Tapered / Curved "Tentacle" Accents

[Anonymous]

I am currently working on the Pirates Keyblade from Kingdom Hearts 3. I have almost everything done on it but I'm stuck on the "tentacle" accents. I'm probably overthinking it but I can't find a good way to get those modeled correctly, or at least close. It's going to be 3d printed with FDM printers so it doesn't need the "suction cups". Any suggestions?

This is an overall reference of it:

These are the specific details I'm stuck on:

Here's a better resolution reference, ignore the red circles. It's a graphic explaining the influence of each of the parts.

Here's a recent rendering of it. I've done some more work to it since then but it's almost done. 

Thanks!

Brian

[laughingcreek]

there's a few ways you might go about doing this.  here's a screen cast of one possibility using splines and the patch tool.

[laughingcreek]

good grief. lets see if I manage to attache the screen cast this time.