Narnia Fans » Weta Workshop

When they talk about “living the dream”, they are talking about people like Weta guru Richard Taylor. He loves movies, he loves making things for movies, and he’s just completed work on the latest Narnia, Prince Caspian.

All the visual effects magicians at Weta have been toiling away to bring Prince Caspian and all the other inhabitants of Narnia to life.

They have also been in the weapons business, creating swords and armour for the Nanian and Telmarine armies.

Kate Rodger had a secret tour of Weta’s off-limits weapons store, and talked all things Narnia with Richard Taylor.

Watch the full, uncut interview.

Minotaur Bust
Special Preorder Offer
USD $117.00 RRP:USD $130.00
NZD $152.10 RRP:NZD $169.00
GBP £58.50 RRP:GBP £65.00
All prices exclude New Zealand GST of 12.5%
Item Number: 00021

Forced into hiding for centuries by the relentless advance of the Telmarines, the Minotaurs and their Narnian brethren have been biding their time, waiting for the chance to emerge from myth and shadow and take back their land. Now – united in arms under the banner of Prince Caspian, their hour has come! Leading the charge into battle, the Minotaurs fight for justice, freedom and to reinstate the rightful heir to the throne of Narnia.

Designed as a high end collectible by Weta artist Stephen Crowe, who also designed armour and weaponry for the film, the Minotaur bust from Disney’s The Chronicles Of Narnia: Prince Caspian was sculpted by Weta veteran Jamie Beswarick, and exudes power and determination, a superb follow-up piece to the energetic Warrior Satyr statue already announced.

Dimensions: 15″ H x 7″ W x 7.8″ D (380mm x 180mm x 200mm).

Available in a STRICTLY LIMITED EDITION OF 350 World Wide.

WETA NZ is now taking pre-orders for book copies signed by Weta Creative Director Richard Taylor of Crafting Of Narnia: The Art, Creatures And Weapons From Weta Workshop on the Weta website.

This book is already available from retailers in the US, but they wanted to let the fans get a chance to order a signed copy if they prefer.

Also, they will shortly be running a series of preview articles by Weta Designer Daniel Falconer from the book – first view of these articles will go to the fans on their Narnia mailing list with publication of each article on their Wetaholics site a day or two later. http://www.wetanz.com/holics/mailing_lists.php is the address for anyone who would like to get in early and subscribe to the list.

Please note – the signed copies of the book will only be available from their New Zealand warehouse, but individual copies can be shipped to any destination via normal post, just means international customers may have to wait a little longer than normal.

Please also note the price for the book on their website is in New Zealand dollars (NZD) and this is what customers’ credit cards will be charged. By today’s exchange rates, one NZD translates to roughly 79 US cents or 40 pence in the UK. But the final conversion rate will be calculated by the customer’s card issuer.

Order Crafting of Narnia Today

Following the success of their debut range from The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Weta have once again teamed up with Disney Consumer Products and the talented technicians who worked on the highly anticipated sequel releasing this summer, The Chronicles Of Narnia: Prince Caspian, to create a line of statues and miniatures based on the film.

The Weta range features limited edition polystone statues of iconic characters from the film, including Prince Caspian himself, the irrepressible warrior mouse Reepicheep and a Satyr in mid battle. Also included in the first pieces of the range is a 1/5th scale mini-bust of the Minotaur, and a collection of 1/4th scale miniature helmets, based on the full sized costume pieces Weta’s artists designed and built for the Chronicles of Narnia films.

Weta Concept Designer Paul Tobin designed the feature piece, ‘Prince Caspian In Battle’, in which the film’s title character charges into battle on horseback with his sword raised in defiance. Paul found inspiration in the works of Western artist Frederic Remington. “The intention behind this sculpture was to capture Prince Caspian galloping to war on his horse, as featured in the film’s climactic battle”, recounts Paul. “Many of Remington’s pieces feature beautiful horse sculptures. The pose, the action and the drama were all inspired by Remington. He captures an epic sense of drama and the excitement of a Western and that’s what I wanted to convey in this Weta piece.”

Working closely with Disney and their production team, Weta designed and created many of the props and costuming for the sequel, gaining a unique insight into the world of Narnia. This was invaluable for designer Nick Keller, who designed both Reepicheep’s sword, seen in the film, and the Weta statue of this special character.

Designer Stephen Crowe conceptualised the action poses of both the ‘Warrior Satyr’ statue and the ‘Minotaur’ bust. He says it was great fun creating dynamic battle pieces. “I wanted quite an action-filled piece, and the real challenge was conveying that sense of movement and force in a static collectible. I wanted both pieces to look defiant, as though they are in mid charge, about to attack.”

The Weta range of collectibles will also feature a limited edition number of ¼ scale Miniature Helmets, based on those worn by key characters and creatures from both films, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspian.

Images, pricing, edition sizes and release dates will be revealed at a later date. For updates, visit www.wetanz.com.

ABOUT THE PIECES

Statues

Prince Caspian statue
Designed by Paul Tobin
Sculpted by Eden Small and Daniel Cockersell

Warrior Satyr
Sculpted by Bill Hunt
Designed by Stephen Crowe
For a sneak preview of the Warrior Satyr, please see:
www.wetanz.com/princecaspian/satyr

Reepicheep
Designed by Nick Keller
Sculpted by Greg Tozer

Mini-Bust

Minotaur Bust
Designed by Stephen Crowe
Sculpted by Jamie Beswarick

Helmets

Six Mini Helmets
¼ scale miniature helmets based on Prince Caspian and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
Each helmet, approx 3-4 inches, not including base.
Themed base (same for all helmets)

From radionz.co.nz: Head of Weta Workshop Richard Taylor on his busy year.

There’s quick mention that they worked on Prince Caspian, but nothing really new. It is interesting, though.

[Listen at Radio New Zealand]

Weta Workshop on Prince Caspian

For “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian,” Weta Workshop was excited to have the chance to return to Narnia once again with Andrew Adamson. Having provided design services and armor and weaponry for The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the opportunity to revisit and build upon our previous work in this wonderful world was one we looked forward too.

Narnia had changed since both we and the Pevensie children had last visited. While elements of the Narnia we knew were still present, a whole new culture had to be designed and created and even the familiar Narnians had changed and required new work.

Weta Workshop provided new design work in the form of environmental concepts and armor and weaponry designs, working closely with Director Andrew Adamson and the Los Angeles creative team leaders, Production Designer Roger Ford and Costumer Designer Isis Mussenden. The Pevensie children required new elements to compliment their royal gear from the first adventure and the look of the Narnians’ armor and weapons had to be evolved in a new direction since we last saw it. In addition the Telmarine culture had to be conceived from scratch and a great deal of work was done in the quest to find their unique design signature.

Weta’s armor and weapons departments were kept busy turning these concepts into reality and in sufficient numbers to arm two opposing armies. For the Telmarines Weta made two-hundred polearms in two different styles, two-hundred rapiers of varying design, over a hundred falchions, two-hundred and fifty shields and fifty-five crossbows. The Telmarine cavalry were equipped with soft shields and stunt gear for use with live horses. Weta made stunt-safe horse faceplates for the warhorses and sculpted unusual faceplate helmets for the soldiers.

Befitting rulers of a vast kingdom, Miraz and his lords needed special weaponry. Weta created individual swords, scabbards and sculpted faceplate helmets for the featured lords including Glozelle, who also had a beautiful dagger. Miraz himself had a special shield, sword, scabbard, full plate armor and an ornate faceplate helmet.

Hero Prince Caspian needed a sword, a variant of the Royal guard swords made, while Weta also made prop weapons for specific scenes, including a crossbow for Prunaprismia’s room.

Among the children’s equipment, which had to be refitted and restored after The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Weta made new armor for Edmund and a new vambrace for Susan.

Even Reepicheep, who would be a digital character, required an exquisite little sword to be made by Weta at life size.

Read the rest of the article at the production blog!

Now that you’ve seen the wondrous creatures in The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, it’s time to meet Ben Wootten of New Zealand’s award-winning Weta Workshop.

Concentrating on creature, armor and weapon design, Ben has been working in the New Zealand film and television industry since 1996, and played a major part as art director for Weta in realizing the now immortalized dwellers of Narnia.

Disney Movie Rewards: How did you meet the challenge of bringing to life creatures steeped in mythology?

Ben Wootten: The first thing we did was look at creatures like centaurs, mermaids, and unicorns, and decide whether to take a new direction and try to create a centaur like no one has ever seen before, or stick with the tried-and-true image and make them different in another way. Instead of surprising the audience, we felt they should say, “That’s a beautiful centaur.” Our spin was in the way the creatures behaved and creating a culture that surrounds them.

[Read the rest by joining Disney Movie Rewards]

WETA e-mailed us to share a Christmas Greeting with you, from Richard Taylor. In it, he reveals that he did, in fact, get the chance to work on Prince Caspian. The extent is not yet known, but we’re glad that they were able to be involved once again! Here’s the message:

“Hi Everyone!

It’s been a funny old year with a number of ups and downs and I guess some people would say a few more downs than ups, what with the losing of the Halo project and also hearing the sad news about The Hobbit. But, with the view that the cup is always half full I see that we’ve had a very exciting and wonderful year regardless of these hiccups.

We’ve completed 45 separate jobs for different clients from New Zealand and around the world in the past 12 months and have now begun work on other wonderful and exciting challenges that I’m sure will give us a huge amount of creative opportunity going into the New Year.

There have been some wonderful highlights including: the chance to work once again with Andrew Adamson and his team on Prince Caspian; Getting to work with friends from years past in the form of Chloe Smith and Rob Tappert from old Hercules days who have been producing David Slade’s adaptation of 30 Days of Nights; The completion of Jonathan King’s wonderful New Zealand horror comedy, Black Sheep; And continuing our on-going development work on Peter [Jackson]’s future projects.

But on a personal note I reflect on the year and of course the greatest thing that’s happened for the Weta Workshop team is the fact that four more Weta babies have been born to people that work here at the Workshop. I think it’s a good sign of stability in a relatively fragile and turbulent industry that four more people have found the confidence to begin a family and enjoy all that this can bring.

From myself and Tania we wish you all our best for the holiday season and thank you for your on-going support and interest in what the team here at Weta Workshop are continuing to grow and develop. I look forward to catching up in the New Year and I’m sure the Weta Bug will give you an update on where we are all at.

So here’s to lots of merry cheer and hoping that Santa read the list and the stocking is full this Christmas.

Cheers to you all

Richard”

Read more of it at Weta Holics
Narnia’s Grammy Award News

WETA has e-mailed us to invite you to a forum blitz. Daniel Falconer, a member of the Narnia design team will be appearing on WETA’s Forums next Monday, 18 December 2006, to answer your questions and reply to your comments.

This is how it will work: simply log onto www.wetanz-forums.com and if you haven’t already, sign up as a user (this is simple, quick and, best of all, free). Then simply click on the applicable subject and enter your own question. He will scan the entire forum throughout the day and attempt to answer as many posts as he can.

Daniel is one of a group of designers who worked on The Lord of the Rings and has a deep knowledge of Tolkien’s Middle-earth. Since The Lord of the Rings, Daniel has contributed design work for various projects including King Kong, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Halo. In 2005 he collated and wrote for Weta’s first book, The World of Kong, A Natural History of Skull Island, showcasing the illustrative work of the entire design department.

If you have a question for Daniel, post it in the applicable forum (eg LOTR enquiries in the LOTR forum) and he will do his best to reply over these two dates. So have you got questions burning a hole in your pocket yet? Well get to it – at www.wetanz-forums.com for the blitz date.

We’ve just posted the twelfth edition of the NarniaFans Mailbag. We’ve answered fourteen letters this week, and WETA Workshop answers a letter from a few weeks ago. We also cover Reepicheep, IRCs, The Last Battle, The Extended Edition, and more!

In the September 7, 2006 edition, we posted a letter asking about Richard Taylor’s involvement in Prince Castpian. WETA wanted to provide an answer, so we said sure! The official response is in!

Click here for the twelfth NarniaFans Mailbag!