Cleopatra (1 Viewer)

[blaster]

I want to make a figure of this queen. I would like to convert this vintage Phoenix casting to her.
A couple of good points about this piece:
the chair looks Egyptian and the pose seems suitable.

 

[Ivanhoe]

I want to make a figure of this queen. I would like to convert this vintage Phoenix casting to her.
A couple of good points about this piece:
the chair looks Egyptian and the pose seems suitable.

Looking forward to what your talent accomplishes with her.

 

[Mirof]

very nice figure fromPhoenix
painted her with servants,but as they are very natural for the period ( wearing almost nohing to nothing ) can not show them here

exting piece for Cleopatra by Kabuki here :http://miniset.net/sets/km-pu5408
and you could add for a small diorama

 

[blaster]

Hi Matt and Mirof,

Thanks for your inputs. That is a very good Andrea Mark Anthony and the Kabuki Ceoepatra -whoa!!! However, I'm not sure that they would work well in a diorama together. I mean there's Cleopatra playing with an asp and Mark looking on warily, weighing out the pain versus pleasure benefits?...

Many years ago, I had acquired various Atlantis figures and other nudes from Globe and other makers. They stand in the shadowed recesses of my grey collection. However, I had always wanted to do a figure Cleopatra and the starting point for her was to be the seated Atlantis queen.

I have read that Cleopatra was only about twenty plus before she took her own life. Hence the plausibility of a well-endowed figure to represent the legend.

Rgds Victor

 

[blaster]

I read that the so-called Egyptian chair resembles an Egyptian headrest. Egyptian chairs do not look like this at all. Egyptian thrones appear to be too ornate for my purpose. I just wanted to show Cleopatra at her toiletries. So she should be sitting on a stool. Lots of pictures of Egyptian folding stools but I decided to make a rustic looking stool. the typical Egyptian piece of furniture was generally made of carved wood with legs resembling animal feet. I decided to adapt another Phoenix stool for this. Cleopatra would be sitting on her favourite rustic stool etc.

I wanted to represent a typical headdress. So I removed and sanded off some of the existing tresses from the figure. This took some time due to the hardness of the casting. I then built up the forehead and nose to represent a more Egyptian profile. Added a necklace as well.

 

[Mirof]

Nice seat

Yould could have used the chair in the kit ( Atlantis ) then a Greek design
Cleopatra ( Ptolélée dynasty from Macédonia ) living in Alexandria, founded by Alexander the Great in -331 so very big presence of Greek culture

Best

 

[blaster]

Hi Mirof,

You are right. However, the Atlantis seat looks heavy, probably carved out of some stone and difficult to move around. I also wanted to move away from the obviously "Phoenix" look. For my piece, I visualized a simpler and smaller stool for a woman performing her toiletries. I am basing my stool partly on this picture which I got off the web.


Rgds Victor

 

[White Knight]

Interesting progress. This being an older range, how is it sizewise?

 

[blaster]

The Phoenix Atlantis range has always been labeled 1/32. As you are based in Belgium, I took some pics of some Atlantis figures next to figures you may be familiar with: a Mokarex/CafeStorme Napoleon and two Historex figures 1/30 for height and size comparison.

As you can see, the Atlantis figures are bigger than 1/32, equaling Historex figures in height and definitely bulkier.

 

[White Knight]

Thanks for that excellent reply. From the looks of it, the figures might hold potential for use with 1/30 figures then. Guess I'll need to take another look at their catalog. :salute::

 

[blaster]

You can get the figures from this website:

http://www.forty-third.co.uk/32_phoenix_fantasy.htm

 

[White Knight]

Thanks, I've ordered a few to try them out.

 

[blaster]

I filed away most of the hair. I have decided to redo the hairstyle completely (Vidal Sassoon technique, remember?). The hair was resculpted and I used a very fine blade to tease out the strands.

 

[blaster]

The hair was decorated with jewellery and a crown was added. The two wires are structural to sculpt the two serpents on her crown. This was based on the archaeological bust purported to be of Cleo. I will lower the brim of the crown.

 

[blaster]

I lowered the crown and sculpted in the two snakes. the top of the head was resulted. The drapery on the robe was extended to cover the stool.

 

[blaster]

I extended the drapery further. It was possible that Cleopatra had a pet leopard. Anyway, I came across a nice toy leopard and decided to add it to this piece. I created some tiled flooring.

 

[blaster]

A marbling flooring was created. The figure was undercoated in enamels. It was likely that Cleopatra had dark skin due to mixed Greek Egyptian ancestry.

 

[blaster]

I placed the figure and leopard on the base to check for balance of the composition.

 

[Ivanhoe]

I placed the figure and leopard on the base to check for balance of the composition.

She is coming along nicely !

Really like what you did with the robe.

Thank you for posting.

 

[White Knight]

Great transformation of the figure, she really looks the part.

That toy leopard scales well and the poses works wonderfully, as if they were meant to be together (their does appear to be some plastic fuzz on the top of his head that you may want to remove with a scalpel/blade before painting it further though).