Painting A Tau Broadside XV-88 for Warhammer 40K

I conducted a painting experiment with a Tau Hammerhead and applied the same scheme/technique to the Broadside.

Step-by-Step

  1. Clean and assemble the Broadside. Unlike the Hammerhead, I did not prime this in parts.
  2. Prime with Rustoleum Specialty Textured Plastic. This is a textured spray paint that is made for outdoors equipment. It provides a fine grain finish that replicated the texturing real tanks have to prevent crewmen from slipping. The color is an almost perfect match to Citadel Deneb Stone (Foundation).
  3. Edge line with a mix of Citadel Bleached Bone and Citadel Skull White.
  4. Add secondary colors as desired. I used VMC Black to paint the railguns, face, and joints and Citadel Ultramarine Blue for the lenses.
  5. Prepare the base whenever you feel like. For skimmers, it doesn't really matter when you handle the base.
  6. Paint the shoulder armor and some stripes with Citadel Snot Green.

  7. Wash the black and green areas with Citadel Badab Black (Wash). Make sure the wash flows into the lines between the green and tan. This will give you a nice black line around the green areas
  8. Use a 000 brush and some Citadel Devlan Mud (Wash) to line the rest of the Broadside.
  9. Use Citadel Codex Grey to line all of the black areas.
  10. Paint a small highlight on the lens using Citadel Lightning Blue.
  11. Seal

Post Mortem

In hindsight, I should have primed the separate pieces and done some prepainting before assembly. The shoulder joints, in particular, were very hard to access once glued in place. Had I primed the pieces separately, I would have been able to paint those components very easily and cleanly, whic would have resulted in a better overall end product.

Notes

Last updated6/23/08
AuthorMichael Kan
Pre-requisites None
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