'Sport' from MichaelA: Private Dancer

Private Dancer

Since the introduction of the themed bonus rounds, I have always felt drawn to take part in as many as possible.  This might have something to do with the hefty 50 points awarded just for entering, but regardless they have been a happy hunting ground for me in the past, with additional points occasionally awarded for podium finishes.  This year, however, I have vowed to keep things simple and try to resist the urge to saunter off on flights of fancy.  Whilst this may come as a disappointment to some, it will allow me to keep from spending all my allocated hobby pocket money in the first quarter of the year!  The difficulty, however, with such a standpoint is trying to shoehorn your existing hobby focus into the often bizarrely titled rounds.  True to form, this year is no exception with some wonderfully, thought provoking titles, ‘Sport’ being a case in point.

Nothing immediately leapt to the fore as I scanned the line of planned projects, but my eyes fell upon a group of bespoke sculpts representing the dancers from Jabba the Hutt’s throne room in Return of the Jedi.  Is dance a sport?  I don’t feel that I am best placed to judge, but given the athletic prowess of the professional dancers on the recent series of ‘Strictly Come Dancing’, a guilty pleasure of mine, it would seem churlish not to consider it.  So I started in on Oola, the hapless Twi’lek slave who ultimately falls foul of the vile Jabba and is fed to the fearsome Rancor.

I should, at this point, pause, to mention that Oola, and indeed the rest of the dance troupe, are an incredibly kind gift from Dave Stone of Wargames Terrain Workshop. They are cast in resin and although the extremities are delicate, they take paint rather well.  So it was that whilst painting Oola, and considering her grisly fate, that I happened upon my ‘concept’ for the round – Blood Sport!  Now without wishing to become overtly political about such things it struck me that Jabba would consider the feeding of those who displeased him to the Rancor, sport.  Obviously not a balanced contest, but a memorable passage in the film, particularly for one so impressionable, as I was in 1982.  So then, a change of plan and a frantic search for a Rancor!

As luck would have it the Imperial Assault core box from Fantasy Flight Games comes with such a beastie.  It is a multi Part plastic model standing a whopping 100mm high.  Safely assembled and any gaps willed with Greenstuff, I found myself frozen in terror; how to paint it?  Fortunately for me, the genius that is Sorastro has produced a handy YouTube tutorial.  I am now becoming more au fait with his process of applying base colours and then shading these with washes, bur even so they often require a certain leap of faith when covering your carefully applied undercoat.  That said, he has yet to let me down and before long the slavering abomination was brought to life.  I had considered the idea of creating the creature’s pit as a scenic backdrop, but sadly this idea has been shelved and I have had to content myself with littering the supplied base with an assortment of previous victims’ body parts.

And so another bonus round safely negotiated, albeit with a slightly tenuous link, but who is to say that in an alternative universe, Oola didn’t best the Rancor!