Trading tips for dark displays and prop production.
By GUS
#35252
Good call on the mummy pdf.

remember if using lighter material you wish to stain at various levels, ..think classic wonky British teeth & our love of a good strong cuppa, bandages in a bowl of strong tea / coffee overnight will almost certainly add to the effect when the bandages are dried.
all mummies with teeth ought to have a simpering english name
..& possibly a monocle :lol:
Last edited by GUS on Thu Jul 22, 2010 4:15 am, edited 1 time in total.
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By mesmark
#37905
Well, I think we have a bit of a plan.

Originally I was going to do the silhouettes like Nos. posted and we bought some fabric to use as a background. Well, the fabric wasn't really white (which we knew about) and here it is with a sheet of white paper next to it.

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After looking at the fabric and noticing it was a nice sand stone tint with little flecks like texture, I decided to go for another wall/backdrop.

the new plan:
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The fabric was shipped to us in one long continuous sheet, about 1 meter wide and not 27 meters long. I'm thinking to cut it into basically 3 long strips and sew them together. The seems would be the horizontal lines and I'd draw some vertical lines in pen. Then with paint (watercolor) add some streaks and aging effects.

I want to add a doorway where people will actually walk through this time. I'm going to pull the whole thing forward on the stage.

the doorway might be made of styrofoam pieces with the fabric stretched around. The pieces will be attached on the outside and give the scene a little depth. I'll add glyphs to the top and if I have time decorate the pillars as well. Again, I might cut out some styrofoam pieces for the glyphs to add more depth. I think generally they'd be engraved but we work within what we can do and time frame ...

Same idea, I'm going to make the picture scene in the corner. The wall will be the same as above, but no doorway. I'm hoping to start work on a sarcophagus this weekend. Yay! The plan for that is still up in the air. i'm thinking wood panel backing, chicken-wire for structure, coated in newspaper and then smoothed down with clay.

We also have some mummy costumes started:
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some mummy pants already put together for the test.

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some fabric dyed and drying for future assembly
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By Dadja
#37906
Oh boy, hadn't seen this post, and I have done an Egyptian theme before.

What I did was make columns out of paper maché. So I first shaped them with chicken wire, put strips of news paper soaked in wall paper glue, then painted them. Worked surprisingly easy.

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I also made a obelisk, which worked great. We built this for a historic walking dinner, so other teams had different constructions built, but because our obelisk was about 4m high, you could see it from anywhere in the room. It was built up in 4 pieces, just wooden frames, that could be stacked upon each other. Painted the whole thing grayish, and the top in gold.

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Last edited by Dadja on Thu Sep 16, 2010 6:18 am, edited 1 time in total.
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By Dadja
#37907
Also, if you think about costumes: some priests depicting Egyptian gods wore animal masks (hawk, lion, cat, etc)

http://www.sher-wood.nl/?menuid=164&catid=78&scid=4

The Egyptian crown would also be an option

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Also, if you just do Egyptian priest: you could make a long robe like I did. you could opt for the wig as well, although historically Egyptian priests would be shaved... everywhere :)


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By mesmark
#37915
I was just thinking you might be more excited than I am :D :lol:

If you wouldn't mind sending over the hieroglyphics, that would be great. Meanwhile, I'm going to have to look up a bunch of those fancy words you were using so I can keep up with our next conversation :oops:
Last edited by mesmark on Sun Sep 19, 2010 9:32 am, edited 1 time in total.
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By matspud
#37990
I also tend to think of the inside of a tomb with scenes from the book of the dead on the walls and cartouches with hieroglyph curses etc. Sarcophagus centre piece.
Or how about the egyptian room in a museum? This would give you the excuse for having mummies showing and having lots of bits and pieces around.

Or change the backdrop to be a ruined temple with Anubis statues guarding the entrance

Sorry I am not as inventive as many of the others here. :?
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By mesmark
#38209
I started work on the sarcophagus today. i was actually planning on starting tomorrow, but I realized I needed to glue pieces together before I started sanding and shaping.

With no real reason behind it, I decided the dimensions for the sarcophagus. I made the shoulder width 60cm. Then tapered down to 40cm at the bottom. I eye-balled the top part and it seems fairly symmetrical.
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here was the plan of sorts
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and cut out :) - and after than I cut out a second piece in the same shape.
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I drew a plan for the head right onto the styrofoam. Then I traced that to a couple pieces of paper and cut out the head piece.
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Then working down, I cut out the face and forehead part. On the paper I actually forgot the ears, but remembered before I had cut everything out.
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Here they are put together a bit.
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I cut one more face piece out.

Here is the whole head area and for fun I cut out some little eyebrow, nose and mouth pieces. I'm actually going to coat the whole thing in clay and do the facial features with clay.
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By mesmark
#38213
Dadja wrote:pure brilliance! I stand in awe...
Thanks! but we'll have to see how it looks after I sand it down a bit. That's the part I'm not so confident about ...

I'm also not sure whether I'm going to try to give it arms or not. If I can get the head piece to look good, I might just go without.

Tomorrow, I'm going to practice my hieroglyphics :)
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By Dadja
#38214
mesmark wrote:Tomorrow, I'm going to practice my hieroglyphics :)
I can help you with that :)

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In the first one, the disk is the sun, meaning 'Ra' god of the sun.
The stick with dog head is 'Wusr' meaning power
and the woman with the feather on her head is 'Maat' the cosmic order.

Then you have another sundisk
Then you have the slide thing, that's 'setep' means 'chosen'
and the water line is the leter 'n' Making: 'Setepenra' Chosen by Ra

So:
Wusr Maat Ra - Setepenra
Mighty is the order of Ra - Chosen by Ra


Second one:
The feather is 'A', the red thing is 'Mn' and the waterline is 'n' : Amnn -> 'Amun'
The blue thing is "Miryet" meaning loved

Then you have the bird headed man with sun, is just another way for saying 'Ra'

Then you have the dried plants, they stand for 'ms' and the other two symbols both stand for 's', so you get 'Ramsss' Ramesses 'Ramses'

Miryet Amun Ramesses
Loved by Amun: Ramses



So this was actually the 'name card' of king Ramses the 2nd :)

I am a man of many talents, most of them completely useless in the real word, but I love hieroglyps :)

Wusr Maat Ra - Setepenra - Miryet Amun Ramesses
Mighty is the order of Ra - Chosen by Ra - Loved by Amun: Ramses
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By CombichristGirl
#38222
coming along awesome! that is freaking sweet! there is almost nothing you cant do with some foam lol :)
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By purple1worm
#38236
Cool! Dadja is that second one from Ramesses the 1st?!
I think I've got some in a book but there from Ramesses 2nd. I could look around and scan them for Mesmark!
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