Mummy Mania!

The Bank Holiday weekend just gone was the perfect opportunity to settle down and finish off my Scourge. So naturally I spent all my painting time on the Tomb King diorama! 

Lots of different things have come together in this model. I hadn’t intended to use it as a test piece for new materials and techniques but that is exactly what it’s become. I’d recently purchased a few of the Miniature Mentor tutorials and have been putting some of the things I’ve picked up into practice.

Here are the ‘new’ things I’ve tried so far.

I finally invested in a Dremel multi-tool and my first use for it was to carve away a goodly portion of the resin plyinth I’m using to base my Tomb King. This combined with the piece of wood I stuck to the plinth has given a lot more interest and dimensionality to the piece. I really wish I’d started doing this years ago! The Dremel is also going to come in useful when I get to converting the Tomb King.

I’m trying out Vallejo paints for the first time having previously only used GW paints. As GW have changed their entire range I’m going to have to experiment with new colours so I might as well really expand my range. I much prefer the Vallejo dropper bottles as there is a lot less waste and the paints I’ve used so far seem just as good as GW.

I’m also trying out something slightly different with my colour palette. I’m using an ivory tone (Vallejo Ivory) rather than white for my highlighting. This should give an overall warmth to the highlights and help to tie together the colour scheme. The shadows will all have a little deep blue (Vallejo Dark Sea Blue) mixed into them as a part of the same approach. The Dark Sea Blue is a really intense colour and I think it will be very interesting to work with it.

I’m continuing to love my new series seven brush and have invested in a series seven miniature brush for the extra fiddly bits.

At the same time as I'm painting the mummies (I really hate painting bandages!) I'm experimenting with dry pigments (dusty, sandy colours) and making cobwebs with cotton wool. These, along with an assortment of creepy crawlies, will help to finish off the base.