After the recent articles on the process of reworking the movement trays for the Empire of Dust, there were a number of questions on how the inscriptions were done.
These were created years ago when I first made the army. I had to back track a bit, but could not find any step by step posts on the blog. Since I had to repaint those new and adjusted trays, I thought I would take some images along the way!
Here's what I ended up with after chopping up the old trays.
Since I didn't have the original piece of paper that had the inscriptions (scaled to fit, of course), I would have to use my other trays as a reference. You can see the cartouche of Pseusennes there on the left.
First, I needed to get the sculpey pieces along the edges painted. Just three colors... a tan, a purple, and an off white.
The purple and tan were mixed together, creating a few different shades on the palette so that I could reach for them quickly.
I set down the lighter and darker shades first, so that I could blend them together.
I started doing that by carrying some of the 'middle' shades into both the dark and light areas. Since I was working so quickly with a larger brush, the paint did not dry before this was accomplished.
All the tans are in place. You can see the variations in light and dark. I also touched up any of the black lining at this point.
As I mentioned before, I didn't have the original piece of paper. Still, I had my original trays, which carried the warning "All those who enter the Tomb Cities of Pseusennes shall suffer a fate worse than death".
Having the two side by side made it a lot easier to transfer the design down to the new tray. The paint is Reaper Brown Liner, which is a very nice, thinner paint that has incredible pigmentation. This is ideal for such freehand.
The dark colors are in place, but you can see there is a difference between the original sections and the newer lines. I need to pick out a few highlights along the edges, which will give it the appearance of being carved.
Fortunately I thought of this before I carved each and every movement tray when I first made the army! That would have been many hours of torture. This was mere minutes of painting.
I made sure to follow a single direction with these highlights. The finished bits on the left definitely have more shape than the area without those highlights.
The completed tray!!! Now I would need to do this to the other trays, and then work on the various unit fillers that I had created. Those are future posts, so stay tuned!
