Iron Man Themed Tau: The First 69 Models!

Old School here with some pics from the Iron Man themed Tau commission that I have been working on. This is pretty much the first half (or more) of the whole project. I know my camera hates reds and yellows, but I am going to put it out there anyway! There are tons of models here, so let's take a look.

Ok, so the whole army is based in my three color zenithal red (yes, there really are three colors of red, despite my camera's crappy translation) using my airbrush. From there, I grab the traditional brush and add in the yellows, blues and greys. All weathering is done with black and leadbelcher. The forty models above include 16 Pathfinders and 24 Firewarriors all assembled by the client. Half of the pathfinders are plastic Firewarriors with carbines, the other half is made up of the classic metal models, which are actually really cool. I never used the original models when I owned Tau and now that I have handled these, I wish I would have given them a fair shake since they are so cool.

The other half of the completed Tau so far includes 3 Broadsides, 3 Shield Drones (by the way GW, do something about these! Combined material kits are horrible), 12 Fire Warriors, 6 old school stealth suits, 3 Crisis Suits, a Shas O and a Devil Fish ... not bad for a couple weeks work. I plan to paint five vehicles over the course of the next week, wrapping up the armory, so I can move back to the infantry bases and cap the project off.

Overall, the Iron Man theme has been a lot of fun to paint and has taught me more of what I am capable of in terms of quality and volume in a short amount of time. I am glad the client likes the work and I look forward to facing off against these models sometime with my own fully painted army!

This project has really scratched the Tau itch I had for some time and really brought me back to my own armies in terms of future projects. No longer do I feel the desire to branch out, rather I feel the need to truly complete my remaining Crons, finish the new units I have added to my Chaos and start painting my orks. With that said look for some more Tau and parts from my own projects turning up soon.