Wow, a lot of people liked those Kans... its humbling.
Anyways. A lot of my love for Kanz and Dreadz has to do with the shenanigans you could pull with the 4th Ed Ork Codex. That and, as you’ve probably observed, me having a robot fixation. In retrospect, the Kustom Forcefield was somewhat broken at the time, but you could organise a walker heavy army in way that was then uncommon, this predating the modern laissez-faire system by donkey’s years. If you took a Big Mek, and you would for both theme & practical reasons, you could place a Deff Dread in a Troops slot rather than Heavy Support, which would be full of Killa Kanz. So, if you took this to its logical conclusion, you could have 11 walkers in a standard sized battle, and still have enough points left over for the Boyz, whom could happily march behind a wall of scrap metal. This was awesome. Deff Dreadz were viewed as sub-optimal at the time though, and their prominence has ebbed and flowed since. My understanding at present is that people like to teleport pairs of them next to the enemy lines and watch the carnage unfold.
A Deff Dread isn't a significantly different modelling challenge than a Kan, its just larger with more arms. Indeed, one of my initial ideas was to start with one of these, before deciding to start smaller and experiment first. Having now found workable methods to create limbs, I opted to make things a touch more involved by creating legs with actual knees. My first idea was to create these with armature wire and bits of mechanical pencil, and while this worked fine, it proved wrong for the project. I might end up using those in future, but I instead opted water pistol parts and zip ties to create some much more stocky legs with elephant style feet. This would have a knock-on effect with respects to the pose, as I had to work around the lack of ankle joints, but I was was worried about over-building. Once the legs were set, the main body was created from some plastic lids, and general faffing about commenced. I ended up reworking the backpack and weapon mountings before I finished, which resulted in an otherwise perfectly acceptable big shoota being rejected. That said, I did get to mix things up a bit, adding more intricate and asymmetric detailing as I went. I also used a lighter to burn off stray bits of hot glue, and bend some pipes; don't try this at home kiddies!
Now, about that klaw. Yes, it's oversized. Yes, its off some Kill Team terrain. Yes, that is kit-bashing not scratch-building, and I could have tried to make one myself. But, it is also the ideal piece for such a model. The chainsaw was also something too good to leave in the bitz box forever, but this old Frame Arms accessory was subject to a proper doing-over. Only the front half was used with a new mechanism built around the arm. The Rokkit Launcha meanwhile was a relatively late addition to the project, as my obsessive brain insisted I give some thought to what would actually be sensible in play. Rokkits previously functioned as a somewhat passable anti-tank weapon, but these days they have an explosive effect that makes them more desirable. I've been wanting to have a stab at making my own, and the shape has proved tricky, so I cheated. I used "blue stuff" to create a crude mould of skorcha missiles for their shape. The resulting warheads were then attached to tube offcuts. It's ugly, but Ork stuff allows for a certain degree of crappiness, and I'm sure I can refine this further in later projects. The last notable sub-assembly was the face area and decorative teeth. As the klaw and legs were posed through construction quirks, I decided to lean into it and have the dread look to one side. So, I made a monoeye from trukk bits, which gave a good and sinister appearance.
Painting was achieved via the same drybrushing, stippling, and aggressive weathering techniques practiced on the Kans, but with two main additions. The first was the painting of teeth in Citadel Wraithbone, by stippling with a brush, and a later dabbing with a bit of sponge. White is a secondary colour used by the Deathskull clan, my lads, and I’ve never enjoyed working with it as its boring to look at, and very hard to keep clean. However, clean is not a priority with something such as this, and the overall effect is like road markings, so… ideal? The second major difference was the eye, which was painted in the same manner as my BattleTech cockpit glass, with Contrast Iyanden Yellow and Ard Coat. I briefly considered a purple eye for a zeonic flavour, but orange contrasts better with blue. Also, this model felt kinda relaxing to paint, as I’ve homed in on some effective but simple techniques.
The end result? I think this might be the single best model I’ve ever done.
Work in Progress Pictures
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