40k Hobby Weekend Tau of the Shattered Sword

Several years back on the history channel there was television show that talked about aerial combat.  It was called Dogfight.  One particular episode caught my attention; the Zero Killer.  This episode talked about aerial battles in the pacific between Japanese Zero’s and American Hellcats during world war 2.

I liked the colours of the Japanese Zero and thought it would be a good paint scheme for a Tau aircraft. Below is a screen shot from the show.

I while ago, I particpated in a friendly game using Warhammer 40k aircraft.  Recalling the television show Dogfight, I decided to paint up a Tau Sun Shark Bomber in the Japanese WW2 colours.  Vallejo makes a paint set that has all the appropriate colours for Japanese aircraft.

See below for the Vallejo paint set and my Sun Shark Bomber.

I had been toying with the idea of fleshing out a Tau army to go with the aircraft. The 40K hobby weekend was the perfect opportunity to paint up some Tau to go with the aircraft.  Although I may just use the Tau for Kill Team.

So the question was how to paint the Tau Fire Warriors; I wanted the Fire Warrior to go with my Sun Shark Bomber.  Looking through some Osprey books, I found the Japanese Naval Landing Forces for inspiration.  These were basically marines but were part of the Naval.  When first formed, the Japanese Marines wore a dark blue uniform as that was the standard uniform of the sailors.  Around 1937 the Japanese marines change their uniform to something similar to the army.

I like the dark blue uniforms.  This may be in part from watching Tora Tora and Midway movies where the Naval officers have the dark blue uniforms.  Below are some pictures found on the internet that I used as reference.

Tentatively I plan to paint the Fire Warriors undersuit with a dark blue; I might try one of the new GW contrast paints.  The Tau emblom will be painted red.  The armour plates will be painted a lighter blue; perhaps a Vallejo Prussian Blue. Some of the armour plates will have yellow trim just because.  The armour on the lower legs I will paint white to look like the puttees like in the source material.

Of course this may all change once I start painting.