Rust Never Sleeps - A Tau Terrain Project Part 2

After a lot of interruptions and redoing certain parts, I've completed my Tau terrain project. While what I envisioned looked better (doesn't it always?) I'm happy with the results. Especially considering this was my first real, or at least completed terrain project.

For the grass and other foliage, I covered nearly everything in Rhinox Hide. From there, the rocky outcroppings were slathered with Steel Legion Drab, followed by drybrushing on Baneblade Brown and Screaming Skull.

The grass was from with an old tub of GW hydrostatic grass. While it matches the Citadel Battlemat I recently got, I might explore more natural looking modelling grass for future projects. I used a balloon to try and get it to stand up properly, a tip that popped up a lot during my research. It worked decently but I'll probably also look for alternatives.

The moss was Wee Scapes Moss Green Ground Cover Turf I picked up at an art store. In hindsight I should have slathered it with watered down PVA after the initial gluing, as a lot of it came off when I overbrushed some old Camo Green paint to get a more mossy looking shade of green. I'm happiest with how this turned out, so expect more of it with my future terrain projects.

For the armor I did a few heavy coats of Doombull Brown, then an Agrax Earthshade wash, followed by heavy Skrag Brown drybrushing. For weathering, I did some heavy Rhinox Hide brushing around the edges of each piece.

Besides wanting to keep with my "source material," I wanted to emphasize a natural look, hence Doombull for the terracotta color. I also wanted to avoid a conventional rust look or overt metallics to reflect the advanced nature of Tau technology. According to the Taros Imperial Armor book, Tau vehicles are made of a nano crystalline armor the Mars priesthood can't wrap their augmented heads around. I thought normal rust would run contrary to that.

To that end I painted the metallic parts Abaddon Black and then heavily drybrushed them with Ratskin Flesh and then Deathclaw Brown. I didn't get a chance to pick up a brighter orange but I'm happy with this more subtle, less cartoony look.

The paint jobs on each piece were pretty uniform, though the most attention was given to the Devilfish, the centerpiece of the set. Its huge footprint gave me the chance to go hog wild with the environmental features. I also gave attention to the interior, which was blasted with Wraithbone spray, washed with Gryphonne Sephia, drybrushed with Zamersi Desert, and then weathered once more with Rhinox.

 

it's hard to see the interior at most angles and lighting, I'm very happy with how it sticks out from the rest of the terrain. It reminds me of an objective in more visually appealing (and especially older) games, where the colors naturally draw your attention to the objective, rather than a giant arrow. 

Who knows what secrets lie within this crashed Devilfish...

Overall I'm proud of my work with this. Maybe it would have been wiser to stick with urban ruins for my first real terrain project, but I'm glad I was ambitious here. It's a unique use of leftover, unusable Tau bits and I do love the narrative it tells. 

Building off of my previous article, clearly some forgotten fate befell this second sphere expansion force. To preserve that sense of mystery, I'm still not sure of the specifics. Maybe that node is a doomsday device of terrible power, unjustifiable even to preserve the Greater Good. Or maybe it's just a forever unanswered distress beacon, set by stranded trailblazers of the Empire left to die on a strange new world.

There's definitely a story here and I think all good terrain conveys some kind of narrative. I'll likely build an Inquisitor warband to go with this, as I love the idea of Ordos Xenos operatives clashing with their Tau equivalents over information that could topple the entire Empire.

Whatever the case, I've certainly learned a lot from this project and I'm already plotting future terrain pieces...