Dark Eldar Grotesques Aberration Painted! (Flesh Friday)

Well, this feels pretty good.

Though I may not have succeeded with as much of my November Modeling Vow as I did with October, but I still feel like I accomplished some good things in November, chief among them, for me, is having finished painting AND BASING the unit of Dark Eldar Grotesques that I finished modeling in October.

That last basing bit is key. Anyone who has known me for a while can attest to the fact that I'm far more interested in modeling and sculpting than I am in painting and basing. Though I said I finished a lot of things in October, NONE of them were based. I fixed that his month, forcing myself to get over how boring I find basing, and have now nearly finished basing all the models I painted in October.

The full idea and process behind my bases is something I'll go into in a separate, fuller article. For now, the general concept was that I wanted them to represent the floor of a Haemonculus' workshop: a slick, bloody mess, some of which looked like it might actually be alive.

For painting the Grotesques and Aberration, I took the colour scheme for The Hexed from the Haemonculus Covens book...

October Modeling Vow Complete (Flesh Friday)

Though it's the case that I didn't finish this modeling vow IN October, it is the case that I MADE the vow on something like October 16th, so I'll call that a victory.

On that day, I vowed to my Dark Kin on The Dark City forum that, come end of October, I would have finished:

- Building and converting my first squad of Grotesques
- Painting a 10-man squad of Kabalite Hunters
- Painting 1 Haemonculus
- Painting 5 Mandrake Cronos Parasites
- Painting 1 Cronos Parasite Engine
- Painting 3 Reavers

Here are the results:

Converted Dark Eldar Grotesques & Aberration (Flesh Friday)

What feels like a thousand years ago, I converted the guys below as part of a commission to create a haemonculus coven for a client.

...And they had some cool little details...

...and they took me FOR. EVER.

When I decided it was about time I do my next batch of Grotesques, I wanted to get them done quick and get them painted so I could see how my test scheme would work on them. I made them part of my October Modeling vow of stuff I would get done by the end of the month to keep me motivated.

It worked pretty well:

Raid Spoils: Coven Clawed Fiend and Urghul

I'm a member over on the All-Dark-Eldar message board, the Dark City, and every christmas they run a Christmas Raid. It's kind of like Secret Santa for the Dark Kin: each participant pledges to give a model-related gift of $20 value or more, and each participant makes a request for something they'd like in their army.

When I drew my "victim" for the raid, he had requested Clawed Fiends or Coven stuff, so I thought this was the perfect excuse to complete my proof of concept model for a feral Grotesque to represent a Clawed Fiend in an all-coven force. As I detailed in my previous post, I used a Vargheist/Crypt Horror as a basis for it, added in some Talos bits and a Nagash spine, some Greenstuff, and—BOOM—Grotesque Fiend:

Grotesque Genus: Options for Converting Dark Eldar Grotesques

EDIT: I updated this article on 12/28/2016 with a new options and some more pics, and I'll try to continue to keep it updated as it's one of the most popular posts here.

Anyone familiar with the Dark Eldar scene knows that there is one big, burning question from anyone with eyes, limited funds, and even a passing sense of aesthetic rigour.

What am I going to use to convert Grotesques?

"But," I hear you saw, "GW already HAS a model for Grotesques."

Yes, that is true, but the thing is expensive, statically-posed, lacking on additional bits, and, well, UTTERLY GROTESQUE!

I that way I guess it's perfect for representing the unit that it is meant to, but I certainly cannot respectfully field that "Breakdancing Bigfoot"(TM someone brilliant who isn't me) in my army—particularly when I put so much work into converting so many of my models.

Grotesques from Bio-Terrors: Mission Accomplished

Well, last June I started in on my first models for the Haemonculus Coven, and they were destined to be Grotesques. I based them on Paulson Games' Bioterror models, and from four identical models, I managed to squeeze out the four following original poses:

Grotesques complete!

More images and information soon, but for now it's time for a happy dance!

Grotesques Nearing Completion

I can see the light!

After what seems an age of off-and-on work, my Grotesques are finally getting near done. It's amazing how the addition of a couple of arms gives far more bearing and direction to the models. At this point, I need to sculpt one more freaky arm on one of them, featuring a creepy hypodermic bit, then finish up the freaky hand for the squad leader, and after that all that should be left is connecting things up with a few sculpted details, and {deep breath} they should be done!

Man, doing this kind of work on a multiple-unit level can get to be a pain in the butt!

It's seriously rewarding, though. Just as I was starting to feel like I was losing some steam on the Grotesques, I decided to finally attach their arms, and just that small change got me juiced about them again. In fact, I daresay I'm damn proud of the way they are coming along.

Anyway. Enough jabber. Onto the model shots. I apologize the lighting is a little jumped, but I'm not photographing them in my standard workspace.

How Grotesque!

As a follow-up to last week's Flesh Friday, here is the progress I've made on the Grotesques. I feel that the progress on the Wracks has been more transformative, overall, while any progress on the Grotesques has been small and fiddly. That being said, I gave then a similar photographic treatment to the one I've given the Wracks, so at least this will give you a better look at them:

First up, the squad leader is got a case of the Banes:

ABOMINATION! (More Grotesque progress)

This Flesh Friday is a little late, but here it is nonetheless. From here on out my sporadic updates may get all the more sporadic as I'll be undertaking a big ol move from the UK back to Canada next week, and I'm not sure how quickly I'll be able to get back into a consistent modeling groove.

Some modest progress to report on the Grotesques. They've all got beefy necks now with Talos masks attached, and all of them who were waiting for spines to be sculpted onto their upper backs now have them. I've also started on some armour plates for a second grotesque:

A little update on the Monsters

For this week, I've got a little more progress to report on both the Wracks and the Grotesques.

For the Wracks, I've now got all nine of the masks I'm sculpting formed (the squad leader will receive the honour of one of those bad-ass Reaver helmets), and I created another plasticard blade weapon, inspired by one of the weapons that come with the Talos. Next step, I'll likely start on the squad leader as I've got some dastardly plans for him, including one to big him up with some spacers so he towers over his hunched brethren.

A Strong Case of the 'Roids

I'm about to duck out the door to Paris for the Norn Queen's birthday (WOOT!), but before I do, I thought I'd put this update into the can for Flesh Friday (yeah, it's a new thing I'm trying to stay on target). I've only had one day to work on on the Coven since I started in on the pain counters, so I thought I'd use it to return to some shambling constructs who hadn't seen any love in a long while: the Grotesques!

Spinal - A Grotesque Update--NOW in 3-D!

Okay, so maybe that 3D bit's a lie, but it is the case that I felt bad for not updating the Grotesque project on Friday, as I had been doing for the last two weeks, so I decided to use a new toy that just came in the mail to create a time-lapse-style video of me at work. It's the first time I've ever done anything like this, and the angle is a bit pants, but I thought folks might find it fun.
Featuring the sounds of fine, fine Canadian group MSTRKRFT. If you like the music, look them up. You won't regret it. Back to the video, though: I think that, should I do this again, I'll probably learn a lot from this initial outing.

So anyway, yeah: I got some more work done on the Grotesques this week, but not as much as I was hoping. Lesson? Don't predict that a week is going to be great for working until after it already has been!

Here are some pictures of the team in their current state:

Paulson Bio Terror Review and Grotesques

Something exciting arrived in the mail on Thursday:

...apparently shipped at the SPEED OF LIGHT from the 'States as it made it here to Japan in just under a week. It's my first order from Paulson Games, and with service like that, I'm sure to be a repeat customer!

Here are the contents, still all mysteriously and protectively packaged:


And here's what they yielded:

That's right, baby! Time to unleash some Paulson Games' brand Bio Terror on the world. I've thought that this model would make THE PERFECT basis for Dark Eldar Grotesques since the instant I laid eyes on it. As the Finecast release approached, I awaited pictures of the GW Grotesques with equal parts excitement and trepidation: excitement because they're concept art was so fantastic, and trepidation because I really wanted an excuse to mess around with some Bio Terrors, and if GW put out nice Grotesques, I'd have little reason to (aside from price, that is--YIKES!).

Then this was released...