# Finished- Moebius Mummy



## jgoldader (Mar 26, 2008)

*Edit:* More photos added, because *JohnP* asked for it!

All,
Here is a pic of my completed Moebius Mummy. There are more pics at my Photobucket site
http://s240.photobucket.com/albums/ff38/jgoldader/Moebius Mummy/
or
http://bit.ly/rrUfUo

I washed all the parts in a tub of warm water with a little dishwashing detergent. Everything was primed with Painter’s Touch white spray primer (Home Depot). Virtually all of the detail painting was done with hand-brushed Apple Barrel acrylics (the paint callouts are Apple Barrel colors unless otherwise specified). They’re cheap and come in many good colors. But priming is essential, as the paints have no “bite” to them, and won’t stick well on smooth surfaces. The washes were done using premixed Citadel washes. In the end, everything was sealed with Krylon clear satin or clear UV matte.

I wanted to give the appearance of the mummy awakening, so I repositioned and modified the right arm and hand. I cut the thumb loose from the hand, and attached the thumb and rebuilt the palm with Aves. I cut the forearm off at the elbow, and reattached it, bent away from the body, using Aves.

The face was a good likeness of Karloff, but the head looked… too big? I don’t know; other posters here have remarked on that, too. So I marked off a cut line that would remove a section of the back of the piece on which the face was molded, behind the back of the chin on both the left and right sides, to pull the chin back towards the chest. I had to remove the ears, since the original ones looked too big with the smaller head, and I did the best I could to sculpt ears out of Aves.

How to paint the mummy’s skin? My first thought was to replicate Tutankhamun’s mummy’s overall blackish /brownish skin, but that coloring is due to resins that coated the mummy, practically turning it into a solid block of resin. There’s no way a mummy encased in resin is going to get up and walk around, and we want our undead mummies to be realistic, right? So on to plan B. I looked for images of natural mummies, and found very nice images of a naturally preserved Egyptian mummy called Ginger. His skin is brown with tan-orange highlights. It somewhat resembles the skin of Otze, the Iceman from the Alps. I made a mixture of Yellow Light, Barn Red, and probably Nutmeg, incompletely mixed so there was color variation, and brushed the skin. A wash of Citadel Black Wash finished the skin.

The wrappings are painted in Satin Cream, with a liberal wash of Citadel Sepia Wash, wiped down and followed by a dry-brushing of Satin Cream. Following the lead of another HT modeler, the loose wrappings are fabric medical tape, doubled up. To affix the loose wrappings, I filled the holes for the styrene wrappings with Aves, then stuck the tape on the Aves, then put a bit of Aves on top of that, blending it in with the surrounding wrappings.

The sarcophagus was painted in several stages. I painted the “wooden” interior and back with a semi-well-mixed 3:2 blend of Nutmeg and Linen, thinned a little with water, and slopped on. I wanted to give the impression of variation in the wood, and the incomplete mixing gave the brush strokes a range of colors. I was really pleased with the result. I sealed the wood with Krylon matte. 

The top and sides of the sarcophagus were sprayed with Rustoleum gold metallic. I’d expected a glossy surface, from the appearance of the cap on the can, but was very happy with the satin sheen. I tried to use colors from Tutankhamun’s sarcophagus, doing the best I could to match the colors available to the builders. The light blue material is likely faience, a manufactured glass. For that, I used Apple Barrel Sky Blue with a tiny touch of Christmas Green. The red was a 1:2 mix of Barn Red and Cardinal Crimson. I painted the blue parts of the headdress with an undercoat of 1:1 True Blue and Black, and overpainted with thinned Cobalt Blue, which I also used and the half-moon shaped cutouts in the sarcophagus. I neglected to write down the mix of the very dark reddish-brown, but it was probably made of Nutmeg Brown, Barn Red, and Black. I sealed the sarcophagus with Krylon satin clear, then gave it a wash of the Citadel Sepia Wash, sealed that, then did a liberal drybrushing of a mix of Territorial Beige and Linen to give a worn and dusty appearance. A final coating of Krylon matte completed the sarcophagus.

I painted the ground with tan Rustoleum multicolored textured tan paint (don’t remember the exact color, and the can’s not labeled). Another modeler here used the same paint on his mummy a year or two ago. The paint gives a very convincing appearance of real sand. 

I painted the wall behind the sarcophagus with a mixture of Satin Cream and Territorial Beige. 
The wall was sealed with Krylon matte, then given the Citadel Sepia wash. The top was given a medium-heavy drybrushing of a lighter Satin Cream and Territorial Beige mix to highlight the broken material. I drybrushed the figure on the back side of the wall, then gave the vertical surfaces a light drybrushing of the same mix as the top. I assumed the thing that looks like a pot was a pot, and found a nice picture of a weathered and worn light blue Egyptian pot online, which gave me a color scheme. I gave the pot a basecoat of a mostly Linen with a little Territorial Beige, then a drybrushing of Sky Blue and white, with a little Tamiya gold thrown in on the banding. Krylon clear matte sealed the works.

I did the best I could to make the snake look like a real cobra, with a yellow-brown mix for the stomach scales and a brown-green mix for the sides and back. I used a lot of drybrushing of brown and black to try to blend it all together. Krylon satin clear gave the snake a little sheen.

Thanks to all of you figure modelers for giving me the inspiration to try new things, and I hope you don’t mind that I borrowed your ideas. The moral of the story is that washes and drybrushing are my new best friends.

Jeff


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## Xenodyssey (Aug 27, 2008)

Very nice. And the skin tones do make it stand out from the rest.


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## xsavoie (Jun 29, 1999)

Like the a says nice skin tones.Wonderful work on the sarcophagus as well.Nicely aged.:thumbsup:


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## iriseye (Sep 21, 2010)

Very, very nice work. The detailing is superb.


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## Cajjunwolfman (Nov 15, 2004)

Like the inside of the sarcophagus, the snake, and the outside of the sarcophagus. The exterior of the sarcophagus is colorful and detailed but not gaudy. Especially impressed you did all this with the craft paints.


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## John P (Sep 1, 1999)

To many words, not enough photos!


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## kdaracal (Jan 24, 2009)

Yea, I love the mods on the head. Very nice skin tones, looks *old*


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## jgoldader (Mar 26, 2008)

John P said:


> To many words, not enough photos!


John--

I've added more photos.

Sorry it's a long posting, but as someone who's spent years wondering, "How'd he DO that?!" at your models, I figured I'd tell. 

Jeff


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## Night-Owl (Mar 17, 2000)

Great looking build up Jeff, kudos on all counts!


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## Mitchellmania (Feb 14, 2002)

He looks amazing! Great work! Love the colors!


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## rkoenn (Dec 18, 2007)

Great job on your Mummy and I am going to use some of your ideas if you don't mind as I already had mine on the bench when I saw yours. You've done a great job on everything but looking at your set of pictures I really like what you did with the cobra in particular. If mine turns out half as good I will be happy. Thanks for letting us see it and from me, thanks for your description on how you did it. I am always looking for ideas.

Bob K.


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## StarshipClass (Aug 13, 2003)

Great job overall :thumbsup: Painting is perfect and subdued as it should be.

Your snake look absolutely REAL  The mouth, especially.

I like the head mods as well. Adds a LOT to an already great model.


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