Mummy Mania - Painting the Tomb King part 6

Over the last few weeks I've been fitting in a bit of mini painting time whenever I can and seeing how much I can do. Not a lot as it turns out!

This weekend I took a more focused approach and set myself a target. I decided to concentrate on painting the Tomb King's weapon to see if I could get it finished. In total I managed about ten hours painting time and as it's turned out the weapon isn't finished but that's only because I've decided to go back and rework the blade.

I really dislike the orange areas of the blade so I've decided to regard them as underpainting. They are far too bright and look crude and ugly! I will be knocking them right back by creating a darker overall look for the blade with some washes and glazing. For the most part I'll be using a mix of GW scorched brown and Vallejo dark sea blue. I'm hoping for a more sinister and nuanced feel to the colours on the blade.

UPDATE
I've just spent some more time painting the blade this evening and I'm feeling much happier about how its looking.

To help me get familiar with my new camera I've been photographing some of my older minis. I think it can be really useful to go back and take a critical look at your older work. One mini in particular is very relevant and in many ways similar to my current Tomb King Project. It's a Dark Harbinger from Crocodile Games. 

I painted this mini back in 2006 following on from a couple of years where I hadn't painted any minis at all. It one of the last examples of my bright '80s' style of painting but it also shows my first proper attempt at NMM. I didn't realise it at the time but in this respect it shows the turning point when I started to try and update my painting style. 

The main benefit of reapraising older minis isn't to relive the past. By looking back at earlier achievements and failures I'm better able to assess my current status and plan where I want to take my mini painting in the future.

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!

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.