Friday, April 23, 2010

XV88 Broadside Work in Progress

This is some recent work I've been doing on my Tau Broadside Battlesuit. This Broadside is converted from a Forge World XV8 and the Standard Broadside Kit. I hope to make two more of these to fill out a full Squad. For now, he represents the Shas'Vre Team Leader of my Squad. Broadsides are one of my favorite units in the Tau Cadre. They have helped me defeat Space Wolf Thunderwolves, Daemon Princes and wrecked uncountable amounts of Space Marine Rhinos and Razorbacks.
One thing I've been trying to get better is weathering and paint-chipping. I think I am almost there. The chipping came out OK but I've got a lot to learn. Watered-down Dark Flesh worked really well to dirty up this guy. I planning on going back on all of my battlesuits to add this kind of weathering.

What do you guys think? Questions or comments? Bear in mind that there are still somethings I need to paint on this guy.

12 comments:

suneokun said...

Lovely model. Both the effects look great! The broadside is such a useful model ... both as an aggressor against both MC's and tanks and as a big fat 'unit to hate' that the enemy will spend serious effort getting to grips with.

Nice Work.

Anonymous said...

I like it. Weathering looks good and i like the scraps and chips. No more showroom Tau is the way to go.

tau4eva said...

Looks great. I've recently gone back and gave some washes to my battlesuits and I'm really happy with the un-clean look now. My Tau cadre are more veteran looking now.

Grajo said...

Hmm, pretty good, love the weathering and the highlights.

Dhinanta Aloke said...

It's an excellent model (as always). It is cool to see the added effects on top of you're proven scheme. Something about it is a little disappointing to me though. Your models always have that clean, excellently painted look. That look of "This is how it exists." as opposed to "This is how I painted it."

Nothing against your skill or the paint job, the weathering is nicely done. Just something about the loss of that clean look is bothering me...That said, I'm still looking forward to seeing the unit as a whole, and even more of the army. I'm sure you'll prove me wrong :)

Michael said...

Fantastic job OSH, I really like the weathering.

Keep up the good work!

hiveminion said...

Very nice stuff, mixing the kits worked really well, the head looks much better and the pose is great.

Lost my Land Raider turn 1 yesterday to a pair of these, won't underestimate them again I can tell ya!

Keep up the quality blogging!

Pete W said...

Looking very nice to me, OSH. I'm consistently impressed by your painting skills as you've moved from the clean tau look you had before to this more dirty, worn vibe. I think the use of the red-brown as well as nicks and scratches really brings the model to life.

Of course, I'm not looking forward to the game where you bring out nine broadsides and make me come and get you ;-)

Gredus said...

Looks pretty awesome to me OSH. The trick to weathering and chipping is to not go overboard. Sometimes a good model is ruined by a bit too much battlescarring.

Cobalt Cannon said...

Your typical excellence OSH. Although equipment gets dinged up in the field, I do want to mention the little detail of the tau have an entire caste dedicated to maintaning their equipment much as the U.S. military does, the Earth Caste, but robably to a higher degree than us, so fresh looking hardware would be the norm to see for Tau, as it is with our own military today. Poorly maintained equipment breaks down in the field and results in casualties.
Your weathering is superb. I have seen someone before use "masking Fluid" made by windsor Newton to mask off chip areas by making marks with it on your base coat, then painting over that. WHen finished, the masking fluid is removed with a rubber eraser to reveal the paint underneath, which creates a 3d "actual" chip in the paint. You might want to play with that for kicks. What you did though is first rate! The Dark Flesh actually looks like dried blood. lol

Space Hulk Enthusiast said...

Nice job on this guy.

Anonymous said...

I am also a big fan of the Broadside Battle suit, in one Game my Broadside destroyed 2 Chaos Demon Princes 1 of which was in close combat. And as of your models they look awsome, do you do any work with Games Workshop?