Warhammer 40,000 - Invocation of Elements

I had one of the metal Ethereals back in the day, in fact it may have been the Aun’Shi models because I wanted one with an Honour Blade. I think the unnamed Ethereal models had the glow sticks that you use to land aircraft. Regardless, whatever Ethereal model I had no doubt was lost in the great Metal Purge when things started to get plastic models. As such the 2024 anniversary of my local store was the ideal opportunity to fill a hole in my Tau army. 

Putting the model together one has the choice of earth, wind, fire or water to be coming out of the little jar the Ethereal is holding. As the colour scheme for my Tau is ochre and dark blue I decided that water would best fit this scheme. The only other detail of note during the assembly was that I didn’t glue the model into their tactical rock, to make painting a little easier. 

For the painting I started off by priming the model with Colour Forge Standard Grey. My usual method of painting Tau armour is to give them an XV-88 basecoat followed by Tau Light Ochre, having done a similar thing back in the day with Vermin Brown and Vomit Brown respectively. So I had the idea of using that for the cloak and cloth on the model, with XV-88 as the shadow colour and Tau Light Ochre as the highlight colour. Seemed simple enough to do with the airbrush. Essentially basecoat XV-88 and a controlled zenithal highlight of Tau Light Ochre. 

That was the plan anyway, in practice it didn’t really pan out that way. So I pivoted to an Army Painter Skeleton Bone cloak. The first layer went down fine but I must not have waited long enough before applying the second layer because it resulted in a horrible texture. Ordinarily I may have pushed on but there was no saving this mess. So I made the decision to strip the paint off the mini with some Biostrip 20. It’s easy enough to use and doesn’t damage the plastic. Some elbow grease with an old toothbrush and soon the model was ready for a second attempt. 

Starting again I primed the model with Standard Grey once more and this time I opted to give them an all over basecoat of Army Painter Skeleton Bone. I knew from painting the Deathwing Terminators that it goes nicely through an airbrush for a smooth finish. Normally I do all the basecoats first and then do washes but I was wary of making a mess of things again so at this point I gave the cloak and robes a wash of Army Painter Strong Tone. I then layered back up with Skeleton Bone. 

Moving onto the rest of the model, I painted the skin with Fenrisian Grey and the hair and hooves with Two Thin Coats Death Reaper. The little pot I painted with Vallejo Terracotta and the water coming out of it with Thousand Sons Blue. The staff, hood and tabard I painted with Two Thin Coats Manticore Ochre. The recesses in the staff I painted with Skrag Brown and the belt I painted with Rhinox Hide. To offset the warm brown colours, and to compliment the blue skin, I painted the tassels with a couple thin coats of Vallejo Night Blue and the end of the staff (I hesitate to call it a blade) with Army Painter Highlord Blue. For the metallic details I painted the headband with Scale75 Thrash Metal and any gold details such as trim or the belt buckle with Scale75 Dwarven Gold. The final details were to paint the symbols of the Ethereal Caste, which I did by first picking out the raised areas with Two Thin Coats Death Reaper and carefully running a line of Liquitex Titanium White acrylic ink into the recesses. 

With the basecoats done I moved onto the washes, starting with the skin which I gave a coat of Drakenhof Nightshade. Once that was dry I then drybrushed the tips of the water with Army Painter Matt White to give it the impression of breaking water or foam. Lastly for the washes I used Army Painter Strong Tone to wash the belt and also to run into the recesses of the armour and tabard. 

For the highlights, I first did some layered on the skin on the face. The wash had darkened it down a bit too much so I painted the raised areas with Fenrisian Grey. I then used some AK Interactive Pastel Blue to give the skin some highlights. I also used Pastel Blue to highlight the edges of the spear tip. Pastel Blue was unfortunately a bit too bright to highlight the Night Blue areas, the jump in value would have been too much. So I mixed it around fifty-fifty with Kantor Blue and used that to highlight the edges of the tassels. The ochre areas like the armour and tabard I highlighted with Army Painter Skeleton Bone. For a final detail I painted the orbs on the armour with a dot of Evil Sunz Scarlet. 

Moving onto the base, I first added some Armageddon Dunes texture paint in a couple of areas. Once that was dry I then added some Agrellan Earth in any remaining areas. I then basecoated the whole base with Vallejo Khaki, this both ties everything together and seals the flakes of Agrellan Earth down. I was tempted to paint the eagle head in a different colour but I didn’t want to distract from the Ethereal so I kept it the same colour as the rest of the base. To bring out all the texture I then washed the base with Seraphim Sepia followed by a drybrush of Tyrant Skull. Finally, I stuck an Army Painter Scorched Tuft down on the base and painted the rim with XV-88 to match the rest of my Tau army.