It may just be the quality of these very old Tau Resin models, but I hate painting these even though I have a very simple paint scheme. The pasty blue paint doesn't help and my skill needs to improve when trying to water it down. Especially in this small quantity. Fighting through the hate, I finally got these seven figures painted. The bases were created purely for these old Tau Bunkers, but they fit nicely together.  They are slightly thinner than the standard Epic bases.

The original drill bit I used was rather small, and carving out a hole for the epic miniatures was always slow and difficult. I had purchased these drill bits a while back, and this was the first time I used them. I started with the small round arrow tip and made good work of the first stand before I realised the larger one would get the perfectly sized hole if I stopped at the right depth. The first one almost went straight to the edge, as I couldn't see where the other side of the drill bit had cut to. However, the third stand was far easier once I learned what to look out for. If I had a Rotary Cutting Guide that fits with my Dremel, I would probably cut custom stands for all my Orks I just re-based!

The motivation ebbed over the last few days, but I finally finished painting these. The buttress kept falling off due to the uneven surface, and it took several attempts, sometimes breaking off while I painted it. The final result was much better with a bigger base for the rail gun. As they are removable, I took pictures to compare the smaller base with the larger ones. The old bunkers now fit a dome above them. I just need to add some troops inside.

I always painted straight from the bottles, as I find wiping leftover paint from a palette a waste. However, the flip lid bottles started drying out before I could use all the paint inside, so I eventually switched to droplet bottles. Unfortunately, even wiping away half a droplet of paint seemed too much. I continued painting from the tip of the droplet bottles, sometimes wetting my brush and thinning the paint while it was still at the top of the bottle. Most of the time, I put up with the pasty paint as it's thick and one coat was enough. This time, the pasty finish wasn't good enough. So, I got my palette out again and started thinning it out before painting. I don't have the technique mastered yet as I keep thining it down too much. One droplet is already too much water, and it took three layers to coat the surface. The final result is much more pleasing. It's probably time to try out a wet pallet.

These two rail guns were one of numerous attempts I made back in May 2023. I never dismantled or reused them, and I didn't want them to go to waste. I modified the length of the barrel to match the final version and finished them off. I couldn't believe how many layers of plastic I used for the body of the weapon. Although the barrel was not as neat as the first, it's one less step to make. I finished this the previous day, but I only had a chance to post this today, so yesterday was a very motivated day.

I'm not sure how long I had the large bottle of Revell Contata Glue, but the lid was well bitten back when I mentioned it in 2016. It lasted until the yellow nib broke off in 2020, and I switched to a smaller bottle that came with a model kit. The yellow nob started splitting until the glue started leaking out of the crack rather than being pushed through the fine metal applicator. I tore it off just to see the rest of the inner parts. Both bottles still have a decent amount of glue inside, ~30% maybe less, as I'm unsure how full they were. I wonder if it's worth even trying to keep these.

I was tempted to paint hex patterns on my hex base. On the left was an extremely cheap stencil, and it was way too big (20x20 cm). On the right was a premium stencil from Green Stuff World.  I haven't used either of these and would need to do so now before I glue the walls to the base, and I didn't want to wait. Instead, I went with panel lines (barely visible in the photo) and continued with the same patterns as the other platforms on my towers.