pathfinders and their rides.

I have tried to get some close ups of their markings too.

Here come the Air Caste.

My original two ground crew have been joined by 3 more. I went with orange for the jumpsuits with blue armour. I tried to find the correct colours in my Tau paints but it seems I originally used two oranges, one of which is lost in the mists of time and an unknown shade of blue.

A quick rethink and I decide to redo the jumpsuits with the blazing orange that features on the pathfinders and after a couple of experiments (not pictured) with various Blues I settle on Hoeth Blue for the air caste.

Everyone ended up with new paint. One of my newer guys has a full face mask on so I tried out something new and went for a Jedi temple guard inspired pattern.

So moving swiftly along I have my 2nd pathfinder unit. Again a quick once over with the duster and refresh any colours that weren’t quite there plus touch up all the glaring mistakes one inevitably finds when looking at a ‘finished’ model again after awhile.

These are same colour scheme but are marked up as 02

Onto the drones.

Squads 1, 2 & 4 all dusted, repaired and ready to go on display.

I can thank past me for the idea of alternating the red gore and vomit brown sections on the drones as it has at least preventing complete mental breakdown when batch painting oodles of drones. The one constant I’ve found as a Tau collector is that there are always more drones….

This is where I drifted away from the project last time I tried to push on with the painting. I got part way through the painting on this one.

I added more layers to my base coat, so layering up the vomit brown and red gore till I have a nice even finish. I added silver for the details and touched up the black on all the gaps to give a lovely crisp outline.

I thought it was finished….

The more I looked at it the more I thought something was missing.

So I went back and added the veins to it. I like it much better now.

This one will be a Fire warrior transport so it’s the basic red and brown. I will add the squad markings to the nose once I decide which unit is the lucky squad who no longer have to walk everywhere 😉

These guys just needed dusting and touch ups to bring back those vibrant yellows, reds & oranges.

Pathfinder squad 1 – all unit markings present and correct. The leader has tau writing on part of the helmet to show leadership. Everyone is this squad has 1 stripe on the helmet ridge. Orange is the colour for the pathfinders so everyone has an orange segment on their armour and the vehicle has orange in the “veins” in the camo.

My original basing scheme is still on these guys. I’ll have a think and work out a cohesive scheme for everyone once they are all done. The trees are made from garden twisty wire, yellow railway flock and Lichen is oranges, yellows & browns. I also used natural colours of rocks, the same yellow flock and for some abhorrent reason lost to time painted the base edge green…!

The drone snipers had a check up and dust off and touching the yellow up for brightness. Then they are ready to go back on display.

Aun’O Mesme Ukos, my first Tau purchase. The rocks on the base have glow in the dark paint on & I’m amazed that it still in fact glows!

my first ever attempt at a conversion is also in the photo – a Mickey Mouse Drone. It’s terrible and clunky but I keep it to remind me to keep trying.

My second photo is a Tau lookalike from the wonderful Black Scorpion Miniatures. I couldn’t resist adding them to my army.

Lastly is my forge world Sentry Turret.

All of these just needed a good dusting and they are ready to go on display.