ANZAC Gallipoli Diorama workers featured in the evening news on TVNZ

Above picture and below link courtesy TVNZ

All the efforts made by the hobbyists who have taken part in the painting of the 5000 figures for the Gallipoli Diorama, funded by Sir Peter Jackson, and to be displayed at the Dominion Museum in Wellington, has been featured in a news bulletin on TVNZ news...

Follow link below...

http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/sir-peter-jackson-developing-multi-million-dollar-wwi-exhibition-video-6288901

I was lucky enough to be briefly featured in the footage, as it opens with a close up of me filing away, and then you can spot me throughout the feature, wearing a grey top, working under my little light rig.

Sam stole the limelight and rightly so with the amount of work he has contributed.

Well done to all for taking part, and thanks to TVNZ for their coverage.

Kiwi (Fernleafs) Casualties, finished.

Managed to get the 10 Kiwi Casualties finished today.

Apparently, New Zealanders were not referred to as "Kiwis" back then, they were called "FernLeafs", hence the post title!

These were metal figures again and this time fully formed all the way round, so there was no getting away with only painting one side on these!

Three different poses, and I decided to vary the shirt colour between them.. as from what I have learnt, at the time of the attack, the troops were ordered to attack in shirt sleeves, so their tunic jackets were not worn. The troops had also by this time received clothes parcels from home so many were wearing differing coloured shirts, with anything from off white to light grey and light blues, hence the variety.

I left the pants the typical dark khaki colour.

The webbing I followed the painting instructions and did them with the light GW 'nuggling' green... (thanks to Roly for loan of his pot for this!) with a shade wash. I was a little curious at this colour choice though as most of the colour examples for this show it as a yellowy/tan colour...?

The other chaps were wearing off white braces.

Finally these guys being casualties, I ummed and arred about adding some subtle blood effects to their wounds...in the end I decided to add just a little... the pose to left of top picture I didn't add any, as there was no obvious wound site. The centre pose is raised up on one elbow clutching his side with other hand. I put some blood effects around the clutching hand, though he's lying on it so there's not much to see. The last pose is a little more overt... and this pose also had an oddity... no left ear! Not sure whether this was deliberate or a casting error... and if the latter, my green stuff skills are not up to sculpting ears!

So I decided he's been hit twice... one shot has taken his ear off, the other has hit him in the hip, so I put some blood effects on the missing ear, and round the hand on hip.

So that's my efforts concluded for this project. 50 figures done, which was 10 more than I anticipated.

Its been an honour to be involved with this project and I for one can't wait to have a look at it, once it's all done.

I'd also like to extend my appreciation of all the other folks who answered the call and picked up their paintbrushes, for a good cause. Well done, one and all.

Hopefully the display will last the test of time, and act as a permanent reminder of what our forebears endured, all those years ago... as ever... We will remember them...

Mustering the Troops

Last Turks finished...

Painting continues apace here at 'Bowman Towers'... My last batch of Turks finished tonight... I got these done in just under a week... thats pretty damned quick for me, but I don't feel my butt has left the painting table... other than to sleep, and go to work!

... again I went with that 'on-campaign' mix of shades and tones...

That's 40 figures I have managed to get done so far now, ...I just need to finish the 10 kiwi casualties I have left to do, and hope to finish those over the weekend...

Taking a break for rest of tonight, have hired The Hobbit - Battle of Five Armies on DVD for an evenings family viewing and a return trip to Middle-Earth :)

The last command...

I got my last batch of Anzac Diorama figures for painting from Sam on Friday night...

10 more Turks; 5 in charging pose with kalpak cover hat, and 5 with trail arms pose and a simple round hat.

Plus 10 more casualties, this time Kiwi's... These will be the first Anzac troops I will have painted so I'll have to get my nose back to the painting guides...

Now Friday night in the Bowman household is usually a relaxing evening, enjoying a family movie or DVD together, with a few tasty nibbles and a little vino for the grown ups...

But not wanting to waste any spare time, now that the deadline is getting real close... I decided to press on with the filing and trimming, and gaze at the TV from afar... but I wasnt going to miss out on my friday night tipple... and rather than get the glass all covered in the metallic dust from the filing, wifepoos came up with a solution...

Red vino through a drinking straw? Needs must at times...

So I made steady progress, friday night, had an archery lesson with No.1 son on Saturday morning, then pressed on with trimming Saturday arvo and evening...

Sunday saw models getting glued together... the attacking pose again needing drilling and pinning... I had picked some Vallejo Plastic Putty, for gap filling, through the week from Mighty Ape at Sams suggestion and I certainly found it better than the GW Liquid Greenstuff... as it didn't shrink on drying...

A blast with brown undercoating spray, and we are good to go for painting...

10 more Turks

I've got the Turks about 75% base coated so far... and will continue pressing on...

10 Kiwi casualties

Not long to go now, feels like every second counts... so what am I doing here?

Back to the paints!

Mustering the Troops

My second lot of Turks finished...

Thursday night I put the last finishing touch; drybrushing Ushabti Bone on the boots and puttees, of the Turk soldiers to finish this latest batch of Turks...

I like the way this batch has turned out and think the varied tones makes for a good 'on-campaign' look...

Got these wrapped up, bubble wrapped and boxed up, with the first ten that I did, and delivered to Sam at KWC on Thusday night. There were none currently available to collect, so I'll be waiting till the next batch arrves for another allotment...

So that's 20 troopers and 10 casualties painted so far.... and a free weekend to send the brush back towards my own projects, until more figures arrive... though I think the garden is desperate for a little TLC too! :)

We are half way through the month now, with a fortnight to go till month end and the deadline... I'd like to think I could probaby get another 10 figures done, in that time, all being well...

Mustering the Troops

Turks - 2nd batch - WIP

Just a quick picture to show progress today on the 2nd batch of Gallipoli Turks... Base colours blocked in...

This time I have gone with a range of varied shades for the hats, tunics, trousers and puttees... using various shades of khaki, drab, canvas colours... GW Deneb Stone and Foundry 7c, 11b, 12b, 12c, 29b, 29c, 31c.
This was an attempt to break away from the brand new uniform look, and go for a more mottled worn campaign look ...
The shade wash will unify these colours.
Rifle stock was GW Vermin Brown... belts, straps and boots were GW Mournfang Brown. The Covered Kalpak hat I used GW Elf Grey.
Metallics were GW Boltgun...

I'll admit these were a little more fiddly to do than the first batch... and I also had to drill and pin the left hand to the arm for each model, then add a little greenstuff putty to make a wrist as the pose didn't quite line up here, it was about 1-2mm out, enough to be noticeable...

The gap in hand to arm

  ...plus the pose with rifle across chest, makes painting round it a bit awkward, but its a classic rifle carrying pose, so just have to get on with it...

Drilled and pinned... greenstuff wrist sculpted on top afterwards.

So next up, shade wash, and highlights... and then on with the 10 casualty figures which should be much easier... no rifle to worry about and only onse side to paint!

Mustering the Troops

More Turks!

Just got my hands on some more Turks for the Gallipoli Diorama project...

10 troopers with two types of head gear, and 10 dead ones. The troopers are metal again, the dead ones are resin.

Time to start trimming and filing, and hopefully a blast of undercoating basecoat spray by end of weekend...

Mustering the Troops

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!

Turks Progressing - WIP

Managed to get the figures tidied up, and then shade washes on last night...

A quick picture above, varied lighting causing differing shading appearance left to right...

The flesh was washed with Reikland fleshtone wash

The tunic and puttees and waterbottle, with a 50/50 mix of GW Agrax Earthshade/Vallejo Sepia

The trousers, hat, boots, strapping and rifle with Agrax Earthshade.

The painting guides suggest 2-3 coats of the this for the boots, rifle and strapping , so I'll give those another layer of that at the weekend... busy tonight, another game of Empire of the Dead scheduled with Paul... :-)

Highlights, then to follow to finish off, oh, and hair and mustaches to paint black!

Just heard from Roly, we've got ~130 painters signed up thus far, great to see this level of active involvement in Kiwi painters, and that means less figures having to be painted by each painter, down from 40 to ~30! Must admit that's a bit of a relief!

Mustering the Troops!

Things have just happened here,  that have somewhat changed my painting and hobby focus for the next couple of months, and derailed somewhat, my planned painting output for the Anologue Hobbies Painting Challenge...

 I have become caught up in the no doubt frantic activity to get 4000 54mm Anzac and Turk troops assembled and painting in time for their inclusion in a large diorama as part of the commemoration of Anzac Day here in New Zealand, in April, about 50 days away... 

More can be found here;  Mustering the Troops

I received my first installment of 10 models; Turkish troops, on Thursday night and have so far, just  managed to get them all trimmed and glued together...

They still need some greenstuff puty work for a little gap filling...

But other than that I am ready to start priming and painting them...

I feel a little oddly placed doing this in someways...

As a wargaming period, WWI has never been of any interest to me. Nor have I ever painting figures in such a large scale - the last things that came close to this were probably 1/32nd scale plastic toy soldiers as a kid...

And being a relatively recent (10 years ago) British Migrant here in NZ, I don't really have any direct connection to the ANZACs either...

...but I do have enormous respect for their brave efforts, all those years ago, and can equally respect the Turks for steadfastly defending their homelands, against an invading force...

But oddly enough, I think my main motiovator here, is my own desire to do this as a kind of indirect thank you, to Peter Jackson, and the Perry's, who have commisioned and produced these figures respectively... for their prior efforts, in bringing Tolkien's world of Lord of the Rings to life...

If it hadn't been for Peter's movie trilogy, and the Perry's sculpting of the range of GW figures, ... I'd probably still be living in the UK! Nor would I have been able to enjoy playing LOTR SBG for all these years now... So thank you Peter, and the Perry's!

A little voice has just chimed in, reading this over my shoulder, that I have also been given lots of encouragement from wifeypoos to get involved and do my bit... I even got away with not doing the washing up last night, to get on with the work! Long may it continue!

So, I'll wind up here, as the glue has probably dried enough for me to get back to work on the figures!

Stay tuned for more progress...