[Calaban]

First a little backstory:
Playing around with Inks, just to get a feel for them, I made up some test Inks on spare Tau bits, and came up with this as my favorite:

I liked the Blue Ink, making them look electrified or something like that, but I also felt that it made them look Ice-Like... which is kewl, but they're firewarriors, so why not do the same thing with red, getting a fire effect?

If it works out, then, since I usually play Hybrid, I could have two seperate color themes in the same army: Mobile (Fire) and Static (Ice). Red Flame-like Tau flitting around the table, Blue Ice-like Tau standing firm, Iceberg-like!

I immediately tried the red-ink way, and got a pretty good abstract firey effect (more like glowing coals), the mottling of a stain and the ink drawing away from the edges worked out pretty well together, I must say! Best of all, its only a 3 step process, all together taking about 15 minutes total! not bad!

I also initially did the cloth black with a light codex grey drybrush, as suggested, and decided to go a little heavy on the drybrushing to reinforce the fire scheme with some ash-like cloth.

And here's the Fire Tau... I guess I'll call them EmberArmor Tau:

I guess you cant really see the grey-ash cloth in this pic, maybe the next one is better

I was so excited about the Ember Armor that I commited it to another model (mobile-active, of course)

And heres the new model alone, showing the full effect (leg armor is a bit too tiny to do tests on). Dont worry about the Carbine, all of these FWs are going to be pinned, with swappable weapon arms (I made sure the left arm would hold both properly)

(Side Note: the camera didnt do these models justice for once. They arent nearly as monochromatic to the naked eye, I'll work on better light/pix)

Now, some additional comments are desired:
-Does it look a bit too messy/sloppy? Or does the Ember theme carry through, and is not just in my insomnia addled head?
-Chaos Black is a great color to accompany this armor, so all of the cloth will be black, with codex grey drybrushed "ash". But what would be a great accent color for this? For the belt, the boots, the Backpack, etc?
-Should the guns be Ember-ed and Black as well? or should they be some different (accent) color?
-How could I alter the colors subtley to make the squad leaders and Shas'Vre's stand out more?
-The Shinyness of the Inks goes away after several days (either due to drying fully or due to handling).. is shiny too shiny? would a matte clearcoat fix it? or does shiny work? and a gloss coat to preseve it?

Anyways this will be a Blog of sorts, showing the progress of these paint schemes.

(Coming Soon! Black-ink the same way as above... for a "Blacksun" Armor for... what else? the Stealth Suits!)

[Ewain]

Man, that is really extraordinary!
(Makes my fingers itch to try inks first thing tomorrow)

As for your questions, the blue comes through really well, and if the legs on the first pic are close to reality I'm impressed!
For leaders/shas'vre, how about a white undercoat or shield in the opposite color (fire/ice)?
Accent color for the ice suits -would a light green (angels/goblin with maybe a little sunburst) work?

[Pollo]

Still prefer the blue personally, the red looks a little blotchy :P
If you're going to use the red, don't make the drybrushing so heavy, it looks too much like a 'sprue' grey - IMO the black was much better.
Belt buckle and stuf:: Inked Shining Gold perhaps ?
Make the guns match the armour
Blazing Orange melmtes/shoulder guards for Shas'ui ?
How about matt varnish, then painting shiny varnish onto the armour? Because hiny cloth doesn't work, and I don't know if matt armour would when using this effect.

[Tau Outcast]

Nice can't wait to see the black one!

[Mael]

Calaban

Are you priming these models at all? lookes like you're painting/glazing directly on top of the plastic...

-M

[Tallon Karrde]

I had the same idea when I got my Tau and when I painted them, they came out looking like "poop". So I repainted them to my 'Pread' scheme. Your's look soo much better.

[Rogue_FireWarrior]

what do the inks do? and how do you use them? what makes them different from regular paints ???

[Scizor]

they are thinner than paints,and are applyed to colours brighter than the ink itself.it flows into the details and leaves the brighter areas,like washing,but its more shiny