Sunday, 2 September 2012
Trouble with Tau urban camo (W40K / TW)
Having hatched a plan with Tim to try out some skirmish games set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, but using Ambush Alley's Tomorrow's War rules, I've dusted off my Tau Fire Warriors, & have been attempting to sort out the urban camouflage scheme that I started many months ago. Right from the start soon after the first Tau Codex came out, I've wanted to use the lush Hawk Turquoise colour in the overall paint scheme, but my poor minis have been through various guises (including a hideous purple/turquoise/orange combination at one point!) until I finally settled on a 'realistic' urban camo effect for the armour, but retaining the turquoise (which is the colour of my Battlefleet Gothic Tau fleet) for the undersuit. Below is a run-through of the process I've been struggling with in finalising the urban camo pattern...
My initial ideas featured a pale blue in the pattern mix, & the 2nd try used black for the armour (with night fighting penchant in mind) but I wasn't happy with these. The 3rd attempt above was starting to focus in on the solution, but the jagged mix of greys was a little too similar to that on my Imperial Guard flak armour. I think I almost nailed it months ago with the 4th Fire Warrior above - the same mix of dark & light grey on a medium grey base for the armour, but with a contemporary 'digital' effect, which I think suits the advanced nature of the Tau. However, when I tried to replicate this today (the 5th mini above) the flecks came out too regular & blobby. I think I almost re-achieved the effect in the final attempt above, but it's messier than my original near-success at 'digital' camo :-s The camo scheme I settle on needs to be easy to replicate, but look good at this scale. Does anyone have any suggestions? All ideas welcome - even if it's for a different urban scheme. I haven't tried very large blocks of colour yet, but I was worried it might look OK on vehicles, but 'break up' the look of the infantry models too much...
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Of course, as I think we've discussed before, "breaking up" the look of something is exactly what camouflage is intended to do...
ReplyDeleteThe last iteration looks ok to me. It's not noticeably messier, at least in the photo. Only comment is that maybe it could be higher contrast - the distinction between the black, dark and light greys is very muted.
Yeah, but I was trying to achieve a compromise between 'realism' & actually looking good on a miniature - I think Fire Warrior armour in particular is tricky to use camo on compared to Imperial Guard armour & fatigues as it's quite detailed & suitably alien shaped.
ReplyDeleteThe 4th pattern is definitely superior to the 6th one when viewed in RL. It looks intentional rather than just a mess of tiny marks. I think I will try a blocky pattern to see if it goes anywhere...