Dark Elder Grotesques Conversions

Dark Eldar Grotesques are a fantastic unit in 40k, though they are a single posed Finecast models and at over £15 per model; this makes it pretty impractical when you are likely to run at least eight of them in a Coven themed army.

I set about finding a cheap and effective alternative to the official Finecast models and happened upon some examples using the Privateer Press Everblight Warspears, and with the spares I had left over from the Talos/Cronos Models; it can be fairly easy to make some great looking over-sized Wracks that look awesome as Grotesques. 

If you watch the channel, you will have seen videos of these already

The first and most obvious step is to replace their faces with Talos/Cronos masks, this step alone has a massive effect on the look of the models. You will likely need to shave/file off the details of the warspears face and hair, and build up the back of their heads with green stuff.

Next up is removing the hands, this will make way for the gruesome gauntlets and spiky weapons that grotesques use.

Trying to ensure variation in poses for all 8 models

In this post I will be going over the steps that I take to make these models, the first of which is to make their backs look like they were warped by the common Coven methods (overgrown and curved spines).

First step is to drill small 2.5mm holes in the back of the neck and the base of the back, this will take the green stuff roll maker tubes which will become the curved spines.

When glued in place; green stuff can be stuffed in each side to form the bulging backs of the models.

Vertebrae are done and small craters have been added for 'ports'

Pushing very small amounts of green stuff into every other groove in the spines is a very easy way to make it look like the vertebrae. Then it's just a matter of adding some details using vials an needles from the Talos/Cronos kits to either side of the spines.

Almost finished, just some small details and painting left.

Onto the hands; for which I used the spear heads from the Warspears kit to create a 'Big Daddy from Bioshock' look for one hand on each. The more prominent hands have the gruesome flesh gauntlets, which are made using the small apendages from the sides of the Talos, arranged as sharp and surgical fingers.

All that is required from here is to add some pipes to the arms using very thin styrene rod, then get them painted.

I will be posting more as I get these guys closer to being finished, so stay tuned for videos and another post on here.

Thanks for looking, if you have any questions or feedback; please feel free to leave a message.