Turks Finished

Happy to say I finished my first batch of Turks for the WWI diorama project...

Having had my planned figure schedule for the Painting Challenge somewhat interrupted, by a very worthwhile cause, I have soldiered on as best as I could, and managed to get these assembled and painted in 10 days... Which is about as quick as I can manage - I don't feel my bum, has had a spare moment off the painting chair! So now I can't feel my bum! ;-)

But its all for a great cause, so [Queue - Windsor Davies accent] "Chest out, stomach in, stand up straight!"

More information here if you have not come across this great undertaking already... Mustering the troops

Slightly different camera position produced differing apparent lighting effect

They are specially commissioned, by Sir Peter Jackson, 54mm scale metal figures from the Perrys, with a proposed painting guide to follow by Aly Morrison. The instructions specifically stated to not paint the eyes, just to allow the shade wash to fill the eye socket...

So I have followed the guide as best as I was able with a mix of GW, Foundry and Vallejo paints that I had on hand. I finally managed to source the elusive GW Ushabti, in time to use it to dry brush the weathering on the boots...

With not having exactly the right specified colours on hand, I followed the pictorial guide, and use the rightmost tunic pictured below as my colour reference, as the ammo pouch belt matched that on the sculpted figures. I then went with the more drab/brown trouser 2nd from left...

Turk Uniforms

We were also specifically told not to remove the mounting peg, and obviously not to individually base them as they are destined to be mounted on a huge 10m long diorama board, representing the battle of Chunuk Bair. The diorama board is to be made by the crew at Weta, and will be on display at the Wellington Museum until 2018.

Unfortunately I am unable to say this blog post is the debut of the figures as I submitted the picture to the Mustering the Troops blog manager; Roly Hermans, for approval, who immediately posted them to the main blog...

So while I waited arrival of the next dispatch of figures (Hopefully due today!)I've been pressing on with my own figures that were left half done, and have managed to finish Radagast on Sleigh just in time for the Comedic Bonus round of the Painting Challenge, and have been slowly nearing completion of my warband of 12 Riders of Rohan...

Back to the poject; and I include this little summary as previously commented, on the Challenge blog post:

The project is quite an undertaking indeed. The initial proposal was to recruit 100 painters from New Zealand to paint the required 4000 figures for the Diorama... yes 4000! So that’s 40 figures per painter... The deadline for the work is Anzac Day here in the end of March... so that’s not very far off, and doesn’t give us much time... Thankfully 130 Kiwi painters have answered the call, though some are currently overseas so may not actively get involved due to logistics of getting figures distributed... talking of which the figures have been arriving in batches from the Perrys in the UK, and the figures I painted here were part of the 2nd batch I believe, sadly the 3rd batch got held up in customs and wont get to the painters before Monday... which has meant, for me, a week lost painting time on this project, though the bonus being it allowed me to return to my own figures, and get the Comedic bonus theme round finished just in time! :-)
With the 3rd just being released (hopefully), the 4th batch will arrive hot on its heels so I'm going to be a very busy boy shortly!
Incidentally, there was a lot of interest and comment from other folks wanting to get involved, in particular the Aussies who were of course part of the ANZACs... but PJ wanted to depict the specific battle of Chunuk Bair which was largely a New Zealand action and thus the decision to keep the painters Kiwis, and with it being displayed here in NZ...
By all accounts the diorama is being made true to scale with terrain layout made using accurate maps and topography information and indeed the actual trenchlines as they would have been... the idea behind the diorama is to capture a specific moment in time in the battle, and whilst many of the figures are typical of wargaming soldiers in their poses, many are very specific ones offs ... have a look here for what I mean...http://anzacdiorama.blogspot.co.nz/2015/02/preview-of-latest-figures-from-perrys.html …some great stuff coming from the Perrys!

So its really going to be an amazing sight to behold once finished and I am quite proud to be involved, even though I am not a Kiwi! But from what I have been told there were some Brits involved in the action , which I was not aware of, so that makes me feel a little closer to the events of the time!

Finally, oddly enough, with PJ's, the Perry's and Weta's past LOTR works, I can't help wonder if someone else who fought at that time, is looking on...

Tolkien, of course, served in WWI also..., though in a different theater of operations...Odd sometimes how things have a habit of connecting up...

Lets hope the painters have enough Strength of Spirit to press on with this and get it done in time!