Topic: "Dirty" Tau

[boromir986]

All of the tau images I have seen online have been really clean and new-looking. I decided to take my (dark angels green mixed with a little white, with red and black detailing) tau and drybrush them with white.

Do a lot of people do this? The images I've seen look like fresh new recruits. My units look gritty, with worn out cloth and scraped, dented armor. I really like the look, like they've been in the mud and blood for months on end.

So, who here drybrushes their Tau? Do you think that they SHOULD look really clean and proper? Also, I would like to note that some units, like stealth suits, are exceptions, as they would not be shot at a lot, and so look pretty much unharmed.

[Samdan]

when i ever get around to basing and painting those last 8 or so models that need painting in my tau army, im probably gonna make them look kinda muddy, but then again, my tau are jungle fighters from Pech.

[Phantasmagor]

I posted my camo tau in the pictures thread. They didn't look very clean-cut.

[Arguleon Veq]

The thing is with tau is that i reckon they will constantly be trying to maintain thier uniforms(to make sure they dont get clogged and dont break down above anything elese,this would even apply to firewarriors well thier helmets anyway) i see them bieng like mordians in that way.

[Siege_TF]

An excellent point, espically when you consider that Firewarrior backpacks lets a FCW jump out of a low flying Orca, thus the little vents. Their cammo would resemble Kasarkin camo, in that it's got definite borders and the like, as opposed to, say, Catachans who aren't above smearing Tyranid visera over themselves as cammo. I'm not saying that Tau wouldn't use cammo, I'm just saying it would look like the white and grey colour scheme that's in the front cover of the Tau codex, exept using browns and greens.

Of course if you can make it look reasonable then go for it, I've never refused to play someone just because I didn't like their colour scheme.

[Arguleon Veq]

Another thing is that IMO clean lines really suit technologically advanced races as they are usually very proud races and would see themselves as bieng above covering themselves in mud even if it puts them in danger(theres is a difference between pride and self respect, with self respect you will still do things that you dont particularly want to do if it will help or benefit you as the catachans do) and the tau strike me as bieng a proud race rather than self respecting. Anaway clean lines look great on the large flat tau surfaces.

[The Orange]

Any suggestions on how to make a snow cammo FW look dirty.  My scheme is light grey paints, and white armor with blue lines, but i dont know what colors to use to make them look dirty. Any ideas?

[Siege_TF]

The only thing I can think of is drybrushing the pants white, and  maybe you could try the stippling technique described in the codex with a really small brush or something for the armor.