Egyptian Mythology Display – Spring Clean 2024

I gave the filler a quick sand to get rid of the worst tooling marks. Then I sprayed everything in Zandri Dust. I then used some cheap poster paints to mix a light grey with a hint of yellow. Using a 2″ decorators brush I overbrushed the entire structure. I then added more white to the existing mix and went over it with a drybrush.

For sanding the desert I had a choice of spending £6 to buy about 200g of modelling sand, or spend £3.50 to get about 10kg of kids play sand. No surprise which one won.

First I took by trusty 2″ paint brush and applied PVA glue over the entire base of the board. I then applied about 1cm of sand and left it 24 hours to dry. I then used an old hoover to carefully suck off the excess sand.

The results didn’t look too bad. My plan was to seal it by spraying on a 50:50 mix of water and PVA, but it was so thick it came out the sprayer rather gloopy. So I decided to add another layer of sand and then wait another day.

After the second layer had dried I once again used a hoover to carefully suck off the excess sand. The end result was ok but actually I think I’d have been better stopping after the first layer. It’s hard to tell if the sand is glued down or has just dried out and formed a crust.

I guess time will tell.

All that remained to do was superglue the models on to the scenic base.

Easier said than done, as I quickly realised about half the models aren’t designed with any sort of surface suitable for gluing them down. Many of the humanoid models seem to be floating and at best have the tip of some cloth to touch the floor. Even the normal humanoids just have some relatively small feet touching the floor.

The giant bird just has the curved part of its tail – to try and use the spindly feet for such a large mini would be asking for trouble.

These models aren’t going to be very secure. Just as well I plan to store this on top of a 6′ tall bookshelf where no-one can touch it.

Here’s the display in situ on top of my bookshelf.

The final complication came when I tried to lift it today and found it was glued down to the foam board that I’d rested it on. Despite leaving the PVA to dry for 24 hours in the garage, there must have been enough wet glue to seep down the wood and glue it to the surface. You can see the white of the foam board stuck to the bottom left corner where I had to tear it off.

I should have learned from the example of Lloyd’s shed.

Also with it positioned so high I can see where I missed painting the undersides of some of the over-hanging pieces. But I can live with it.