Dreadtober: Assembly....

My projects tend to snowball along at an intuitive pace; I pick something up and work at it till it's done or I'm stuck. This fellow flew together rather rapidly, probably because I've been wanting to do this for a long time: 

My apologies for the deep shadow; rest assured there's nothing especially interesting going on in his waist area; just a run of the mill extra long scroll. Once it's all painted I'll light it better, but these photos really are just to show progress. 

 

I didn't do much to the back because frankly, I didn't think it needed it. Those mold lines could do with some sanding down, I suppose. I though of doing some rivets to the back of the cobbled-together right arm, but then, he's not especially rivet-heavy. 

Speaking of that arm, it started life as a Contemptor multi-melta arm from the Calth boxed set. Of course, it didn't match the left arm from the standard dread kit, so I built it up with the sawed-off top of the lascannon and some plasticard. The weapons are all magnetized, of course, but here's what I consider his "main" one. Canonically the DW dread has a plasma cannon but of course, canonically he's not an almost-Leviathan either.

Nihilius' canonical weapon in the DW boxed set, but of course, this Dread isn't Nihilius. I should give him a name and a "home" Space Marine Chapter. What do you think, folks, does he look like an Imperial Fist? A Dark Angel? A Blood Angel? Those are the icons I have from a drop pod kit, by the way. I have a Space Wolf icon as well, but he lacks the Fenrisian ornamentation. Anyway, I have enough Space Wolves among the Deathwatch rank-n-file. Pics of those are coming soon, but the DW infantry has been sidelined while I work on this fellow. 

The multi-melta from the Contemptor arm. Underwhelming, isn't it? I might just buy a set of actual Leviathan weapons (oooh, that stormcannon) but they might be too huge for this kit. I didn't do the assault cannon because frankly, it's just too little gun for this beast. A Contemptor-sized one, maybe. Is anyone else surprised that the DW dreads didn't get twin-linked shot cannons, especially considering their infantry can carry loads of them? Even the Blood Angels dread sports one. I also noticed you can't buy "Rifleman" dreads with two twin-linked autocannons or lascannons, either, and certainly not AA "Mortis" variants with their radar arrays.  That DW codex was very rushed and not well thought out. 

Here's his left arm, by the way. Nothing really to see here. They could've gone the extra mile and made a special Deathwatch shoulder pad for it, but they didn't, more's the pity. Both arms are removable and semo-posable, so in the future I might fit him with a different loadout, but we'll see. Some sanding, finishing, and painting to come this week. (I think I'm kind of ahead of schedule, now).