lol watch out for the razzle dazzle!
yeah, they are pretty busy and crazy... thanks for the tips, i'll try to tone it down... the last 3 models in the thread were all done @ 256 by the way
i'm hoping the mex will come out well, i figured that with the gear in the middle spinning, that would be the most eyecatching part.
@ warlord... hehe i was trying to hide the simplicity of the geometry

maybe i went a bit far, will consider this in future.
basically what i'm doing when i texture is loading all of my models into one file, and keeping a close eye on how everything looks from an overhead angle far away; i figure this is probably the most important aspect of the texturing, to make everything easily identifiable from a distance.
i can always go back and fix the really eye-burning ones; at this point i'm trying to go through and texture everything acceptably by my standards, perhaps i'll go back and add more preshading and cohesion later.
by my count, i've completed 13 / 41 units that i'm going to tackle, and modelled about 10 more... so progress is going well. i'm trying to limit the amount of time i spend on each unit, so that there's a consistent amount of effort and detail applied to each; however it doesnt help that i'm improving and getting faster at the process... so 3 hours now might have reflected 5 hours worth of work when i began.
thanks for all the kind words guys! any tips or hints you could throw my way, i'd be very happy to read them.