D is for Design Eye - Ultimate Explorers 'Ancient Egypt'

Sad that the series only ran to the two sets, but then the recent Klutz sets with figures only managed four titles, while the ones a contributor found in Europe for PW magazine was only two as well, I think, but between the three similar lines you get a clue as to what a larger run might include - Egypt, Greece, Rome, Gladiators, Medieval, Pirates, Space, Circus, Farm & Zoo . . . I guess a Phidal Disney for 5.99 is easier - more figures less craft faffing!

Because similar things lend themselves to similar photogenicity (if that's a word, and if it isn't; it should be!), so this post is almost the same as the last one, just with different images, which might make the blurb sparser?

Cover and contents here, similar mix, but paints and an ink-stamper up the ante on craft in the absence of a catapult! The 30 (3x10) HO figures of the medieval set are replaced by only 12 (3x4) in this set, but there's less play-value in civilians I suppose! The booklet doesn't seem to have a byline/given author this time and another board-game is printed on the back of another fold-down . . .

. . . of an imperial or religious monument, this being a conglomeration of the Great Temple of Ramesses II at Abu Simbel (famously moved under UNESCO funding, several hundred meters, in my childhood to save them from being flooded by Lake Nasser after the building of the High Aswan Dam), married with a pair of obelisks and Karnak's restored Khonsu Temple walls as a backdrop.

They are rendered as they would have been at the time, so colourful and no missing heads! there's also a couple of Sphinxes and a pop-up religious procession, again it's all sized to use the small figure included in the set.

Card game playing pieces lye behind a two-sided painting guide for both sizes of figure, but the guide is clearly using larger-sized models of the three diminutive sculpts, it would take a master-painter indeed to get that level of detail onto the actual figures, also they look more Egyptian here!

The two finished 'wealthy Egyptians' actually looking more Babylonian or Biblical! I only have these in the hard polypropylene type plastic, I don't know if a soft PVC'ish issue ever occurred? The one thing I failed to record when doing these shots, was the other issuer (there's two versions [earlier publisher?] of one back-cover) and it may be that there's a link between issue and plastic type? I can add anything relevant to the A-Z post at a later date?

Upper shot is a reverse-order of the previous post's, the lower shot is the same image as last time - I forgot to take two slightly different ones! The Crescent 'berserker' was found to be only 50mm to his helmet top, so the king is approximately 54mm to his eye-line which is how some measure them anyway, you could call them 60mm at a pinch, it's all subjective and the Horus figure in this set has  a very deep base - he slips on to one of the card press-outs if I recall correctly.

Those press-outs include a number of Pyramids (about 10?) in various (7 or 8?) sizes, a gold-plated funereal-barge and attendant tender!

I also found an image which belongs on the previous post so I'll add it there later, while there are a couple of scans which will go on the A-Z entry, and which I'll try to get done later tonight.