Battle of Chunuk Bair Diroma

If you haven't seen it yet, the huge Battle of Chunuk Bair diorama is ready at last. I recognised a few of the figures I painted among the masses! See my previous blog posts on painting the allied casualties and Turkish casualties. A huge amount of work in the whole thing. Here's just a few pictures from the latest Mustering the Troops blog post. 

There are also many interesting pictures of the construction process. Here's Lt General Rhys Jones (ex-CinC of New Zealand Defence Force), Sir Peter Jackson and the Perry Twins surveying some of the figures prior to them being put into the display.

Check out the rest of the photos on the Mustering the Troops blog. And visit the exhibition if you get a chance, it's on for the next four years!

Here's a video news clip with the unveiling of the diorama.

Here's a TV news clip about the wider museum exhibit, which also includes the amazing "bigatures", figures 2.5 times life size and very realistic looking.

Herman Van Kradenburg also has this excellent post on the battle and diorama.

And another news clip about the diorama from Maori TV.

Lastly I'll also list again this very good news clip about the painting process.

Turkish casualties - Gallipoli 1915

Here's the last of my figures for Sir Peter Jackson's Chunuk Bair diorama, a range of Turkish casualties...

...and also three Turkish officers, and another Turk who looks like he might be routing? He's running without a weapon anyway.

Also I got urgent word from Alan Perry that the New Zealanders in my last post had been mislabelled and were in fact British! Thus a quick repaint of their tunics was in order and they are now suitably regular looking! Hopefully the colour is appropriate for British, if not a quick retouch job will be needed when they arrive in Wellington as all these figures have now been sent!

So that's my lot done. Good luck and thanks to everyone else involved, and I look forward to seeing the final display.

New Zealand casualties - Gallipoli 1915

Well that was a rather sorrowful weekend of painting! As many readers of this blog know, film maker Sir Peter Jackson has commissioned a huge Battle of Chunuk Bair diorama for the World War One centenary. Ex chief of the New Zealand Defence Force Rhys Jones is co-ordinating the logistics, and wargamers from around New Zealand have volunteered their time to paint up the 4000 54mm scale figures required. The wonderful Perry Twins have been sculpting all the models required, and very fine they are too (as I would expect given all the Napoleonics I keep buying from them!).

The New Zealanders at Gallipoli had supply problems and were known as "The Scarecrow Army", often dressed and dying in non-uniform gear such as shirts sent from home by their mothers. I've tried to reflect this lack of uniformity in the twenty casualties I've painted here (note the blue isn't actually as blue as it looks with the photo exposure - it's actually a shadow grey). As I painted them and they gradually became more realistic, the thoughts of mothers vainly trying to protect their young sons on the other side of the world made the whole mess seem even more tragic.

This is only one casualty pose of many sculpted and sobering to realise New Zealand suffered 400 times this many casualties in the entire Gallipoli campaign, and even worse in later World War One battles. The impact of so many dead and wounded must have been overwhelming for society to try and fathom and respond to.

An interesting historical aside is that my own profession of clinical psychology came into being largely because of World War One and World War Two, and the associated need to assess and rehabilitate so many people. See the first page of the first volume of the Journal of Clinical Psychology, 1945. Part of the research programme was also to try and better understand human nature and work out ways to stop such catastrophic acts of violence as World Wars occurring again. Thank goodness large wars between developed states have generally not happened since, part of long term trend of decreasing violence examined by Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker in his exhaustively comprehensive book on the subject "The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined". A recommended read.

Next up on the painting desk are some Turkish casualties and a few officers, which will also be carefully done.

For more on this diorama project, see the official Mustering the Troops blog. 

This news video about the project is also very good.