'Sport' from Byron: F1 race car, Ork style...

Games Workshop has a long history with Orks and it has not been good for many years, they have languished without new models for a long while.  However all that was made up for the last few months with several amazing new models, that for me are complete home runs.

There is one though that is a real favourite for me and one I just had to get, despite not even playing Orks!  The vehicle in question is the Shokk Attack Dragsta.

Why it is called a dragster is beyond me as it is an obvious homage to a Formula 1 car, regardless I love F1 and this model just screamed "BUY ME" when it came out, so being a weak willed gamer, I bought one (or two, or three, or ....).

I have visions of painting up a pile of these vehicles in the various F1 liveries to match all the top teams.  I decided to start with one of my favourite drivers Kimi R'Örkönin in his red ones go fasta' Ferrari.

I started by painting the body panels with a deep red and then airbrushed on various layers to lighted it in key areas and give it some high points.  I then went back and edge highlighted with sunny skin tone, which sounds really odd, but someone told me about it as a trick years ago (so I don't remember who or I would give credit) and it works wonders as it doesn't look pink or orange like most edge highlights show up on red.

I kept the engine out of the car to paint it separately as it got in the way of a lot of bodywork and needed some attention of its own.  The engine is a very Orky piece of artwork as it is 3 radial aircraft engines bolted together in sequence with a shokk attack gun bolted on the back to boost power.  It got painted about 3 shades of metal and then several washes to make it grimy and oily.  The shokk attack gun and the gun on the side of the car were both airbrushed to have a blue energy effect.

For anyone unfamiliar with what a shokk attack gun does, it opens a small work hole which Ork's used to feed Gretchen, goblins, and squigs through while opening the other end of the worm hole inside an enemy tank, dreadnought, or even just inside a space marines suit of armour.  It made a mess of things.  However, this one allows the car to "sometimes" jump around the table as it disappears and re-appears through the worm holes it opens.

I purposely left the vehicle very clean and crisp as I want all of the vehicles to look as if they are lined up fresh on the starting line.  I know it is not very Orky, but I just didn't feel right chipping up a shiny new Ferrari.

Last up was to make a base that looked like some old broken up road to race on.  For this I simply used some cork sheet, broke it up, added some sand, and some tufts and was done.

I also had visions of lettering and advertising on the car, BUT I thought I had several more weeks to get decals made for this project! I was busy painting away for the Mercenary theme week when the results were posted from last weeks theme on Sunday only to read that the next theme was Sport!!!  I had not even put the model together at that point, so had to spend Monday assembling and priming, then painting Tuesday and Wednesday, and then pack it up to finish it while visiting Curt this weekend, whom I have to thank for both the hospitality and for taking some amazing pictures for me.  So, back to the decals, I simply did not have time, but will have to later.

Overall it worked out great though, I am very happy with how it turned out, and I am almost done the mercenary entry, so can take some more time on it to get it exactly right rather than being in a rush for the theme weeks all the time.

Thanks for checking it out, and I hope you all like it.