Saying goodbye to the Perrys and co

Updated 11.02pm: Sorry for making a change, but the Prime Minister and Governor-General will now visit the diorama as part of their VIP tour, so the Perrys are needed until 12.30. We will have to push lunch back by an hour to 1 - 3 pm. I hope that still suits those who can come.

Unfortunately we have run out of evening occasions to socialise with Alan, Michael and Brian. They fly back to the UK on Sunday, and have other commitments tonight and tomorrow evening.

What we will arrange therefore is a lunch on Saturday as a last get-together for anyone who can come. Can you please pass out the message to your teams to join us if they can.

The location will be the usual place: Macs Brewery (near Te Papa) from 12 to 2 pm. They will only have a couple of hours before they have to get back to work, but please come by and have a drink and lunch.

Missing in action - Brigadier Johnson

We have lost the figure of Brigadier Johnson.

He is in a sitting/lying pose with a water canteen, probably filled with something apart from water, and his hand over his face.  The figure is fully painted.

His figure did not have a peg, so was not stuck onto the polystyrene and therefore may have fallen off.

Could those who helped shift some of the figures to the Dominion Museum building please have a look in their cars or vans for the figure of Johnson. We are also checking any Weta vehicle that were used.

Still painting ...

At 4.00am this morning, Fern Campbell from Kapiti reported on FaceBook:

"4am and we're finally done! Thanks so much, Bala Menzies for helping out tonight (and please thank Tarsh for going without you). Thanks too to Evelyn Peglar for getting 20 guys most of the way there, pretty much on her own. Now just to get my TV star husband Sam Campbell to stop painting battlefield detritus and go to bed... Goodnight world."

This was part of the last wrapping up of painting that is currently going on.  Whilst most of the figures that were sent out were painted and returned, we unfortunately did get some returned without having even been touched. Unfortunately, some of these were particularly important figures, so it has been a real 'all hands to the pumps' effort here in Wellington to get them done.

Even young Mortimer had to be drafted in to do his bit to finish the figures!

Sam delivered the miniatures to The Great War Exhibition today. "The display is looking amazing with thousands of miniatures already on there," he says. "It has been a labour of love." 

This week he and his team have done an extreme amount of painting.  On Sunday night they found all the bits and all the crews for all the machine guns. Six of them were missing their third leg, and six needed to be painted green.  The Perry twins had also sculpted up some more machine gunners with some one-off greens. 

On Monday the team got all the rest of the stuff from out of town.  They had to standardise 100 figures. On Tuesday, they took another 100 other miniatures to fix up. 

"Big thanks to my wife, my kids and Bruce for helping out on the last push," he says. "It was nuts. Although we got a bit of a routine down for mass speed painting, which was effective and we learnt a lot of tips and tricks.  Going to bed early to sleep off the painting marathon." 

Sam finished off with the comment, "Thinking of collecting more historical miniatures now!"

Gallipoli diorama gets national TV coverage

The Chunuk Bair diorama featured on TV1 News tonight, and took a look at the figure-painting and terrain-building project we've been involved in.   View it here.

More blogs about the Gallipoli diorama working bee at Weta Workshop

There have been a couple more blogs that have postings about last weekend's activities at Weta Workshop to paint figures for the Gallipoli diorama, both well worth a visit.

Brian Smaller's Woolshed Wargamer blog.

Herman van Kradenburg's Wargames Obsession blog.  Herman has also updated the Kapiti Wargames Club blog.

Map of Chunuk Bair

You might have noticed that the map that is used for the background of this blog includes the actual ground that our diorama depicts.

Our background is part of a map showing the Turkish and British trenches as known on 6 August 1915. [GSGS (Series) ; no. 2805]

The terrain around Chunk Bair was mapped by laser surveying, and the digital map was then used to guide the computer controlled lathe to shape large blocks of styrofoam.

High resolution scans of aerial photos taken in October 1915 reveal the remains of the New Zealand trenches, so these are positioned exactly as they were in August.

The angle of the ground in the diorama has been tilted up ever so slightly to allow viewers to see the trenches on top of Chunuk Bair.

  

Announcement: Gallipoli diorama to open on Anzac Day

Update 23 April:  The opening day has been delayed one more week to 2 May. 

The New Zealand Room, which includes our diorama of Chunuk Bair, will open next weekend on Anzac Day (25 April) so that it has significance to it.

The remainder of The Great War Exhibition will open this weekend on 18 August.

Episode 4 of the behind-the-scenes video of Te Papa's Gallipoli exhibition

Episode 4 of the Te Papa's behind-the-scenes video of their Gallipoli exhibition website has been released online.  This is the brother exhibition to our own.

What is particularly interesting in this video is some footage other dioramas and miniatures ebing produced at the same time that we are working on our monster.

There are also some moving pictures of a couple of genuine machine guns from Gallipoli.

Scott's experience as a diorama figure-painter at Weta

Scott Bowman from Kapiti has written a really informative posting on his blog, describing his experience as one of the diorama figure-painting crew at Weta Workshop over the weekend.

Scott's commentary is well worth a read to find out more details about what the team were actually up to.  

Driving lessons in a WW1 London bus

This article on driving lessons with a difference appeared on the Stuff news website today.  It describes how more than a dozen people were taught to handle century-old trucks and buses in Kilbirnie on Saturday, ahead of an Anzac wartime parade to take place in Wellington on 24 April.

There will be 15 trucks and buses in the parade, plus four vehicles that will be stationary on Taranaki Street - two Mark IV tanks and two cannon.

Some of the vehicles are genuine, others are replicas built by the Kilbirnie-based company The Vintage Aviator. Some have wartime parts and chassis, but the team built many hard-to-find features like wheels and radiators, using cast moulds from original specimens,

Of course, London buses have nothing to do with Gallipoli, but this just shows a snippet of the many other WW1 commemoration events that are happening in the coming week or so, of which our diorama is just one.

Pics of yesterday's Gallipoli diorama-work at Weta Workshop

I couldn't do live updates from yesterday's working bee on the diorama at Weta Workshop because my computer decided to misbehave. But now all is well again, so here are some shots of the action.

Armchair General shows progress of the diorama to one of the painting team.  How many dioramas need hard hats and glo-vests during construction?! 

A busy scene with painting tables in action, and a staff conference going on in the background.

I hope that wasn't model paint used on this painter's face. But it was a totally appropriate design, nevertheless.

A big job was to start organising the 5,000 figures into the Order-of-Battle, so they are ready to be placed into the diorama.  These Turks are organised into their companies, lead by three officers each.

Of course, it isn't all about figures.  Scenic items also have to be painted, such as these sandbags.

  

Anzac diorama filmed for television

On Saturday a TV1 news team was at Weta Workshop filming the action as we worked to finish off the 5,000 figures for the Chunuk Bair diorama.  Amongst those interviewed was Sam Campbell from the Kapiti team.

The piece has not yet aired on television.  We will post a link here on the blog as soon as we know it is up on their website.  

Remembering Mr Lawrence

Paul R made a moving posting on the Pendraken forum after this weekend's volunteering at Weta Workshop.

"Today was my last day working on the diorama project.  Another full busy day, this time as a 'miniature wrangler', helping to move the figures around Weta Workshop to the team of volunteers that were airbrushing dust on the boots and lower legs. Then organising the figures by pose and then starting to organise the Turks into companies of 180 figures...

"On the way home with one of the other 'miniature wranglers' we estimated that each painted figure was handled at least six times, more if it needed touch ups or 'normalisation', before being ready to go on the diorama - 30,000 touches!

"As a teenager I was fortunate to get to know a New Zealand World War I veteran, Mr Lawrence. He was in Egypt but was ill at the time of the Gallipoli landings, and after recuperating was assigned to looking after the horses left in Egypt by the Kiwis. He went on to fight in Sinai and Palestine, but felt that he had let his mates down by not fighting at Gallipoli.

"In part I have done this project to remember Mr Lawrence."

Read more on the Pendraken forum.

Reaction from Turkish hobbyist to our Gallipoli project

Our blog has featured on the Turkish blog Turkish Toy Soldier today. It is terrific to hear how our Turkish friends feel about this project.

Cem Ozdogan, the blog owner, also sent me a message saying: "Dear all, this is Turkish Toy Soldier blogger. Perfect job and unity! Wish to be with you. Alas, me in Istanbul. But all our Turkish goodwill with you. May be we can copy that project here, too. Nice Turkish painting details."

Update 3: Anzac diorama at Weta Workshop

At the end of yet another busy day preparing the 5,000 figures for the diorama of the Battle of Chunuk Bair, the team of volunteers posed for the traditional group photo.

Then off to Macs Brewery (rapidly becoming the official watering-hole for this project!) for refreshments afterwards.