The World's Biggest Deff Dread Part 2

Nothing like a low angle shot to make things look even taller!

This time I'm focusing on the work in progress shots and how I made the Mechanicus styled crew. The Night Goblins were taken from the Battle at Skull Pass (although I bought them on e-bay). I found after looking through the fantasy range that they were the closest to grots aesthetically and I really liked the character of the models.  

Those of you who read my previous article on this project will know that the Dred was inspired by the idea that the Grots would attempt to copy Imperial designs like the Emperor Titan. With that in mind I had to have Mechanicus looking grots. The only problem was getting them to look suitably 40k, as a load of bows and arrows wouldn't cut it. I also wanted to introduce some primitive cybernetics to reinforce the look.

With these thoughts in mind I set about customising the crew. I took the basic Skull Pass Gobins and did arm and weapon swaps with the 40k Runtherd kit - which was a bit challenging with single piece plastic casts and the final product took a lot of greenstuff to bring together.

For the tallest tower I wanted to create a Captain of sorts to lead the lurching machine into battle - but he had to be suitably mechanised. Luckily I managed to procure the head of an Ork Mek. I carved away the Ork's head so that only the cybernetic half of his face remained. I then did the same thing in reverse with a plastic Grot's head and then glued the two parts together to get a cyber-grot head!

Sky Captain Dingwannga strikes fear into the huddled masses

For the next crewman I wanted to introduce some robotic limbs. I was particularly happy with the claw on his back (I think it was made with an old Gorkamorka Buggy's handlebars or something and some plastic offcuts). As he was a single piece cast I had some problems with his right arm, so in the end I replaced the whole thing with a chainsword.



Crewman Bagoo revs his shiny new chainsaw with pride

After that I added a few more crewman made by adding guns to the Night Goblins I had acquired. Once they were glued in place the model was ready for paint.



Here's one I prepared earlier

The finished model before paint