The Elephant March (Cigars of the Pharaoh)

Cigars of the Pharaoh (French: Les Cigares du Pharaon) is the fourth volume of The Adventures of Tintin, the comics series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. Commissioned by the conservative Belgian newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle for its children’s supplement Le Petit Vingtième, it was serialised weekly from December 1932 to February 1934 before being published in a collected volume by Casterman in 1934. The story tells of young Belgian reporter Tintin and his dog Snowy, who are travelling in Egypt when they discover a pharaoh’s tomb filled with dead Egyptologists and boxes of cigars. Pursuing the mystery of these cigars, they travel across Arabia and India, and reveal the secrets of an international drug smuggling enterprise.

 

– courtesy of Wikipedia

The finished model:

The story:

Sometimes… you just want to ride an elephant, right?

I mean, who doesn’t like elephants?

I have to admit though, when I started my Tintin modelling project I didn’t really think that “jungle elephant” would be on the list of “modes of transportation” that I was going to be tackling. It just sort of happened that way.

This one really came about because I started flipping pages while looking for reference images for my Cigars of the Pharaoh DH Puss Moth project. I kept on going after the iconic scene where Tintin crashes the plane in the jungle and then started thinking about the sheer amazingness of Tintin crafting up a trumpet that allowed him to communicate with these gentle giants.

Is it believable? No. Does that matter? No… at least not to me.

I’m pretty good at suspending my disbelief when it comes to being able to show something cool. And Tintin and the Rajaijah juice-stricken Professor Sophocles Sarcophagus making their way back to civilization on the back of an Indian Elephant is cool enough in my book.

The build:

Not much to talk about really. I was able to source the STL file for the Elephant online and all I really had to do was work on the pose for the feet and trunk. I was pretty happy that I was able to find an INDIAN elephant though… you know, the ones with the smaller ears.

Other than that, it was just a matter or printing and painting. To make the model lighter, I did hollow out the STL file… but that also meant I needed to leave a hole in the model for any excess resin to drain out. Of course, the most out-of-the-way place to leave the hole was between the hind legs. After all, if you’re trying to steal a peek between an elephant’s legs… well you’ve got bigger issues than a Tintin-themed modelling blog is going to be able to help you with.

No, I didn’t include it in any pictures… just let your imagination run wild. 🙂

I also wasn’t super-pleased with the level shift that occurred on the elephant model. I did try to sand it down, but looking at the close-up pictures now, I think I probably should have been a bit more diligent in my work. It doesn’t look as prominent at full scale, so I’ll just have to chalk it up to live and learn – I don’t have a desire to go for broke on what is essentially just a distracting little side project.

Of course, if you feel strongly about it, feel free to tell me what you think: