These models were a blast to put together. The Killa Kans have so much character and are really easy to pose. The Deff Dread is just imposing - it is HUGE!
I knew how I wanted to arm everything so I didn't bother magnetizing any of the models. I wanted the Killa Kans to all have Grotzookas and the Deff Dread needed an extra pair of close combat arms to bump his attacks up to six on the charge (NASTY!)
I did have to do a bit of conversion work on two of the Kans. The kit only comes with one Grotzooka so I had to make an additional two. I had one of the Battlewagon Deff-Rolla sprues on hand so I chopped up the Kill Kannon from that sprue to make two more Grotzookas. I just cut of about 1 1/2" pieces of the gun and glued it to some of the other Kan arms that were round and I was good to go.
I followed along with the directions in the books that came with the models to make sure I didn't put anything together backwards. The models are easy to put together but I am glad I followed along because even with the book I got one set of plates backwards (this wasn't a big deal - one of the Kans has its arms a bit more forward than the others.)
Once they were put together I glued and pinned them to their bases and set about painting. I primed them black and then hit them with a bit of flat brown from a distance to make some shadows. Once that was dry I used my airbrush to spray a 60:40 mix of Foundation Macharius Solar Orange. This didn't take any time at all.
The next step was to black out the elements that would be getting a dry-brushing of Boltgun Metal. The main parts were the guns, blades on the combat arms, and the exhaust. I used a flat generic nylon brush for this and used a mix of Citadel Chaos Black and generic WalMart Apple Barrel black watered down a bit.
After I had the solid parts done I loaded up the brush and held it parallel to the flat parts of the model and gave it a good over-brushing. This set up the high parts to be brushed with Boltgun Metal to make it look worn and chipped. I then picked out a few details and painted them with my Vallejo Brass paint. This broke up some of the metals and added a bit of contrast.
Next I applied a heavy wash of Badab Black and my home-made wash to the models with my airbrush. This tied them together with the rest of the army's color scheme.
The next step was to finish up the bases using my dirt base recipe.
Here are the completed models. Painted the dirt base was a bit of a challenge with the models already glued down - I am usually messy with my base painting. That was ok on these guys though since it just made it look like there was a bit of dirt on their feet.
The Deff Dread turned out to be my favorite model out of the batch. It is just such a big kit.
I currently have another three Kans that are about half way put together. Once they are done I will need another three Kans and one more Deff Dread to finish up my Dread Bash list.