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I was rummaging around a little bit yesterday afternoon, as I found myself with a refreshing amount of spare time, and I collected a bunch of bitz together that got my brain's little gears turning. I quickly produced it into a sketch:



The concept is pretty simple. A looted dreadnought, turned into an orky killing machine. It'll likely be piloted like grots, as I'm prone to the little blighters being the commanding force behind warmachines. It'll hopefully get a nice big gob on the front to emphasize it's orkiness.

Here's the basic bitz pinned together for proof of concept -







This was all followed by a bit more progress this morning:



I have no idea what that left leg is from. I think it came from a BWBits.com grab bag. I wanted to reposition the whole dread to look completely askew in an orky 'almost out of control' manner, so I hacked the left leg off; the standard dreadnought pose does not allow much flexibility, and replaced it with this bit I found in my bins. I added cabling hanging down from where it would have connected into the old leg - I couldn't find guitar string, so I made my own cabling out of thin green wire instead. The little dude on the base with him is a snotling doing the 'nyah nyah' face, oblivious that he's about to be stepped on.



I don't think I'd actually be able to fit a grot in there, as a goblin is substantially taller than a snotling... I don't even know if I'm going to leave the snotling there, but he seems appropriate until I figure something better out.



I've also been working hard on that hand that holds the choppa. You'll notice it's now much more sufficiently grabby - I had a warmachines mercenary warjack with a very nice claw that I carefully sawed off the arm. Then, using a table clamp, I put the choppa in the grip and slowly, carefully tightened the claw pincers around the choppa until they were holding it good and tight! I had to chop the melta down a bit to make it fit, but I think I'm going to run cabling from that forearm attachment up to the hilt of the choppa anyway.





Here's an exploded view of the arm:



I had to cut the shoulder joint on the dreadnought down in order to accomodate a magnet of suitable strength that could hold up the weight of the pewter arm. Having done that, though, it's much more stable.

Thoughts or ideas?  It's obviously got a ways to go, and I'm debating what to arm it with presently. The 2 ccw option is a given at this point, as it has two close combat arms, but I need to give it 2 more weapons; either big shootas, rokkits, kustom mega-blasters, or skorchas. I am tending towards either shootas or rokkits, though as I run Kult of Speed I have little experience with dreadnought setups.

I reckon you ought to ditch the the parchment on the front, no ork worth his salt would leave that beaky rubbish on there. Left hand would look excellent with ghazskull's power claw I reckon. For the extra arms, I think that have it techmarine-esque. Have them coming out of the back using the standard ork dreadnought arms.

Just some thoughts.

Very cool idea. I like the concept sketch, btw.

Throw some grots around in there, scarmbling up and down the Dreadnought. There's nothing quite like Grots to fill out pretty much anything related to Orks.

Keep it up!

very cool, yeah more grots like sparowl says scrammbling around on the dred.

Alright, so I couldn't help myself. If I decide to change it, I can always pin the old hand back on. He actually looks a bit like tarzan with this pose, especially holding the wire like that. You might get an idea of why I'm hesitant to add something like a helmet to this fella from lookin' at these - the 'hair' on him is pretty well integrated into his left shoulder, ears, and back.





And resting in position in the dread...

My train of thought suggests that maybe I should put cabling going up into the hilt of the choppa, and put wires that lead directly into some of his limbs so he looks more like he's the controlling factor behind the movement, rather than just directing it.

Cut out that stupid "targeting" hardware stuff on the torso. After all, you need a place to mount the big shootas...

And is that axe from your "diretroll mauler to warboss" project?

Yeah, I'm reusing the axe since I made a couple for that project.

great stuff, as usual. I think I'm gonna steal that idea. and since the grot already looks like he has the same pose as the Bot, a few cables to his arms, or maybe his head I thin it would look great.

...I need to finish that Dakkalith.....

Been working on wiring the grot up a bit. The general idea is that he's tangled in some wires and connected to others, all of which will probably keep him from falling out if he gets too excited. A lot of the back won't actually be seen - I plan on gluing the wires to random points on the interior - but you get the gist of what I'm going for. The greenstuff is still drying, so I haven't put 'em back inside the thing yet, but I gave him a bionik eye and tried to make it look like one of the wires was going in under his skin on the back of his choppa hand.







I think he's looking pretty cool. <!--emo& --> <!--endemo--> In the mean time while the GS dries, I'm going to scuff up the dread a bit and try orking it some.

try some teeth plates on the leg.

A bit more progress! I took the grot and fitted him inside the cockpit and bolted him in nice and proppa. I like the way he is right now - enough to be happy to leave it alone for at least the moment. I tacked a gobbo shield onto the shoulder as well. I also added cabling onto the claw - one into the handle, and one into the claw itself.







The upper torso's not attached yet for expediency in painting and priming - I figured it'd be easier to get at some of the cockpit if I left it open like this, so I probably won't glue it down for now. You can see where I stuck all the cabling up - it's visible if you look close at the gobbo behind him, though the camera doesn't really capture them in the front views.



Also, I realized I never took a picture of the back.



I need to figure out what to do to the other arm!

The grot's pose mirrors the Dreadnaught's pose so well, it's almost like he's wearing a puppet-suit.

The model now has a lot more dakka!







I tucked two shootas in place of the targeters. What ork needs targeters, anyhow?

I realize they're not Big Shootas, but the longer barrels that I tried looked really, really stupid sticking that far out from the frame of the body - I got the impression that they'd get sawed right off by the axe if they were too long, so I went a bit closer to the dread's profile. I also realize the banana clip pointing forward somewhat conflicts with the pose of the leg, but I liked the way the dreadnought looked with the forward-curving ammo clips, so I did it anyway.

I've left the upper part of the torso separate from the lower so far to facilitate easy painting, but this picture also helps to show you guys how I mounted the shootas in.



A bit of handy dremelling with a flat disc popped the plastic targeters right off. The putty's a plumbing epoxy I've discovered in my basement - I've actually used it on previous projects, like the gargant, as a structural reinforcing thing. it's wonderful - dries in all of five minutes and cements whatever it touches in place.

You the man, Jams. Dread is looking mighty fine, the grot-troller is money and I think the shootas work fine. If you hadn't gone that route I was thinking maybe rokkit racks on the shoulders, but with the axe-in-air pose that wouldn't have worked really.

How did you do the cabling? Green wire you said? I thought it was GS at first!

- Boss Salvage

It's thin green floral wire I got at Michaels. (A craft store, for those of you unfamiliar with it.)

I use a jeweller's saw to help me make it.



I thread the wire in place of the blade, then cut another thin length and clamp it in at one of the ends. Then I take the wire and slowly coil it around, using a pair of pliers to slide it all down after a couple dozen loops.

You can make different thicknesses by using a different material in the center of the wire - the thicker cables are just electrical wire I found that was sufficiently bendy. I always leave the cores (the things I wrap the wire around) in there because it helps keep them flexible but still solid.

Beats driving 40 minutes there and back to the music store for guitar wire.

That leg is from the Tau devilfish transport...excellent use of it btw,loving it.

The overall idea is great,my advice would be to drill larger barrels (cause orks use BIG slugs) and as for the arm...well im guessing it'll count as a normal dreadnought,so why not an evil looking jigsaw blade or something along the lines of Ghazgul's power Klaw (hell,why not even use the actualy claw piece!) ?

Clayman: I could use Ghazzie's PK, but I've seen that on too many dreads already (from other looted dreadnoughts all the way to an adeptus custodes dread) and I don't like the way it looks on these things. Besides, I'd like to save it for when I really need to make some big fella extra killy. The barrels have been drilled out bigger, also.

I got to thinkin' a little bit ago...

Looking at this miniature on CMON, I think I might want to try and get my hands on two dreadnought buzzsaws:



It looks pretty cool. I think it sticks out a bit too far for my personal liking, but I can definitely see that sort of thing wired in place of the other klaw.

I'm not so sure how to get these bits. I'd consider ordering them from GW's bitz services, but I do not have enough limbs to pay the arm and a leg they want for shipping, and BWBits doesn't carry that sort of thing. I'd probably consider scratchbuilding the dang thing were it not for the fact that I can't really make circular saws with any sort of effectiveness - I tried on my Stompa a while back, and I had to default to a chainsword design instead.

The sawblade looks great, I'd say that that is a deffinate necessity.

well im not sure on how to do it,but why not look up some lego toys?
Im a big collector myself and remember seeing a new serie around (battle bots or something like this) that uses a lot of mecha design,some of which have ressembling blades...try that for one.

I also remember having a special compass that had a blade instead of a pencil,so you can actually make circles in plasticard (i've done if for school projects),the teeth themselves wouldn't need to be 'too' precise,more like jagged orky teef'

So, I figured I should probably finish this looted dreadnought, now that I've received the buzzsaws I needed.



Totally cool, right? Notice the stuff on the back?



Now it has an engine! I had to kill some time while the buzzsaws soak to remove paint from them, so I got to banging together an engine. I still have some stuff to add, though. It's a separate piece:



Here's a couple angles of it attached. It needs a bit of cleanup, obviously, and more worky bits.





Like everything else, it's removable and attaches with pins and magnets.



What do you guys think?

I think youre process is great and I am very much looking forward to seeing it ready.

I think that's really cool!!! The exagerated pose is dead on for a machine run amok. I really like that it's a crazy Orky build...but still functional with a certain bit of 'yeah, that could work' to it. Fantastic job, I can't wait to see it finished.

Gettin' there!









I need to integrate them a little better, but I don't think it looks all that bad. Had to hack a lot of it down to make it all fit together smoothly, and I could probably use a bit of putty on the seams just to close the gap up. I actually hacked the two square vented parts off the back of the saws as I thought they looked a bit too long and awkward. This sets the saws a bit closer to the wrist, which I think helps keep the general aesthetic of the thing a bit cleaner. As clean as orks get, anyway.



Used a file to flatten down the insides of these, then pinned them together, and then pinned the back of the engine onto the wrist. I cut the wrist down a bit, too, with a jeweller's saw to get a flat surface for mounting the weapon on.

I'd like to beef that 'replacement' leg up a bit - making it look more compressed by shortening it a bit is one way of possibly doing that, but it's really such a pain in the rear to do something along those lines that I'm probably going to avoid it. I really want to come up with another way of reinforcing it a tiny bit, but at the same time I like the 'wow, that could give at any moment' look of it, so I need to find a comfortable middle ground.

I felt this was necessary. <!--emo& --> <!--endemo-->







Going to add a bit more detail and rivets to it later if I can find room and figure out what, exactly. It's a good candidate for a checker pattern. The guns forced me to make it a bit smaller than originally planned but I think it still works.

A look at how it all breaks down currently...

very nice, looking forward to seieng it built, if you can paint it as well as you have converted it we should be in for a treat

I had a bit of an idea that I thought was worth pursuing.

See, I tend to like flexibility in my models, so I was gazing at the guns on this thing and thought I might try a bit of a flamer upgrade that I could add or remove as needed. My original line of thinking was that I could chop the barrel off and magnetize it, but the ammo clip would need the same treatment and it'd just end up being a pain to assemble whenever I wanted to use it. Instead, I decided with a bit less of an obtrusive upgrade, and banged out a prototype to see how I liked it...







It's a bit of an obvious cop-out, particularly with the ammo clip still there... but is it passable, you think? I imagine a big shoota setup would be standard, but against particular horde armies I could probably see this being of use.

Would it be possible to just pin the big shoota without gluing it?  That way you can just replace it with a flamer build.  Alternately, I might use a different shoota barrel (maybe the one w/out wrappings).  And for your flamer add-on, perhaps include a side barrel made of tubing to represent the mechboy being indecisive or that he was just too lazy to unbolt the big shoota before slapping on the flamer.

 

I like where you are gong with this.  Very cool conversion so far.  Where do you get your plasticard and tubing?

Looks luvley boss!!! dun change a fing!

Seriously it looks fine, I might suggest just putting a fuel cannister on the side of the shoota as it probably won't look that out of place without the flamer nozzle attachment. This also being my first time looking at this thread: Awesome! When I read Ork Looted Dread I had my doubts, but that 'jacked' in grot is just too cool. Love the crazy sticky outy mufflers too ^_^

WAAAGGHHH!!!!
Usiel