Anyone see one around? Been looking but so far no luck finding one. Thx

Check the Marketplace. mertext and noggin have several.

LD, thanks I take a look and see if any of these are like what I have in mind. :O)

Attached Link: http://homepage2.nifty.com/%7Emr_trout/models/poserModel.html#Figure

try here....the female dynastid beetle may be what you want. Scarab

Scarab, thanks for the scarab. I had lost the link to this site so am glad to have it again. The author does really nice work! As it turns out, I ended up using another bug for the pic. (Still working on it, but here is a sneak peek) I think these were call warbug, and may have worked out better than the scarab since they look a bit more menacing oversized. :O)

Unfortunately, she has the wrong kind of torch for dealing with that mummy. ;^) Pity, because the resins used in wrapping them up are extremely flammable, and that would discourage the beetles from approaching as well. With the cobra blocking the exit, I'd say that she's about to become an object lesson.

And yet, believe it or not, she survives. ;O) Seems like those beetle will attack anything that moves, so our herione holds her ground and stands perfectly still until the last minute as the mummy approahces, the beetles get confused, and half make a run at the mummy and the other half take off for the cobra. The beetles crowding around the mummy cause him to trip just as he is making a grab for the girl, she jumps aside and the mummy shishes through the air passed her. In the meantime, the beetles munching away on the now dead cobra get excited by the new commotion and dart back to attack the falling mummy. Forcing our brave herione to make yet another quick leap into the air, to just barely miss being beetles food as the mummy takes a header down the shaft in the floor, with the beetle piling on for the ride down. Leaving our intrepid explorer now free to make off with the treasure.

But, but! :sputtering noises: Have you seen what goes inside those mummy wrappings? He's carrying a fortune worth of gold amulets down into that shaft! Quick, after him!

I see you're a charter member of the "shoot first, loot the corpses after" party, hauksdottir ....

Oh, by all means, what's a few bug bites. :O)

:)= <----don't forget the cobra!

:O) The above is just a first draft to give me an idea of where I was going with the pic. Would you be interested in seeing the current version and maybe give me some pointers? Okay if you do not have time, just thought I would ask. Rob

Sure. You can email it to me if you wish (private discussion and no jpg compression) or do it here. hauksdottir@earthlink.net Carolly

Thanks. Here will be find for now. Later, as I get further along I will email you a larger non compressed version so you can really eyeball it. Also, this week is going to be a bit crazy, since my Dad has to have surgery tomorrow and I will be spending time with him most this week. Consider this still a very early work in progress. I do not see images well in my mind, so I tend to work and rework a picture in Poser as it helps me to see it better, but often ends up looking completely different than where I started out. Basically, all I really know about this picture is it will have a Girl Adventure, a Mummy, some cool lighting, and maybe those bugs. What works can stay, what doesn't needs to go. At present I am trying to get a handle on the how I want the lighting and the general layout of the scene. I am looking upon this as a learning experience, so feel free to "not" pull punches. I am a big boy, and can take a hint - particularly when you bludgeon me on the head with it. Then the light buld comes on. Subtitle, I sometimes miss. :O)

Well, the first thing is taking care of your father. I hope he comes through just fine. {hug} Let's talk about set dressing before we get to the lighting. Part of what made the LOTR movies so compelling was all the attention to the little stuff: not just a few weapons and barrels in the cave, but gutted-out candles and leaves strewn in to indicate the passage of time. Here you have a set which is much older. There will be dust and debris. It is theorized that the real cause behind "the mummy's curse" which killed so many early explorers was tomb dust from decayed particles. This will affect the lighting since the passage of people stirs up dust and the motes will glint. You are showing stairs, which is good: so many of these tombs descended from level to level. The steps won't be worn in the middle since they were traveled only a few times to build and load the tomb, but the corners might have debris tucked in them. Tombs were piled with stuff... an entire afterlife's worth of food and furniture and equipment. Much of the clothing and doodads was in fancy boxes, many labeled with contents and sealed. Furniture was just stacked. Chariots were broken down into pieces. Your scene will look more convincing if you put more stuff in it. The final image will probably be darker, but you will want edges to pick up the highlights. Remember what Carter said when he opened Tut's tomb? "...Everywhere the glint of gold." Shrines holding the innards and statues of divinities had a bit more care to their placement. Replacing the vases with the box back there is a good start. Besides boxes, there was also stuff made of alabaster (I'm thinking of the boat and the jars and the wonderful candlestick... the last exists as a Poser prop, and I'll try to find it for you). T'm attaching a couple of images from the opening of Tutankhamen's tomb. This one shows some of the clutter.

Statues of gods were often wrapped with linen. That famous Anubis shrine looked like this in situ: He was guarding the Treasury, a room behind the burial chamber where most of the really gorgeous and precious stuff was stored.

You'll notice how that last picture, bad as it is, picks up golden highlights from the stuff in back? This one shows 2 cases with statues of divinities. They were often upright. Some of the statues are life size, some are much smaller. The doors swing out. :) Sarcophagi are flat, and usually made of heavy sandstone (think of a Volkswagon caved out of rock). The lids can slide off, if you have several men and some rope. The inner cases were of wood, plaster, gilt etc.. In an intact tomb, the mummy would be on his back surrounded by several layers of restrictive cases. (Tutankhamen had 4, IIRC) When priests had to rebury mummies after the tomb robbers had despoiled them, they were often in one case, if that, and I seem to recall one cave where several mummies were hurredly hidden, and they may have been upright. Mummy movies and cartoons, and museum displays, almost always show the inner cases upright. They were not trimmed like our western coffins, but either squared off or human shaped, often with a painted mask. As an artist creating an action-adventure scene, you are free to go either way with the mummy case. I'd suggest not having it look like our coffins, though.

I have a fair collection of Egyptian props. Some of them from Lannie's site, which is no more, but others are from all over. While you are taking care of your father, I'll go through these folders and try to get some links for you. A note about lighting. That medieval-style torch in the back bothers me. The Egyptians used braziers, but I can't think of a tomb with torch-holders like that. (I have a few books, that I can glance through.) Air shafts which also let in light are known. It doesn't need to be the brilliant focussed beam of Balin's tomb, but a shaft of soft light from above might look better IF you absolutely need a light source back there. (You probably will, just to add depth to the image. Carolly

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=613282&Start=1&Artist=shadownet&ByArtist=Yes

Carolly, wow! That's a lot of useful information. The pics are great and will help me to better visualize details in building the scene. I admit I have not done my homework and promise to correct that. In the past, I have played too fast and loose and just thrown things together in the hope the picture would happened. The last (first) picture in this series (see link) did not turn out as nicely as I had hoped, so I want to do better on this one.

Your comments have given me much to think about. I also appreciate your offer (in taking the time and trouble) to help me find Egyptian props to use in the scene. I have found a few items in Free Stuff, such as the chamber and Anubis. I plan to also take a look in the marketplace, but would prefer not spending money if I can avoid it. Some items I may be able to make myself or else paint in later. The mummy I made is a bit crude, but should work. I will put it along with the morphs I made for the Poser rattle snake to give it a cobra-like look in Free Stuff when I finish. Oh, btw, I have got rid of the torch. Like you, I decided it did not belong. I picture the main source of light the flashlight with secondary light filtering in from the entranceway or down a shaft as you suggested to give it a bit of back ambient lighting. The scene should be a bit dramatic, I would think, with maybe a hint of comic bookish feel to it, so some poetic license will be taken. For now, I am going to follow your advice, and not worry about the lighting and will focus on getting the details and general layout of the scene worked out.

Thanks for the well-wishes on my Dad. Hopefully, everything will go good today and he will be back up and about in no time. I will be in touch. My email, btw, is shadownet@cp-tel.net