In my last painting update, I had very poor picture quality. I knew a couple of reasons for it, but Asi the Red (Hi there!) pointed me to a thread on Warseer about getting better quality pictures, and it definitely helped. This time, I started more than 12 inches away and used the zoom function to close in, instead of getting too close and being inside the focal length of my camera. I also paid a little better attention to using more light and making sure the camera was braced before I snapped the picture. Finally, as I use a digital camera, I made sure to use fresh batteries. When the batteries get too low, the camera doesn't focus correctly. You should see a marked difference in the pictures this time!

Wash Me!
The first "something different" that I tried was using a wash to quickly go over the areas that would get blue-lining, then go back and touch up the edges of the lines later. I have seen this method used to good effect before and I wanted to try it for myself. The idea is that using a watered down paint allows it to run down into all the details and lines without having to painstakingly paint each one by hand. That can save a lot of time and effort. Going back later with the base color and touching up the edges of the recesses and crevices is easier and can be quicker to do. I ran into trouble here, however. It actually slowed me down, and I believe this is because of the difficulty of getting good coverage with White over a darker color. I had to make several layers of paint to cover up the blue smudges, which meant I had to take more time to paint it than if I'd done it my original way. I think this method has promise, but it will be much more effective if the base color is darker, such as a red or a black.

We don't need no stinking batches!
This left me with 1 Crisis Suit, the Piranha and 7 Drones, plus a Plasma Rifle. I decided to try a different tack with these models. I've been using the method of painting one model or one unit at a time, since it gives a feeling of accomplishment that really helps keep me focused on painting and keep my momentum going. On this last group, I decided to try it as a batch or assembly line. First I did the blue-lining on every one of the models. Then I did all the black, then the red and finally the gold. While I think each individual step went pretty quickly, overall it actually took me longer to complete the models. The problem was my motivation. Since I wasn't seeing results at the end of each painting session, it got harder and harder for me to pick up the brush and do the next step. I think batch-painting can be very effective, but it works best when you are really motivated to hammer out those models. It may be best to use it for the initial group of models for an army, then switch over to individual painting to keep up the momentum and see the accomplishment.

Ready to go, but room for improvement
All my models are now ready to play with. There are still a couple of steps that I plan on doing on them, however. They are ready for table-top play and (based on the opinions that I've gotten from other gamers) are pretty good quality as far as that goes. I do plan on going back and doing a touch-up step on each of them (mostly with White, but a couple of them need some detail color touch-ups as well.) This will let me clean up areas that I didn't have as steady a hand as I'd have liked to. Once I finish the touch-ups, I'll give them a matte finish as well. This will tone down the shininess, making it look more like Ceramic and Plastic rather than metal, which fits my concept of Tau equipment. Later, I plan on going back and adding highlights to them with gloss varnish in certain areas. I believe that this will let me highlight the white so that some of it appears even whiter (by being shiny.) Finally, I plan on basing them in a snow motif, but that'll be another update, as snow can be finicky to work with.

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