Mummy Mania - Painting the Tomb King part 3

The overall colour scheme for my Tomb King has started to come together with the addition of a few small areas of blue. The blue helps to open expand range of colours used without throwing something wildly different into the mix. It is close enough to the green so as not to jar the eye but increases the overall contrast between the warm copper tones and the blue/green tones.

Progress is painfully slow at the moment but I'm pleased with the results I'm getting and that (for me) is the more important thing.

Mummy Mania - Painting the Tomb King part 2

Painting has been very slow recently but it's time I posted a few work in progress pictures.

I'm working with (for me) an extremely subdued colour palette and I'm really enjoying the experience/challenge. The use of Ivory (rather than white) in all the highlights and a combination of Dark Sea Blue and various browns in the shadows plays a major part in this and helps keep the overall palette unified.

In addition to my new Windsor & Newton series seven I've bought myself a few brushes from the excellent Rosemary & Co and I will be posting a review/comparison in the near future.

Mummy Mania - Painting the Tomb King

Just a quick post to show the weekend's progress on my Tomb King. I've begun to apply my colour scheme to the mini. So far I'm very pleased with how things are going although it's only at an early stage and the scheme will need to develop as I progress.

Mummy Mania - choosing a colour scheme.

I've made a couple more tweaks to the tomb king's position this time the feet and arm. I'm now very happy with his pose so It's time to put down the super glue and pick up my paintbrush.

First up I've blocked in the main areas of colour with a base coat. I'm using the same sandy tone for the bones and bandages as I used on the base. This should help tie the whole composition together. Areas that will be painted copper and gold have been picked out in Calthan Brown. Having a two tone base coat helps me to start breaking the mini down into the it's main colour blocks and begins the process of planning the order I will paint them in.

My thoughts on the colour scheme have really come together. I didn't want a typically Egyptian gold with red and blue jewels type of scheme for this mini. I want to try and create an ancient and barbaric feel for my Tomb King. Having used, and been pleased with, the tarnished copper effect on the base I will apply this to the Tomb King. Decoration will be mostly restricted to a little gold and turquoise both of wich are authentically ancient egyptian but hopefully just a little bit different from what is often done with this type of mini.

To help me with my colour scheme I've collected together a set of pictures for reference/inspiration. Nothing here should be taken too literally as the pics are intended to act as a sort of mood board helping me to get a feel for the overall colour scheme.

Mummy Mania - the Tomb King remodeled

As was obvious to everyone but myself the Tomb King's legs needed a little more attention to get the pose right.
I've now removed, chopped, drilled, pinned and repositioned the legs into a more upright stance. I still need to do a little work with some green stuff but I'm just about there otherwise. 
The pile of skulls is very roughly positioned to give an idea of the overall fit. I'll need to take great care when I bring the King and the base together making sure everything goes together in a natural looking fashion.

Mummy Mania - the finished base.

For the time being the Tomb King base is finished! Once the King is finished I may add a few more details to finish off the piece but I will wait and see how things work out as I pull it all together.

I've also started work on the King and he will soon be ready for some paint. The conversion work is nothing too radical. I wanted to give him longer legs (I think the original legs looked a bit squat!) and a taller crown. These changes make him slightly bigger, more regal and I think more menacing. I've also replaced the pointing hand with one holding a papyrus scroll. Inscribed, no doubt, with a spell for raising up his undead legions!

I've been asked a few times if I'll be entering this piece into the Golden Demon's.  That won't be possible as it uses a few non GW elements. I only started this piece as a bit of fun after my Egyptian holiday and to give myself a break from the (never ending) Dark Eldar project. It's turning out far better than I'd expected  and It's rather nice to work on something where I can see an end to it in a matter of months rather than years!

More Mummy Mania!

The sunny weekend meant that I had lots of quality painting time and I've moved things forward with my Tomb King base.

I finished painting the mummies and turned to the ground, pigments in hand. I used a mix of MIG Pigments (Gulf War Sand and Dark Mud) mixed with water and applied as a wash. As it dried I added more pigment here and there to build up the intensity. I love how the pigments dry out to a dusty matt finish - very appropriate for a desert setting.


Next up were the 'cobwebs' and doing this felt like I was taking a great big fiddly risk! I unpicked the cotton wool from a cotton bud and fixed it into place with PVA glue using a paint brush. The trick seems to be to use the very smallest amount of cotton and to build up the effect very gradually. The initial look is very white but this lessens as the PVA dries fairly clear. Once dry I added a little pigment and sand to dirty up the cobwebs a then layered on a few more strands of cotton wool. It took nerves of steel to use this effect as it felt like I was making a terrible mess at the time but I'm very pleased with the end result.

The giant scarab beetles (from the GW Necrosphinx kit) were a lot of fun to paint! There are a few small touches left to do but it's nearly ready for the Tomb King himself.

Tomb King's base 1

I've finished construction on the Tomb King's base. I just added a bit more sand & cork and slapped on a base coat. Seeing it in monochrome helps show off the textures and ties everything together. I think painting this base is going to call for lots of dry & dusty looking pigments.

A blast from the (ancient) past

There’s been no mini painting action during the last two weeks as I’ve been to Egypt over the Easter holiday. I’ve had an interest in Egyptology for the last twenty years and it probably comes as no surprise that on occasions my interests in Ancient Egypt and miniature painting come together. 

Ancient Egypt is a rich source of inspiration providing imagery and mythology that many miniature companies have tapped into. I’m most familiar with the Egyptian inspired minis of Games Workshop (Tomb Kings) and Crocodile Games (War Gods of Ægyptus). The Tomb Kings minis take on the exotic imagery of Ancient Egypt and mix it with the more gothic iconography of death to produce a distinct hybrid style all their own and appropriate the Warhammer world. In contrast the War Gods minis present a far more recognisable version of ancient Egypt albeit a highly fantastical one with magic and monsters. 

My first use of Egyptian imagery in my mini painting came back in 1992 when I painted a Swooping Hawk Exarch using the Egyptian Hawk God Horus as a source of inspiration.

In 2007 I discovered the War Gods minis and I’ve had a lot of fun painting a few of them up. 

 

I collect Egyptian replicas and on rare occasions you can come across a decent one in the Egyptian Bazars. Inevitably in order to make it more saleable an enterprising Egyptian will have painted it gold – very gold! On several occasions I’ve called on my model painting experience to put the appearance of a replica back to something more like the original. 

More recently I used an Egyptian style head on my first version of the Dark Eldar diorama 

So much for the past, what about future projects?

I’m normally very bloody minded about only working on one project at a time or I’d never get anything finished and lets be honest the Dark Eldar diorama is taking more than long enough! However my trip to Egypt has me fired up with the urge to go paint a mini mummy and several ideas I’ve had in the back of my mind came together. Rather than store the idea away and probably never see it done I’ve taken a break from my Scourge and begun prepping a Tomb King diorama. 

Something I’ve wanted to try is cutting away a portion of a plinth to create some more interesting terrain for a mini and this combined with a piece of wood I picked up while walking home from work have come together to form the basis for my new base. The mummies are a combination of War Gods mummies (lots of bandages - very nice) and the Khemrian Warsphinx Tomb Guard Crew. The Tomb King (converted) from the Warsphinx will stand atop the rock outcrop summoning his undead legions up out of the desert sands.

A blast from the past - Stone Colossus

I'll be posting an update on the progress (there is some!) on my Dark Elf Diorama at the weekend. In the meantime...

I've had this guy half finished on my desk for ages. Earlier this Summer I finally got around to getting him completed & based up. 

The colossus was a lot of fun to paint and gave me the chance to experiment with combining some new paint effects & techniques. I got the idea of painting coloured bands in the stone from a couple real examples - both are statues of Ramses II. One is from Tanis and the other is the famous 'Young Memnon' in the British Museum.

The paints were all from Games Workshop. The base colour is Iyanden Darksun from the foundation paint range. I think (it was a while ago) that I may have mixed in a little Snakebite Leather to make the colour a bit less yellow. To highlight I just mixed in Skull White and dry brushed (lots). For the shading and bands of darker colour I used Scorched Brown and Bestial Brown in lots of layered washes. There are quite a lot of layered washes and dry brushing to bring out the texture. It’s then back to the highlight colour to pick out the detail and edges gradually adding more white to the mix. The metallic areas are Dwarf Bronze shaded with Scorched Brown. The verdigris is a mix of Hawk Turquoise and white applied as a wash and built up in layers.