Showcase: T’au Ethereal

The Tau Ethereal is a one of those models that on first impression seems a bit dull. He looks like he’s trying to adjust an aerial for his television. He doesn’t look like he’s carrying any offensive weaponry (unless you count the gun show he’s displaying in his sleeveless armour).

Despite hoverboarding Marty McTau not being very interesting, I have to admit he was a joy to paint. We’re spoilt with modern plastic miniatures being covered in intricate sculpting and the Tau Ethereal kind of bucks that trend and has lots of large flat areas devoid of details. For a painter like me, this was such a refreshing change and made for a nice simple paint job. He really reminded me of 2nd edition plastic models from the 90s.

Here’s a link to my Tau tutorial. I used this guide to paint my Ethereal along with a couple of paint recipes for the skin and drone.

Tau Skin Recipe:

• Base coat the skin with Russ Grey
• Mix equal parts Space Wolves Grey with Contrast Medium and wash the skin
• Reapply Russ Grey to the skin leaving some shading in the creases
• Highlight the skin with Fenrisian Grey

Drone Deep Red Recipe:

• Basecoat the Drone with Word Bearers Red
• Make a glaze with Barak Nar Burgundy and Contrast Medium and apply several thin coats building up a darker colour away from the edges of the drone. 
• Edge highlight the drone with Wazdakka Red
• Ultra fine highlight the edges with Bugmans Glow

Games Workshop also sent me Darkstrider which I’ll share in my next post.