Starting attempt at weathering tau

[SadKnight]

Hello!!
I started wh40k with dawn of war and then i saw the models and finally almost exactly a year ago i bought the dark vengeance set. And since no one i know plays or hardly knows the universe, i thought this would be enough. Then i got more marines, more chaos, tyranids and tau and its been a year of painting almost non stop, as non stop as a full time job allows.
Stalking all the videos, forums, images, art theory webpages, everything i can think of i think im progressing.

So the story of this army goes as i was trying for my own paint scheme for the tau. I came up with the regular scheme and my girlfriend says it looked good, very "gay vintage" NO OFFENSE to anyone, we think you like someone (male or female) and thats it, so please dont go the wrong way on it. Anyways, i thought, yea that sounds cool, and somehow the magenta+turquois (or however you spell it, english is 2nd languaje) got me there and i thought gay people are very strong and so i decided this tau would be so battle hardened, so much fight that only maintaining the weaponry on top condition would be enough. And this is the story of the first time i do weathered. I didnt want to do rust because i decided tau alloys or whatever dont rust.

The first attempt went on the broadsides, then the riptide went heavy on it, and the infantry, i "converted" a cadre fireblade. PLEASE some advice? I still have another battleforce to go

[Packe]

I think it looks alright, I however would like some contrasting colors (could be your photos), but I think all just blends together. Personal thing though.

I am no expert on Tau materials, but I assume they use composite armour? So I think the sponge dab method with a lightgrey would bring some nice accent.

If you want to do nice rust look up MIG, they have premade washes and pigments which are oil based/diluted with thinner. The good thing with oilwashes are that you can move them around more and are easier to "remove" from unwanted areas.

How do you paint your Tau?

That's a start on help, I need more info to help more and I need to know what you want to achieve. Maybe others can help better without it.

[SadKnight]

Well. Since where i live theres no gw or anything store i have to use paints from the art store.
1. Black where goes black
2. Grey drybrush on blacks
3. Grey on the torsos of the suits
4. Turquoise 1 or 2 coats, depends
5. Cream color
6. At first i didnt do it, but after the broadsides i used dark grey with a sponge for weathering
7. At the heavy spots of dark grey, silver with the sponge too.
8. Natural siena almost at a wash state in strokes motion "simulating" mud flying from explosions
9. Burnt shadow? (colors are in spanish) On the heavier spots of the natural siena
10. Magenta, then magenta with white, then white for glows, lenses, tubes.
11. Somehow the only thing i dont like is basing, so just some sand, 3 browns, cork and flock.

My goal was to make some battle hardened forgotten guys.

Plus the xv8s with the commander conversion. I think weathering went far away from where i wanted them... but i dont know?