LIVING among the quiet residents of Ilton, a six tonne titan measuring nearly five metres tall has been preparing for its big show day.

The massive dreadnought model is the brain child of Stuart Lee, an Ilminster sci-fi author and model building enthusiast, and has been six years in the making.

The giant figure was inspired by tabletop wargame Warhammer 40,000 and is equipped with lights and lazers. It has been designed to be self-standing and generator powered with moving arms and a number of phrases taken from the Games Workshop world.

Stuart, who publishes science fiction novels under the pseudonym Samsun Lobe, started building the full-scale dreadnought in 2011 and has invested more than £6,000 into its creation.

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Now the Space Marine soldier is complete and set to go on show at The Comics Festival in Edgbaston Stadium in Birmingham at the end of April.

Mr Lee said: “It is taking two 7.5 tonne lorries to get it to Birmingham. The organisers are paying for the shipping.

“This is the first and possibly only time it is going on display at Comic Con. It depends on whether another Comic Con will make the right offer.

“I build a lot of models and things for my books and built a black Space Marine suit which was a bit bulky but was one that you wear.

“I wanted to build something a bit bigger. My family helped but they had no idea what it was. My dad is a carpenter and joiner and he has been helping me build it. He has no idea what it is even now it is finished.

“Initially we were going to have arms moving and it is all on pivots so if we put motors inside then it would work. It has got lights and lasers that all work when it is hooked up and two speakers that say catchphrases. It is so loud that the whole thing shakes when it talks.”

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The two speakers are mounted into the dreadnought’s shoulders using 3,000 watts of power to boom out ten phrases from Warhammer 40,000.

Stuart, who works for e-learning company Lightcurve to fund his hobbies, said: “My brother did all the electric works. He works for British Aerospace so he wired the whole thing up.

“It was six years ago I started working on it and it is only in the last couple of weeks that we finished it. It has been in this state for about a week now.

“Next week I will have to start taking it apart to ship up to Birmingham.

“When I first set out to do this, it was just a case of I will just build a dreadnought. I never thought about where it would go or how we would move it. We have had to get a lift to get up and reach the top.

“It weighs about six tonnes because everything in the legs is steel. It is well balanced so it probably would stand by itself but it isn’t worth the risk.

“There are lights and lasers in the front, and then lights again about halfway up, and then a light in the eye on the top.”

The dreadnought measures around 4.5 metres in height and the ceiling of the Edgbaston show room is just five metres high.

“It will dwarf everything in the show,” Stuart added.

“There were quite a few times in the first couple of years where I thought about not doing it. I did quite a lot at the start and then only little bits here and there for a bit. Then when I moved to where it is now in Ilton about three years ago, since then I have done quite a bit.

“The cost for the dreadnought has been, I think at a conservative estimate, about £6,000, but that is conservative because I try not to think about how much it has cost.

“I have just always liked Warhammer and I have read a lot of the black library books. As a sci-fi writer I try to stay away from that because I don’t like to be taking from it, even subconsciously, but the black library is so different from what I do that I think it is OK.

“Birmingham is the only place I intend to show it this year, unless other shows make me the right offer to have it on show.

“Other models have gone to different places so hopefully someone will decide they want it, maybe a business wants it in their lobby.”

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