¹⁄72

The Last Journey

As a change from the military subjects, I decided to go for a new subject covering ancient Egypt. The idea was based on an all scratch built diorama with an ancient Egyptian funeral boat. This is the king's last journey into his burial tomb in the "Valley of the Kings" to meet his ancestors.

A quote from the Book of the Dead "What a journey I have made, the things I have seen. I have separated myself from myself to sail again on the green Nile waters. I sail to the temple where the Gods have gathered to gaze at their faces in deep pools. In my boat the souls of the years sail with me"

I started a detailed study of the ancient Egyptian life: activities, wore drop, funeral process..etc and also went to a scenery study in the south of Egypt where farmers still live the primitive life similar to the ancient Egyptians and to study the scenery over the Nile banks as well.

The most challenging part was the scenery, I used white foam board for the base and soft sponge to carve the land, then I used plaster to cover the entire scenery to make it solid enough for a paint. I also made an ancient Egyptian cops warehouse based on models displayed in the Egyptian museum. The warehouse as made of wood and features two story of crops storage and sliding hatches to access the storage and top openings to empty the loads.

The figures were obtained from several historical kits in 1/72 scale with each serving a purpose in the Ancient Egyptian life.

Also the water effect was quite a challenge because I am used to sea waterlines and sea colors, the Nile being quite a subtle water river but still has waves and the color of the water is quite unique for the river Nile which is a greenish blue I obtained by mixing several colors.

I created the water effects finish using gloss Tamiya "Clear" and created the waves using plaster, the irrigation channel water was created using "still water" material.

Overall, for my first 1/72 scale work and my first scratch scenery I believe it came out more or less as I had imagined it and i tried mainly to make the diorama interesting to see from all angles and with a lot of things happening that would create interest to explore every part of the scene.

Model Shipwrights would like to thank Hussein El Kaissy for providing photos of this "The Last Journey"