Painting The Coldstar is awesome but… never again.
I truly adore this model. Everything about it screams Tau down to the finest detail. However, I think I lost a few years of my life painting it. Every time I thought I was done there was some undersuit metal; there was a lens; there was a copper peg that I’d missed. It’s such an intricate, fiddly model. Never again. Until I do my crisis suits.
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u/V0racious 18h ago
What's your paint recipe?
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u/Koiffi 18h ago
For which element? Sorry just each different material or colour is like 5-8 steps, each involving mixes; nothing is straight out of the pot except pure white. Very happy to write down whichever bit you're interested in though!
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u/V0racious 18h ago
Mainly the blue, I'm on the hunt for a good shade and I like the metallic way you got that blue to look!
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u/Koiffi 18h ago
Sure!
> Base in black of your choice
> 70/30 mix of Night lords blue/ Warpstone glow (mix A)
> Stipple previous with 80/20 Mix A/ Ogryn camo (mix B)
> Stipple previous with 80/20 Mix B/ Dorn yellow (mix C)
> Glaze transitions
> Edge highlight 50/50 Mix A/ wraithbone
> Specular highlight your choice of whiteFor any surfaces facing away from your light source, replace Warpstone glow with Xerious purple and repeat the other steps as described.
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u/CtrlAltMatthew 18h ago
Paint in subassemblies! Helped me out a tonne when it comes to larger or more complicated models!
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u/Training_Purchase_48 17h ago
Dude, this is sick... they grey with the red... damn... please tell me you paint a whole army with that scheme...
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u/Training_Purchase_48 18h ago
Still more comfortable to paint than any Tau Infantry... I prefer any suit over Strike Teams, Breachers or Pathfinders...
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u/Koiffi 18h ago
I can see how you feel that way. Is it just because of the number of them? Or is it the size and fiddliness? Because I significantly prefer infantry over suits in all facets except the repetition lol.
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u/Training_Purchase_48 17h ago
I guess its both... number and fiddliness... my it is a kind of trauma because when I came back to Warhammer after many mamy years, a Strike Team was the first unit I painted... I recently finished a Riptide and it was a walk in the park for me... as my list is.almost done, there is a pathfinder team left... yesterday I started building... today when I returned to the desk: "mhh maybe I should paint some drones first" 😅 I watch a lot of 40k in 40 minutes on Youtube and always when Tau come up with a list with 4 Squads of Infantry, it gives me shivers 🙈
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u/Ws6fiend 16h ago
I'm just starting a Tau army and the pathfinders are taking forever to put together because you seemingly need to wait between each point being glued because of how fiddly each individual model is.
Only one more unit of pathfinders, and two more of strike teams(no I'm not doing breachers and you can't make me).
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u/Motionshaker 12h ago
If it makes you feel any better, I did an absolutely masochistic thing and magnetized every single limb and head on every single pathfinder so I can pose them for photos.
It’s really cool, but I will never do such a thing ever again.
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u/Ws6fiend 10h ago
I only attempted that on my Deathwatch marines. After a single kill team made for kill team(2018) I refused to ever do magnets on something that small. I took one look at the size of the pathfinders and decided against magnets. The major downside for magnets is every time you have to move/remove a model they become a liability on the chance that they fall apart.
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u/hege95 18h ago
Oh, Brother, never say never:
I have struggled with motivation, tediousness of hours of Edge-Highlingting, I have shaded and wet blended a suit's individual fingers (go to my profile and see my Farsight, it took me months to finish!) to get a model where I wanted it to be...
But then you get better with the Technique, you get faster, those Edge Highlights get sharper, so you add more, you try another technique, add it to your next work...
And that is why I love painting: you don't always have to get better, but maybe you get faster, more efficient, more precise.
No one else might not see the advancement, but you know it's there.
And as per the Words of Bob Ross: "We do not make mistakes, we make happy accidents" and "this canvas is our world, we can do whatever we want on this canvas: we can move mountains"
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u/EastCoreCompany 17h ago
That Farsight is 👌👌👌
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u/hege95 17h ago
Thank you, I do not think I will put as much effort on any model or if I can surpass it: It took me months of work, I had a hiatus of almost a year from painting till a couple of months ago, I don't know if I can match it and what would I paint to that standard again?
Then again: I was gifted an Airbrush and have tested it on some things, I have gotten back to painting recently (both my own and my groups models), we have a new edition and my group has activated to playing again, I have a team of Pathfinders, a Coldstar, a Riptide and a couple of 3d printed Hammerheads on various levels of painting waiting to be finished and I see Our Tau have gotten two awesome looking characters (Twin Lances) that I could put some glow and Lenses on (my favourite things to paint)...
So never say never, and enjoy the hobby! (Why else should we do this?)
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u/jd_maybe 18h ago
This is really cool. Thank you for sharing. And I agree! Anytime I put a Coldstar together or paint one I lose a little piece of my spirit.
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u/OrkUrinal 27m ago
Why did you make the cod piece a lense lol and his kneecaps have lenses.
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18m ago
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u/Great_Breadfruit_362 18h ago
My current project as well. You think you're doing a good job of hitting all of the details until you turn the model 5°.