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So I've been wanting to do this project for a while now, but never knew how to start. I wanted to create a giant Grotesque, and I mean Wraithknight size.

I like the idea and fluff of the Dark Eldar Covens supplement and have been working on my army for a while now. I wanted something to be the "pride and joy" of my coven, fluff wise, and wanted something crazy-hard-hitting, so making a counts-as Wraithknight was a perfect fit.

All the models I wanted to use were either too thin (Nagash) or too short and specifically posed (new Bloodthirster) so my project was back-burnered for a while. Then a discussion I had on my Warhammer group's Facebook page gave me an idea: use an action figure. After some searching I found this:

The base you see there is the one I was using for my Tantalus, which will be repurposed for Venom here. The size of this thing is almost perfect as you can see here side by side with my other Wraithknight:


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Sorry I don't know why it's sideways, but you can see it well enough

First I removed the head. I wanted to see if I could find a way to make a Grotesque-like face shield, but after looking through pretty much every bit from my extensive collection, I was not able to find anything even close. I was tempted to leave the head alone, sort of as a tribute to Venom, one of my favorite villains. I decided to change that however, because I wanted people to think "Giant Grotesque" when they saw it and not "Is that Venom?" Here is what I ended up doing with the head. The clear piece on the front will be painted over to give it some more texture and Dark Eldar feel. I still may add some kind of head crest, but I am not sure about that just yet.

Picking a pose was more difficult than I realized, and I really took my time with this part. Once I glued his joints, there wasn't any going back, so I had to really make sure I got it right. I wanted to have him crouched on top of a Chimera, but his legs just didn't move like that, so I went for a running pose instead. Here it is here all posed and super/hot glued. Some of the joints had large gaps that superglue wouldn't hold, so I filled them with hot glue.

This next part took me a LONG time to do longer than I realized. (I am posting all of this sort of retroactively because I didn't think to post as I was building, which is why you see a lot all at once). I green stuffed all his joints to smooth them out and make it more realistic. Here it is all done up.

When I convert, I like to make the new model as close as possible to the original. Since the Wraithknight is "Jump" I thought a built-in jetpack was in order, so I butchered an old painted Raider I had to add this. I plan to green stuff arond this A LOT to make it a part of his back instead of an attached Jetpack, but that will have to wait, as I start working on the arm next.

After careful consideration, I decided I wanted to make a Scissorhand for him. I liked the idea of a Coven weapon and after looking at what I had, this is what I decided to do. I had to make it pretty much from scratch, so these are the blades here.


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The shield part that the claw is attached to is from the Chaos Defiler, I had one from my days playing Demons back in the day.

Here is another photo I forgot to attach.

This is looking to be all kinds of awesome, keep up the good work!

Thanks man, I've caught up to where I am now, so I will be posting as I work.

Looking cool, but rotate your pics before uploading!

Can't wait to see how this progresses!

So here is today's work. Since the fluff of this guy only makes sense if I make him the "Sword and Shield" Wraithknight, I have made an energy shield projector for his off arm. There is a lot more detail work to be done, but I want to get most of the "Big Stuff" finished before adding details. And I will only be taking my photos in landscape from now on to make sure they upload correctly!

Not much exciting today. I plan to paint the legs like they are pants, so I added the white plastic to define the top of the pants. I am also starting to work on carving the legs down so they can feasibly look like they are actually pants and not veiny superhero legs. That is a lot of work let me tell you. I started a bit at a time to make it easier on myself.

Here you see some green stuff work on the shield arm. I decided I wanted this bracer to be built into his arm surgically, so I am creating a texture like scabbed flesh around the edges so it looks like it was grafted on. I will eventually put a bunch of wires connecting the bracer and the arm to make it look like it has been wired into his system/power core.

Interesting project. I'm not sure if the build is quite slim enough to fit the DE aesthetic, but some sleek, pointed armor plates should solve that problem.

I'm not making it slim because I am going for a Giant Grotesque type look. So the massive, overgrown, bulging muscles fits perfectly.


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I did a little more work today, but it was mostly just cleaning up some green stuff and some more carving on the legs, so nothing worth showing. I will put up more pictures when I get more work done, but that may not be till Sunday.

This is exactly the kind of GC I want DE to get! Can't wait to see it done!

Today's work has been the base. Not terribly exciting, but as I get closer to adding the small details, I wanted to make sure I had a way to stand him upright so I don't have to lay him down on a small spike or something. I used the large resin block for two reasons, to give him more support, because he is leaning so far forward, and to give him a bit extra height, as he is a tad bit shorter than a Wraithknight. The two metal pins are where his feet goes. I haven't glued him in, but he stands on his own.

Got the shoulder weapons done. Well mostly, I may work on the transition from the barrel to the barrel end. I attached the small vehicle grenade launchers to the end of Dark Lances to create my Scatterlasers. I think it looks different enough to me distinguishable from a Dark Lance.

I used some hot glue to build up his back here in preparation for the final green stuff work. The hot glue makes a great filler so I don't need to use $10 worth of green stuff here. The end product should look like a huge hunch back sort of thing with a rocket sticking out the bottom. I also added the surgically grafted shoulder pads. This is where the weapons from above will be mounted. I plan to drill a large hole in each and mount the ball of the Scatterlasers into it. Not sure if I want to magnetize this or not. I will normally run him with the two Scatterlasers, but I like the idea of having the option of dropping/switching weapons down the road. I guess I'll sleep on this and decide what to do.

Holy Green Stuff Batman! I think this step used the most green stuff I have ever used at one time. I covered the hot glue on his back with it and molded it to look like uneven muscled flesh (hopefully it looks like that!). So now the engine that looked like a backpack is more of an engine sticking out of his Quasimoto-like hump. I plan to add a bunch of stuff to his shoulders, like vials, bone growths and as many tentacles as I can find. I will have to drill out the green stuff and jam a pin down as far as I can into the hot glue to make them stable, but I think I can manage. It's still not glued to the base, I just stood him up to get a better look.

This is an awesome project. Can't wait to see it done.

How about you post some pics of your DE army so we can get a feel for what the paint scheme will be

D

Not the best picture, but these are my Grotesques, the only painted models in my Dark Eldar army currently. I will be painting "Venom" very similarly.

This is pretty great. Loving the progress so far.

Here is a couple of miscellaneous photos. The first one is a picture of a vent off of the Soul Grinder. The one on the right is the original vent, and the one on the left is the one I whittled into a liquid vial. I did that with both. The next photo is after I added some poison vials to the Scissorhand. The final one is showing how I magnetized his secondary weapons into his shoulder armor. I finally did decide to magnetize, but I have no alternative options at this point.

Here is the part I have been waiting for since I started this project: All the crazy stuff sticking out of his back. I know I should have put these on a few at at time to make the green-stuffing easier, but I couldn't help myself. With all this on here, it is really starting to look like a grotesque. Oh and I finally did glue him to his base. with all this extra stuff sticking off him, it was getting more difficult to lay him down between steps. I also put the head back on, though I think the older photos showed that already.


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I also shortened up the weapons a bit. They looked a bit ridiculous at their original length.

I am working on some details now. I added some wires here and there, I built the Grotesque chest piece thing, put some blades and spikes in a few places, pretty much "Dark Eldared it up."

This I was really hoping not to do, but without it his weight shifted every time I picked him up and set him down. I started to get nervous that he could break under his own weight, so I broke down and supported his leg. I wanted to build up some ruins to almost touch his leg to hide it, but I felt the base was already pretty busy.

I'm getting pretty close to done here. Some green stuff work on the stuff on his back, and maybe a few more things here and there and this dude is ready for undercoating.