Grotesques from Bioterrors: Progress Report

This past week has been a pretty busy one (weekends included), so I've made only modest progress on roughing out the poses and starting the most rudimentary of repositionings on the first unit of Dark Eldar Grotesques from the Paulson Bio Terror models. Though they're not much more to look at, the work has given me a really strong idea for the role of each member of the unit.

Though there hasn't been that much progress, I think that repositioning the various Grotesques is essential as the fact that they all came from the same model will really start to show if I left the Bio Terrors as is.

First off, the dude we saw last week. The only really progress that was made on him was starting in on some of the GS work to cover up the wire substructure of his spinal racks. God, I hate sculpting Green Stuff onto wire armature 0_0

That being said, I have decided that this Grotesque is going to be one that is jacked up on drugs/steroids, so he'll gain a bunch of vials and tubes: some of which will be hanging from that rack growing out of his back

 Next up is the Aberration...or is he called an Abomination? Whatever. He's the squad leader. I wanted to pose him as upright as I could to give the impression that he is towering over the other members of the squad. I also intend to have him ordering them forward with whatever weapon winds up on his left arm.

Next, I've dubbed this guy the Corpse Picker. Not much of a name, but he's going to have a hell of a bone rack growing out of his back, and it's going to be festooned with all manner of harvested body parts from the squad's victims. As for his pose, he'll be pinning his next victim to the ground with his left hand and hoisting a big scalpel with the other hand.

 Note that I cut down his mid-section to make him shorter/more stooped.

Finally, though this pose resembles the previous Grotesque, this fella is going to be carrying the squad's liquifier. I intend to go kind of over the top with it: giving him a big reservoir that is held on his back by spinal protrusions, and the gun is going to be a bunch of syringes lumped into a cannon. The weapon will be attached to his right arm, and he'll be using his left to support it.

Though his neck is currently positioned downwards, I'll be repositioning his head to be looking off to the right.

Next week looks a little less busy, so hopefully I'll make some good progress on getting these guys all external spines. One idea I'm struggling with at this stage is how to better doctor them up to fit the surgical theme me and Bob are liking for the army. I was thinking of elongating their loin cloths into more of a tabbard, and combining this with a kind of over-all-looking bib/armour section over their abdomens, up to their pectorals. It's an idea I came up with to mimic lab coats or coveralls, and it's clear in my head, but it's a little tough to explain. Clearly I should just sculpt it onto one of the damn models so people can see what I'm talking about.