Step 13: Create the Mummy

To make the armature, I took tinfoil and folded it into a rectangle. I drew a basic outline of a body with a marker. Using scissors, I sliced between the legs (so there were two of them) and folded the tinfoil back onto itself (to thicken each leg).

I snipped around the rest of the body, again folding the tinfoil back. I took a wooden bbq skewer and slid it through the middle, bending the shape to test how it will look.

I created arms by rolling another piece of tinfoil, and rounding it in a U shape. I fleshed it out by taping cotton balls to the form.

I covered the body with paper mache, let it dry, and gave it a quick coating of grey-green paint.

I rolled out a small amount of Delight paperclay between a folded piece of wax paper (this prevents it from sticking to the roller and the work surface). I used a blade to slice it into tiny, thin strips.

I carefully removed strips one at a time from the wax paper and started wrapping my mummy with it. You want them to overlap and criss cross in areas, letting little bits of the base show through now and then.

This is very delicate work. You have to apply enough pressure to get the strips to stick to each other without flattening the strip completely. Even when it dries, it's somewhat delicate (especially if you have hanging pieces of bandage like I do).

I used a bit of wire to gently wrap around his wrists to keep his hands close together. I wanted his arms to dry in a position as close as possible to the one he'd be in when this was dry.

Once it dried, it was time to paint. I used a brown colour to highlight the edges of the bandages and painted the interior of the bandages with a dirty white. Highlights were then added using a pure white.