Show Me The Mummy!

After a week of wrapping, stuffing, stitching and glueing the people of the Dig Site are finished!  All four have head & shoulders, lower arms and lower legs made from polymer clay connected by a wire armature (frame or skeleton).  Their 'bodies' are made of foam wrapped around the wire armature with a little extra polyester fill stuffing down their trousers to give them more shapely legs.  They all wear clothes made out of various cotton fabrics.

This is Rashid.  He's the team's local guide and translator.  Yes, his head is too big.  I was going to leave him bald, but I may go back and give him some hair to see if this makes his head look less out of proporition.  His sandals are made from leather while his clothing is made from a cotton fabric.

Aldo is the most experienced member of the team with a lifetime of treasure hunting under his belt.  His hat is absoulutely the best one I've ever made and I'm now thinking that if I ever get around to making that dress shop it will have to have an extensive millinery section.

Agnes is the only woman of the group and perhaps the most keen to get to work.  She even wears some tools on her belt to help her excavate the ruins.  Her wig is a pre-bought one made by Heidi Ott.

Wil, short for William, is the leader of the group.  You saw his hat and gun last week; they were bought online.  His belt, braces and holsters are real leather. His shirt, like Agnes', has seed bead buttons.

And finally, there is one more "person" at the Dig Site. . . . . 

 

The Mummy, I call him Kikkerikotep, is a 6" high plastic skeleton wrapped in strips of calico.  Once he was fully wrapped he was painted with a mix of glue, water and brown chalk paint to fix the wrappings in place and start to give them an aged look.  The wrappings will still need a little more aging before he's finished.  His eyes are red glass seed beads.

You may have noticed that I've ripped out the columns by the door.  I will have another go at making some new columns.  Once I've done that and cleaned up the mess I've made of the back wall, the Dig Site will be very close to finished.

The Pyramid - Week Three

The main feature added to the Pyramid this week was the sarcophogus (coffin).  This was made from polymer clay and painted in gold, blue and red after baking.  The clay was wrapped around a roughly sarcophogus shaped lump of alfoil to reduce the amount of clay (and baking) required.  As you can probably tell from the photos, sculpting things from clay is not a strong point of mine.  The head dress is clearly uneven and the arms are suited to a sumo wrestler oh, and he has no chin.  Either this guy was the ugliest Pharaoh ever or he should have fired his craftsmen.  As the tomb is in 1/24th scale, the sarcophogus is just over three inches in length.  It rests on a dias of balsa wood painted white. 

Also on the dias are some of my other efforts with polymer clay; some small "offering jars" which would be filled with oils, spices and other afterlife necessities.  At the foot of the sarcophogus are five golden canopic jars.  Technically, these would be more likely to be something like alabaster rather than gold, but it was easier to paint them gold than to try and paint them to look like alabaster.  In the back corners of the tomb are two "oil lamps".  These are very simple polymer clay bowls set on a tripod of toothpicks.  The final piece I made from polymer clay is the somewhat goofy looking black cobra on the floor to the right of the sarcophogus.

I was going to add a lot more to the Pyramid by way of grave goods; golden thrones, chariots, chests of jewels, etc.  Once I saw it with the sarcophogus in place, I reconsidered this.  Adding too much stuff is going to make it look messy and detract from the wall decoration.  I asked the question in the DHE forums and the concensus of opinion seemed to be the same as mine; the tomb just needs a few more trinkets scattered about, but nothing large.  Now I just need to figure out what those trinkets will be and how to make them. . . .