Champions of the Wyrd: Red Wet Skeleton

Welcome to Champions of the Wyrd, a decidedly irregular series spotlighting some of the weirdest, wildest and most innovative people playing about in the Grimdark hobby scene. From atmospheric, moody paint jobs to driftwood demons and clay tanks, the grimdark world keeps getting better and better, pushing the boundaries of the miniatures hobby into strange, weird worlds. We sent our weirdest guy to talk to these Champions, to find out what drives their hobby and what we can learn from the far frontiers of the grim and the dark. Red Wet Skeleton produces monsters. If you’re not already following them on Instagram, you might have seen them on Content We Liked, because I am entranced by the artistry and horror within. The stark white, pitch black, wet red, and torn flesh nightmares are among the most terrifying models I’ve seen come through the hobby space, and the eerie, lingering feeling that they’re looking right at you never quite leaves once you’ve met their eye. For the first of our Champions of the Wyrd interviews, there was only one choice, because of everyone working in the Grimdark space, Red Wet Skeleton is the only one whose output scares me.

Click to view on Instagram

Hello Eli, and welcome to Champions of the Wyrd! Can you tell us a bit about yourself to get started?

Hi I’m Eli, most people know my miniature work under the alias RedWetSkeleton. I’m a mixed-media artist (in a multitude of ways and meanings), member of TEAM28 (the wonderful people behind 28 MAG), and I like to think everyone’s favorite hermetic Grim Dark Godling. Fair warning I’m a yapper.

I’m really interested in your approach to model making - how would you characterise it, is there a term you like to use?

Oh boy. Hmmm, so bear with me I promise it will all connect. In my former corporate life I was a design engineer in the telecom industry. My brain is just wired to enjoy insanely complex creative endeavors and has been since I was a child. That combined with growing up working in a garden bed(flowers not food) at an almost religious level with my mom, I think has a lot to do with how I make what I make and why.

I think if I had to choose a term to call my process it probably would be “design engineeringm” truthfully. I will see something in my minds eye and I will refine it until it feels like a living and breathing thing from the ground up. From there I begin to dissect how to bring it into reality. This is a blessing and a curse as all things are, namely in that I have no control over this and constantly live half in and half out of imagination land it feels like. I pour over whatever materials are there in the land of dreams and how to best replicate them at scale in order to drag it out of my imagination and into the waking world.

You’ve done some incredible things with found materials - do you have a favourite example? Where did you get the materials for it?

Thank you. So I think my personal favorite will always be the Cholla Wood that was given to me by my friend Lissy. It really marks a pivotal time in my artistic development and if anything was the catalyst for the explosion of growth in my personal aesthetic I believe.

So I love shrimp… like dwarf shrimp. Not the kind you eat but the kind you care for in a small aquarium. They are like little aliens; they are ALWAYS doing something but for the life of me their minds are just so utterly alien. Click to view on Instagram

I’m pretty open about my weird “benevolent god” complex. I like to recreate animals natural environments and then further perfect them. I seek to give something exactly what it needs to live its best life. My friend Lissy also raised dwarf shrimp. She gave me some Cholla Wood because her shrimp love to crawl around through its alien, organic-honeycomb like shapes. Given that I am all about making something look very natural, that was a no go. I was fascinated by the wood though and how strange it was.

Fast forward a few days and I’m sitting on the floor of my basement with a 5lb hand sledge dropping it at random timings while tracing it above the cholla wood to create super organic breaks and new shapes from its already alien structure. Click to view on Instagram

This was key to how my daemons for the 28 communities “Vastarian event” from 2024 were given a unified design language. I found a lot of metaphorical meaning in the broken shards of jagged organic wood and the negative space that was created at every alteration of the viewers perspective. I took that and wanted to do everything I could to further that. Make them truly something hard to look at because the various levels of depth and utterly abyssal black spaces overlap one another at every perspective available.

How did you develop an eye for the potential of found materials - “this driftwood could be a face,” this bone could be structural, that sort of thing?

I think it all goes back again to constantly fighting to stay grounded in the “waking world” sadly. It really is a blessing and a curse but that is just how I see the world and always have. I have realized as I have gotten older that the term “sensitive” means a lot more than I initially understood it to. I’m an extremely sensitive person, I mean that in all ways. I have a very heightened sense of touch and I am painfully aware of how textured everything in our reality is. Nothing is truly void of texture in our day to day. That I think has had a huge impact on my aesthetic and how I see things. Being hyper aware of how things feel to the touch in everyday life just lends itself to recreating on a smaller scale once you see things like that.

From a different mindset however, it’s easy to say I am absolutely the bastard spawn of Phil Tippet, Rob Bottin, and Paul Reubens…with an artisanal zesting of Ed Gein….for taste. I grew up obsessing over the works of the greatest practical effects artists and miniature builders from a very early age. I actively sought to use their tools and techniques to better understand and explain the world around me and that absolutely shaped how I do things. I think that as a foundation of understanding lent itself to me developing my skills in a very particular way with emphasis put on methods and techniques often not seen in miniature work.

What is enabling or freeing about using found materials in your builds?

Ooof… Everything. I don’t so much think of anything beyond its “physical properties” to be honest. For me plastic is plastic, wood is wood, metal is metal. It is hard for me to believe but there was a time if it was not a GW bit, it didn’t go into my work. I was very deep into that mindset for the first decade or so of my hobby life and I physically cannot build like that anymore, like literally I just can’t make myself do it. Having how to build your toys dictated to you by ruleset whims is a touchy subject for me these days lol. The moment I started to try to recreate very intricate parts to better create realism at scale however…I saw the weakness in the plastic flesh…and it sickened me.

It just became easier at some point to make what I needed to make or use what I needed to use to better show the properties of the materials I was trying to replicate at the scale more accurately. Next thing I know it’s just easier to start with a blank canvas and build from there because I shave off most the bits anyway and end up scratch building everything important.

Do you have a dream project using found materials?

I do, I’m actually in the process of it right now. So one of the biggest obsessions of mine is WW1. It is pretty wild how much I just crave more knowledge about the time period. It has always fascinated me as it truly was a monumental turning point in our species existence that I feel rarely gets the attention to the lessons taught that it deserves. Trench Crusade started to pop up when I was working on my daemons for Vastarian so I didn’t have the time to dig in. I fell in love with it though after the first demo game my friend Adrie ran me through. I started printing terrain the day I returned from Adepticon last year for a truly monumental endeavor and didn’t stop until November when I began working on my piece for the art show in Brooklyn at the end of January. I also began harvesting all the needed organic materials and prepped them for use during those months lol. Click to view on Instagram

I have wanted to make a truly horrifying ww1 gaming board for decades but no game has ever given me a system of rules to reward the insane amount of work I was going to have to put into it. If anything, the rules of other games fundamentally made trench warfare something utterly unrealistic in my minds eye. Click to view on Instagram

Well, with Trench Crusade that changed. I can have my cake and eat it too. So like any long denied psychopath, I am making a campaign map for a self contained setting in the trench crusade world with its own lore and factions focused on my favorite location during WW1, France. I want the map to be truly like a cartographic region (literally mapped out) that I can zoom in on with my table to play out the struggle raging in no man’s land, the battlefield a truly living board that changes over time. This vision includes the entirety of 3DLayeredScenery’s “Grimdale” as well as Hexbrick’s colossal 5’x7’ cathedral ruins board as its centerpiece and all the space surrounding. Overall it is roughly 2 cubic miles of France in-universe scale, lol. After returning from Brooklyn at the beginning of February I’ve been doing a commission for the wonderful Wier Brothers of Between the Bolter and me for a Trench Pilgrim warband and despite holding back my desire to build all the things for a year…it cracked the final seal. No going back now but needless to say it’s some of my craziest work ever and I am beyond proud of what I’ve put out for it so far. Have you had any realisations or thoughts on what we throw away while using found materials?

Constantly. I was raised with the idea of reducing and recycling being paramount. The amount of things we throw out is truly insane. We have entered the worst type of cyberpunk setting where hyper advanced tech is thrown out daily as it’s replaced. I think around the time I decided to stop being a hermit is when it settled. I’ve lost a lot of people in the past few years and it truly made a huge impact on me. I took my very personal form of escapism and brought that forward to try to show what I do and how and why to try and actually help people deal with their shit because life’s rough, for real. I think the more I can show people how to use what they have and how to find worth in things that truly bring them happiness is as good of a goal as it gets and I feel I’ve done that even at a small level. Showing that what’s broken is not lost is a very important mindset and we need more willing to embrace that.

What’s the most ambitious bit of work you’ve done?

My piece “Godling” is easily the most insanely ambitious thing I’ve ever done. When our community was given an opportunity to do the first 28 style art show at a gallery in Brooklyn I knew I had to truly put my best work out there.

It took two straight months of building. Its design was so insanely complexly engineered to make sure weight was not an issue for traveling. (Free tip… if you’re ever thinking of trying to fly with something larger than a suitcase and not a guitar that cannot go with baggage for obvious reasons punch yourself in the face and think of a different plan. You’re welcome for the stress saver) It had to be assembled in phases while I built it so the first month it looked like a miniature skyscraper just wrapped in bizarre scaffolding and supports. Every bit is scratch built from trash, the figures are hand sculpted from clay and bones from an owl pellet. It features ten spotlighting various stages of the diorama that had to be accounted for from the beginning stages for wiring reasons, it integrated my first casting job and mold making, and also my first resin pours into its design..so failure wasn’t an option. I truly wanted it to summarize my work and mastery of my craft on every level and I believe I succeeded. It was supposed to be a physical representation of my work on many levels. Click to view on Instagram

I often describe my art concept over all as “a black hole big enough to put your hand in and nothing else”. I love rewarding those willing to put in the time to study what I’ve made and this was the pinnacle of that concept in many ways. The entire concept is based on the personal setting I have been working on for about a decade and a half. It’s about as brutal and hopeless as it gets and is truly a reflection of my 15 year stay in corporate America and my disgust for many things truthfully. I needed a lot of eye bleach when I got back before I could get started on anything dark or heavy.

Could you talk a bit more about the demons? There's a real sense of shocking, powerful emotion in them (disgust, horror, unsettling pareidolia, the strange threatening exuberance of Spite (my favourite) - how did these feel to make and put out into the world?

Absolutely and thank you! Fair warning it is a bit of a dark conversation. I’ve done a few interviews and have started on an article for 28 MAG about them but there is always room to talk as they definitely mark a pivotal point in my artwork. So I have always thought that the Daemon models available never matched the actuality of what they were supposed to represent and I have wanted to correct that for a very long time. Initially it started out as a way to show how Slaanesh should always have been portrayed in my mind using the INQ28 Vastarian event as their debut. The world of Vastarian is riddled with countless cults vying for power, I wanted to show the kind of being an entire world would give birth to with its collective ignorance, hatred, etc…. I think it is very fitting that despite my intention to do the God of Excess justice, I brought into existence another entity entirely or semi-existence at least. The Child Inverted, spite made manifest.

Like a parasite in the sea of dreams it clings to Vastarian like an embryo clings to the yolk of its egg. In lore Daemons are the black mirror reflection of our own desires, fears, emotions. They are emotion made manifest. In 2024 I lost a lot of people very close to me. I have for better or worse been hyper aware of death but I was truly not prepared for all of it at once. I lost my great-aunt who was undeniably the biggest supporter of my artistic endeavors no matter what they were, a month later I lost one of my best friends, the one in fact who introduced me to Warhammer. I was truly broken, so I did what any normal person would do.

The daemons for Vastarian were created in my mindspace during the most traumatic time of my life. In a pseudo-shamanistic state, instead of running the other way I dove in. I played around in my trauma vault for a week or two. They were made as accurately to lore standards as I could with my feeble mortal hands. I took my innermost thoughts and emotions and twisted them until they hit their breaking point. I took what I was attracted to and twisted it until I wasn’t, then I twisted them until they were not just unattractive but repulsive, then I twisted them more. I wanted them to resonate on a primal level and I think that I have achieved that. The visual imagery is utterly intentional and is made to make you uncomfortable. The amount of negative space that is accented with abyssal blacks in contrast to the tar like blackness surrounding them causes your eyes to have to refocus all of the excessive texture furthers this. Click to view on Instagram

The Vastarian event centered around the cults fighting to control a colossal psychic lighthouse in an attempt to either activate it or keep it from activating. All of this being done, in an attempt to make contact with Terra through the Cicatrix Maledictum. This psychic upheaval was the breaking point causing The Child Inverted to gain enough sentience to send forth its image as well as its dreaded menagerie. To that end most of them had very rough edges or an unfinished look to show their lack of true corporealness. This was intentional as well as just how it is when you try to bite off more than you can chew with every project you do lol. It’s not really a RedWetSkeleton piece if it isn’t still wet on game day right? I truly am proud of them and will hopefully be finishing them in the near future, possibly with the process covered heavily…

In regards of how it felt to put into the world; I truly cannot stress enough the impact this event had on me, it was utterly life changing. So this is gonna be a long rant but its just too much to convey with words that cannot do it justice. Click to view on Instagram

These narrative “Invitational” games are truly COLOSSAL efforts of work on every level imaginable. I am so glad that Bill(@the_ruin.501) handled all the logistics of, so I just had to show up and do the thing once I finished all my stuff lol. Jonny(@Witchhammerstudio) created the insane terrain (like he does so well), he and I worked in secret for months, only really talking to each other to ensure our work would fit with one another’s creations. I started the walker in July I think and the event was in November. Oh yeah I also made a truly Colossal walker for one of the scenarios that used my “mud board” which was based on Paaschendale… too many projects. So it’s really not surprising I didn’t have everything painted given how much I built, which I think surprised no one but me. A monstrous scratch built walker, 6 giant scratch built daemons each requiring a different trip pulling out of my trauma vault, oh yeah and 36 Catboys which were my take on lesser demons. Literally while the scenario is playing out Chris(@Cryptacrylic) and Adam(@TheKillingCold) and I were assembly line painting them for Eric(@EricWierPhotography) to pick up and bring to the table haha. It’s also worth mentioning said walker is my wonderful and insanely supportive wife’s first time ever painting a model the night before I left for the 13 hour drive with Jonny.

This was the first time many of us have met in person despite being online friends for over a decade in some cases. There are too many people that have literally changed my life that I met for the first time, it was beyond overwhelming. Given that our community is more focused on the story telling and craft side of things, it’s impossible for the human factor to not bleed through. I truly think that the “greats” of this era are those whose humanity bleeds through the most. I could write an article about each person there alone but the three encounters that etched themselves in my heart deepest were Isaac(@WierdingWay), Nick(@ModernSynthesist), and Dave(@DaveTaylor).

Meeting Isaac was truly a treasured moment for me. From the earliest days of the 28 scene he and I have found kinship in each other’s creations and more importantly the “How’s and why’s” of the craft. Of all of the hobby spaces I have seen there is only one that matches the utterly chaotic hellscape that my desk is but, if you have the insane minds-eye that I do….it still shows a method to its madness beneath. After a decade plus meeting in person and chatting and finding out I was not alone in seeing the similarities despite the our typically polarized choice of subject. “I am the machine guy, you are the flesh guy” as Isaac said, it was beyond delightful. I can’t even begin to describe the surreal feeling of going into the really deeply personal process of the pieces with Isaac and his wife and Cody(@MagosBeur). Click to view on Instagram

I wanted to learn to sculpt because I saw a conversion of an Exocrine that was so fucking sick that I just couldn’t put it off anymore. I had learned all the ways of merging plastic flesh but if I wanted to truly make what I wanted that would never be enough. That Exocrine happened to be made by a wonderful disciple of the Hivemind named Nick. Life is weird I just don’t question it anymore. If you told me though that the guy whose work inspired me to try sculpting would one day ask me to make music for his YouTube channel I wouldn’t believe you. I really wouldn’t believe you if you told me he would become one of my closest friends and be the first one to tell me, “Eli you didn’t make models, you made art….this is just art.” I am getting teary eyed now just thinking about it.

Then we have Dave. If you have been in this game as long as I have, you can grab a book from the shelf and probably find that name and face. Outside of comments and what have you I had not spoken with Dave before this. It is wild talking to someone who has truly impacted something that is so integral to who you are and finding they want to talk to you as well. One of my favorite memories of Adepticon last year was running into Dave and next thing I know he and I giggling like two goofballs. Again……surreal as hell. All of this needs to be taken in with the constant colossal thought present that I have literally made 6 of the most upsetting on many levels and intimately personal pieces. The worst aspects of who I am turned to 11 and then the knob kicked off, I emptied my vault into these pieces. They became totems of what I hated about myself. With everything that the year had entailed, to find that not only was this not looked down on but accepted and championed was life changing. The outreach from others afterwards that found comfort in my work was just as overwhelming. I started to learn to love myself for the first time, like for real.

When (and how!) did you find your distinctive voice in miniature making?

I think I found my style when I returned from my short hobby Hiatus. I know this will blow your minds…. but this “all fluff, no crunch” loving goofball actually used to play in Grand Tournaments lol. I live in a small city in KY, finding somewhere to play 40k was not very easy 20 years ago. Grand Tournaments were the easiest way for me to find people to play with. Well I stopped about a year before the Grand Tournaments stopped happening. You can only try to bring a fun army to the tournament scene for so long. During this break I did an insane amount of World Building, getting my 40k fix in the world of Fantasy Flights RPGs. I started to make models again after seeing Neil101’s Ygg board. When I found what would become the 28 community and realized there were other people who care more about the story and characters than winning a game.

Grimdark is having a massive moment in the hobby space – why do you think this is, and do you have any thoughts on the movement as a whole?

So at the end of the day, I think Grim Dark as a whole is almost always a “Memento Mori” work of art. I think as time goes on more people are finding comfort in the bleak settings but also using that as a form of escapism, I know I have. I think people just now finding their way into it are drawn by the less filtered aesthetic. It seems more human made because it is. The lack of permanence ever present in the entire concept is as human as it gets. I know personally WW1 imagery has always heavily influenced my work. I am sure those working in corporate America can find some connecting concepts between the two. The Table Top Gaming scene is massive now thanks to cross over media it will only grow. I think more people will find their way to our dark corner of the hobby though and even quicker now with how everything works these days. When you watch Alien which was made in 1979 it’s just as fucking impressive today because it was made with love. You can’t “churn” out Alien, you couldn’t have fed an AI to make you Alien. There will always be someone churning out shit but I think we are getting to a point in society that the desire for something made with real thought and care is returning. Click to view on Instagram

With that said, my biggest goal is to start a Non-Profit. I don’t know anything about the setup process but have looked into it enough to know that's probably what I want. I don’t want to be a dragon on a pile of gold when I die. I want to have enough to live comfortably and do what I love and have an actual passion and expertise in. I live a very modest lifestyle in a very low cost of living part of the world. I do want to return the kindness I have gotten to the community. My biggest goal is creating a safe and open space where everyone feels welcome (excluding Nazis and the like etc…..) to learn about all the aspects of my craft. I've called this project The Grim Dark Distillery. After seeing the real difference I could make in people’s lives, I left the corporate world to pursue my true passion and try to return the insane amount of kindness I have received from the 28 community over the years. I would like to be a voice that you can actually trust because I am incapable of pretending like I like anything….I either love it, hate it, or feel neutral. I have 27 years of experience in the hobby and can make damn near anything. I purchased all the recording equipment needed for the endeavor but have not had time to learn to properly edit etc. The end goal being an entertainment network that actually gives the community the content it wants. How to’s, Reviews, Podcasts, battle reports, interviews, deep dives into how we do Invitational events, content for games, etc…… All of which done with the intention of championing what we love about the hobby, not simply trying to find a consumer for a product.

Thanks Eli - a real pleasure and I'm looking forward to what you come out with next. If you want to find Eli's work you can find him as RedWetSkeleton on Instagram, Youtube and at the Grim Dark Distillery.

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Tags: interview | blanchitsu | grimdark | champions of the wyrd