Sunday, June 24, 2012

It's what's on the inside that counts... Armies on Parade

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When you last saw your intrepid painter, he was slaving away (ha!) on the upper level of the Tomb Complex.  Here are some views as that evening drew to a close, and I set out some of the figures that will reside up there.

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Since I had more light to deal with during the day, I mixed in some interior painting with the rest of my work.

I started by getting most everything black:
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Once I got things one color, I glued on some pastel paper to indicate where my rows of shields will go.  I also started painting some of the icons I had glued to the board.

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I wish I could have painted them before gluing them, but that was just not possible.  I also started to add some color to the walls, similar to what is on the floor...
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I also began to paint the image that was saved specifically for the back wall, using my fluorescent paints.Photobucket

More definition on the icons and the back wall design...
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There will be more details added to these walls in July.  Lots of glyphs and other neat stuff!
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There seems to be wuite the planning meeting going on here.  Now you know where I get all my ideas!
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Ground War: painting the upper level above ground

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Yesterday saw the painting of all the landscape work, as well as some of the structure.  Here is the set up, with the 4 basic colors out on the palette:

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I worked using the Screaming skull catapult and the carrion bases as a color guide.  I had a black, and ochre, a pink, and a terracotta shade ready to go.  I worked rapidly once again, moving across the surface as quickly as possible to make sure there was enough variety in the colors, but keeping it cohesive as well.

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Once most of the basic surface was covered, I worked on the little details.. the piles of bones, the Dais, etc.

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I tried to bring out more and more forms with each layer of paint.  I was working quickly enough that I was still able to do some wet into wet blending...

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Here you can see the dais included.  I also began getting some paint on the rest of the structure at this time:
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The colors on the back wall will have to match the pastel paper I am using with all my drawings, so I needed to go even lighter on those sections...

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This was the last of what was done yesterday, as it was getting very late!  Today I am doing a lot of work on the interior side of the upper level!

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Turning sketches into Tomb Art: Armies on Parade

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As the upper level of the display board moved on, it was time to turn the rough sketches I had made for the back wall into something usable.  At first, I thought it would not take very long to make finished. to scale drawings at full size.  I realized this was not the case!  It took much longer to make drawings that had enough detail to cover the two sections of the back wall.

I wanted to give the viewers at least a general idea of the story behind the Tainted Pharaoh and his new patron.  Lots of research was done using my 900 page reference book on Egyptian Tomb Art.  I knew that size matters, and that the most important characters had to be bigger, and so on down the line.  I tried to reflect this in how I drew the main protagonists. 

I also wanted to see some of the Tomb King units represented in pictorial form, so that it would not simply be a mimic of ordinary Egyptian art. :-)  Here is waht I came up with...

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