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Thanks for the suggestions on the wings! I went for a hybrid between the spotty and veined look, with the veins being dominant. I think it's come out much better than if I had gone with the ripper swarm colors! Having the wings the same general color as the Grotesque's skin ties them in better by making them look like they could have grown out of its back. I'd like to do another with wings that are just "sprouting" so I may cannibalize some ripper or bat swarm wings.

Major props to Sproket's tutorial on painting Scourge wings which is where I got this scheme from (his Dark Eldar, and all other, models are gorgeous) : http://sproketsmallworld.blogspot.hk/2011/11/dark-eldar-diorama-scourge-wings-step.html

Nice work Jon! Have to look at that tutorial myself.

Damnit man, you made me recoil in shock again.

(That's a good thing)

Beautiful. As one thing it does look abit... painted. Lovely work tho!

Very nice! The veins look pretty much exactly how I envisioned them, and the spots add a nice speckled, flaky skin, kinda vibe.

These wings may be the creepiest things I've ever painted . The photo understates the shading so it might not be that noticeable, but I've shaded the wings a bit more so they don't look as "flat."

Beautiful. Looks perfect. Urien_Rakarth is pleased.

Wow Jon, that is spot on mate! excellent shades for the flesh and you've bloody nailed the veins throughout without going into too busy territory! looks vile, creepy, and realistic so you've succeeded hands down, would be kind of interesting to see one with skin all done like that? almost translucent as if he's suffering a side effect etc....?

hey on your flying models did you just base the flying bases they gave you or did you base them with other bases and if so could you tell me which?

I haven't posted in almost two weeks! But I guess playing 36 hours of Terraria would sort of have to cut into hobby time . I've always been a sucker for 2D Metroid/Castlevania style games. And in this one you also get to build Minecraft style structures in addition to fighting off goblin invasions and screen spanning bosses!

But getting back on topic. This Grot is really shaping up nicely. I'm a bit worried that it's looking a bit too "fleshy" now that I see the wings together with the skin but I've got a feeling it'll be fine once I get the skin bruised up properly. If not, I'll consider giving parts of the wings a purple wash.



@nerdfest09: That would look really cool, but I think I would go nuts trying to paint even vaguely anatomically correct veins all over a model !

@Dirronjay: My flying models are based on normal GW flying bases, look earlier in the thread for tutorials on how I made them (basically they're made by breaking up slabs of putty, drilling holes in them, and stacking them onto the flying base)..

suitably nasty and Grotesque Jon! I think perhaps a slight wash on the wings will help differentiate? speaking of the wings, what's your method for the veins and skin again? after looking at your grots i bought a friend of mine a Hellbrute that i'm going to paint up for him and I plan on using the pale veiny skin look on him! you make it look soooo good! :-)

Not sure how it would affect / if it would wreck the paint, but the wings actually look like they might let it take off (not that high, but certainly for a good 5-10 feet of lift ) and I can't help but feel that heating the ankles and angling the feet down a little, and having it mounted on a flying stalk coming up between its legs might look quite good, and intimidating, in a hulking death from above kind of way....

Dang, Jon! That grotesque looks gnarly. Flesh looks really good, especially the wings.

I'll get this one for you:

 nerdfest09 wrote:
...speaking of the wings, what's your method for the veins and skin again?

Here's the link Nerdfest:

http://sproketsmallworld.blogspot.hk/2011/11/dark-eldar-diorama-scourge-wings-step.html

That's a grot?? I thought grots were tiny and green?

In any case... pretty amazing work. Those wings are really shaping up and I can see that you continue to refine your technique with them.

 Gitsplitta wrote:
That's a grot?? I thought grots were tiny and green?

Yours may be tiny and green. Mine are ogre-sized and fleshy .

bad ass as ever. It's up to you but I don't think it needs anything.

Ah Terraria- the hobby-killer. I succumbed to that about a week and a half ago, myself xD

Absolutely Amazing work. Im in love with the weathered turquoise color. I think the Grotesque looks great as is- no need for any real major changes, although Im very interested in how the bruising turns out!

Ew, gross. Your guys are gross. Stop being gross, guy. Gross.

This Grot's done! But, I've run out of 40mm bases so that'll have to wait. I'm thinking of waiting until I have a couple more Grots painted and then base them all at once. Mainly because it's tough keeping the colors on the bases looking consistent when I do them one by one.

I eventually did go with a light purple wash on the undersides of the wings. It doesn't show up in the photo too well but it really helps differentiate the wings (as nerfest09 observed). I've also found the fur texture to be a really neat effect that's relatively easy to do.

Ovion's idea on bending the feet was tempting to try out. It would give a bit more visual interest to the squad to have one higher up. But ultimately I was a bit too worried that I'd mess up the pose, break the wings off or accomplish something else equally disastrous .

On another note, I find myself being really excited to see the new Chaos Codex. Not because I especially want to collect Chaos Space Marines but because it opens up a whole bunch more modeling opportunities to create some proxy Haemonculi Coven constructs!





@Moltar: Thanks for acting as a (working) Siri for this thread! I'm sure Gitsplitta has this problem x10 but I sometimes think that if this thread gets much longer most of my posts will be page references telling people where to find stuff !

@Ramos Asura: I finally managed to detach myself from Terraria only to find myself stuck fast to the recently released FTL, "a spaceship simulation real-time roguelike-like ."

@MeatShield: Thanks !

@Foo: To quote Stephen King: "People want to know why I do this, why I write such gross stuff. I like to tell them I have the heart of a small boy... and I keep it in a jar on my desk . "

Nicely done Jon. Kind of gross and disgusting... but nicely done.

That back shot is quite creepy.

Also, I'm not sure if it was mentioned earlier, but in the photo on the previous page with the three WIP Grots, the one on the left looks like he's playing a mad air guitar solo.

Simple but effective. I knew I wanted a Grot with a Talos blade but just couldn't figure out what to pair it with. The answer turned out to be another blade. Surely two gigantic cleavers are better than one!

I'm reworking the other two unpainted Grotesque conversions slightly. I'm much happier with how they look now, but the greenstuff and putty is still drying and in need of sanding so pics will be up a bit later.

Man alive that's a beast...

Dual Cleavers are always better than one.

Really liking how freakishly, well, freakish your Grots are becoming. The wings in particular are very well done and quite fitting. If you keep up the quality of work you'll need to devise a suitably souped up Raider to carry the Emo meatheads.

Eye of Error posted up a great conversion a few days that might stir up some ideas for you as well.



More images can be found on his blog if you're interested (as I don't want to highjack your thread, just inspire).

The over-sized Crushing Claw actually looks great! When I received the Crushing Claw bits in the mail I was surprised that they turned out to be slightly bigger than I had inferred from the pictures online. I've had them sitting on my desk for weeks, occasionally trying out poses, but generally thinking I'd have to write-off the conversion and come up with something else for my seventh Grotesque. The claws were simply too big, to the point of looking comical. But the idea of a Haemonculi trying to graft Tyranid parts onto a "research specimen" was too compelling to let go. Especially since it fit in so well with my Kabal's interest in Tyranids, complementing my Beastmaster squad. So I put a couple more hours into the conversion this morning, and thanks to some inspiration from Hellboy and some Fiddler Crabs, I've come up with a model I'm really excited to paint.

This is a rough initial assembly of the model before the greenstuff goes on. I'm also planning to implant a whole bunch of the little Talos drug pods into this thing. Mainly because without some serious drug induced distortions of bodily processes I can't imagine any result other than catastrophic transplant rejection.

Now a request for reader creativity:

What color should I paint the Tyranid parts?

I'd be grateful for any suggestions as I'm having a bit of trouble coming up with something that looks good yet fits in with my army's color scheme.



@Dark_Gear: Thanks for the blog recommendation, there is some amazing stuff on there. I had actually found it before but hadn't checked it out for a couple months. That method for enlarging Raider sails is brilliant. I'm struggling with the temptation to go back and redo a couple of mine.

@Gitsplitta: Agreed !

I think a bone based color with a neutral carapace. I think a bright color would overpower your traditional colors.

Possibly Hive Fleet Leviathan colours. White flesh with a pinkish tinge, purple carapace and red claws.

Hey John, I'm happy to share the wealth of ideas floating out there. There's just so much great work it's hard to find it all.

Ragarding that Grot with the Crushing Claw, I'm liking the fiddler crab vibe going on but he seems rather unbalanced and static. Have you thought of maybe reposing him so that it looks likes he's dragging the claw behind him, kinda like he's winding up before landing a very heavy swing?

Colour-wise, keep them muted for the fleshy bits but the chitinous armour plates on the two clans could be bright contrasting colour, based on a triad of the colour wheel as shown here on Colour Scheme Designer. So in this case, I'd say bright red or "wing vein red" claw with randomised dots of orange towards the edges.

Good question... Again, neutral would be good I guess, but hell VERY DARK PURPLE OR TURQUIOSE. I dunnow. Love it tho! Maybe a sickly green? granite? deep black?

So I took some photos of the Grotesques I made slight adjustments to. Here they are for your viewing pleasure .

I felt the hand wasn't really working on this one so I swapped it out for an ichor injector.



I fiddled with the vision slits on this one to make it look a bit more menacing.



Thanks for the claw color suggestions! I'm thinking over naturalistic and "Leviathan" schemes as my top options right now.