2nd hand set includes some Mignot pieces

I bought a 2nd hand set of figures which included some Mignot pieces from their famous Tea at Malmaison set. The pieces were cleaned in vinegar overnight, rinsed and dried. The set is shown before and after being spray painted with white. I may use some of these pieces to pack out my Sacre scene.

Assyrian Scene 11

I finally bought another set of LED lights. I have glued a strip of wood to the upper inner frame of the box to create some depth for attaching the LED light with screws.

Assyrian Scene 10

I decided to paint some friezes onto the bare walls. I selected two images from my books on design.

Tracings were made of the images, with some perspective distortions made to the winged bull.

These tracings were transferred to the walls. One pair of images was always reversed.

Assyrian Scene 9

This is the batten painted up and attached to the ceiling.

I painted some decorations on the walls and als oadded highlighted to the wings and the columns. I think that this scene is ready to accept some Assyrian flats.

Assyrian Scene 8

I decided that the frame had to be more symmetrical and changed the pattern of shading accordingly. I delineated slightly more detail for these frame columns and will add further details to the bases. I painted the rest of the frame, awaiting detailing.

I masked the edge of the walls with thin cardboard strips to add details. I added a batten across the ceiling to repeat the frame edge. This will become clearer in the next posting. The picture below is upside down as I had added wood glue to stick the batten to the ceiling and did not want it to drip onto the floor.

The frame columns and batten were strenghtened with thin wood glued behind..

Assyrian Scene 7

I readusted the height of the horizon downwards to make space to represent a moon and painted the background carefully to represent a night scene. I got this idea after watching a ballet production of Swan Lake. The background was painted in various blues with a red moon.

Buoyed by the background colours, I painted the architectural columns to represent various shading patterns, depending on the position of the moonlight. I then painted the ceiling, walls and floor in vibrant colours to match the background scene.

For the frame, I went for a wash technique to represent the Assyrian winged bulls in the wings. This was make or break for this diorama as these were iconic symbols and very prominent. The result was extremely pleasing to me and I am left to do the rest of the frame.