Deff metal clanker

"Ere, where's dat runty Ork, Kikbag? It's time for his krumpin'. Stop him gettin' all uppity."

"Boss, what's dat noise?"

"He's not just snide and mean, dere's bad stuff too. He's like a humie, that one. Always whingeing and whining. Reckons he deserves more 'n his lot, don't he?"

Stomp... stomp...

"Er, boss."

"Shaddup. Fortunately I'm here wiv his daily dose of clobber, to keep him on da straight and narrow. I'm all heart, me. So where is da weedy little disgrace for a git?"

Stomp... stomp...

"Always 'anging around with dat crazy old doc and dat one-eyed mechboy. I oughtta put a stop to dem three."

"Boss!"

click... whirrr... WHIRRR... SLICE... SPLASH

Everybody loves a ramshackle, post-apocalyptic, bipedal war mech, right? Everybody except that Ork Warboss. And maybe people who play Eldar. In fact perhaps not everyone loves this kind of thing at all. Maybe it's only me? But it's lucky for Kikbag that I do, as this little buzzsaw wielding can of whup-ass was a proper labour of love, taking me years to complete.

It was originally inspired by (and the chassis based on) the Werewolf Walker model in the ill-fated Airfix Robogear starter set from decades ago. Although the Werewolf was pretty far from being a masterpiece, the introductory boxset was an absolute gift to sci-fi modellers. I talked a bit about it back here, but basically the Robogear starter set was full of not-particularly-good models that were constructed from some really cool parts (like jet engines, robot legs, cockpits, tank tracks etc.) so it was fantastic fodder for people who liked chopping fings up and putting 'em back together diff-rent.

The starter set contained a bunch of models, most of which were also available separately.

Some of the separate Robogear kits were actually quite good. This was not one of them.

In the end I kept only a few aspects of the original model, changing most of its shape and details, then adding a load of spare parts from the official Deff Dread and Killa Kan models, and popping a visible Ork pilot inside.

The Ork pilot idea actually came from a really old Warhammer 40,000 comic book series. In Dan Abnett's Titan God-Machine there is a brief moment when an Imperial base gets attacked by a greenskin horde and we get a page (below right), drawn by Anthony Williams and inked by Andy Lanning, that shows us some unusual designs for Ork walkers. It inspired me to try to ensure that none of my Ork vehicles ever looked too similar to one another.

This one is the second completed member of what will be a larger Dread Mob (you can see the first one, the Mega Dread, here), so I decided I could go all out with the spinning, whirring, choppy close-combat theme and give it the full complement of four rotary saw blade arms.

I'm happy with how the model turned out, and excited to see how it looks alongside the rest of the unit I've got planned. But I'm less happy with my current camera. I bought the wrong phone that didn't have the macro function, and my pics have been blurry and vague ever since. If I'm able to get a better upgrade, I'll post some new pictures in the future. In the meantime, for the sake of completeness, here are couple of the now-mandatory 'nude' shots.