A Timaru tattoo artist has been using his skills to breathe life into a canvas of a different kind.
Through the use of clay, fibreglass, paint and whatever else he could get his hands on, Magnetic Tattoo owner Nick Reedy has been transforming the mannequins at the Geraldine Military Museum to represent New Zealanders who took part in various conflicts.
As a child Mr Reedy would often visit the National Army Museum in Waiouru and after learning one had opened up in Geraldine he rushed over to check it out.
Possessing a strong interest in military history, he was impressed by what he saw but noticed the mannequins could do with a bit of a tidy up.
After striking up a conversation with museum owner Don Pelvin, he offered to lend his skills and bring them to life, despite not actually having done any work with mannequins before.
He said the first mannequin he was tasked with working on depicted New Zealand Army Sergeant Ian Thomas of the 25th Battalion.
‘‘He was at the battle for El Alamein [Egypt] as a machine gunner. Don showed me a pose of what he wanted and I sort of got a mental picture in my head of what it would look like.
‘‘I took a bunch of old mannequins and then just kind of chopped them up and re-animated them to make what we wanted. I had to make his arms and hands from casting my own in the right position. I made about 10 bad ones before I got it right.
‘‘It was a steep learning curve but I’ve found every time I do one, I learn and develop newer and better ways to do it.
‘‘It’s all been pretty much off the cuff, just working at home and trying simple things with paint brushes or throwing bits of dirt at it, whatever works.’’
The next mannequin he worked on was of Peel Forest soldier George Langford, who served in the Boer War, along with his trusty steed.
‘‘It turned out that my neighbour knew a bunch of stuff about a person that had gone away to war from Peel Forest.
‘‘She told me all about him and had all this provenance. I went to Don and said ‘hey there’s a guy from here’ and I went away began sculpting him using clay.
‘‘I wanted him to look like a normal kind of farm bloke, that brave guy from your rugby team, and then Don had a horse and was like ‘this is the horse’, it didn’t look like one. I thought ‘surely not’ but then I realised it was up to me to change it.’’
It took quite a while to do, with the fibreglassing and research, he said.
‘‘I watched Poldark lots, there was a cool black horse on there and I went down to the local haberdashery shop and bought wigs of horse hair and stuff to paint, rough-up and glue on.
‘‘I was basically given free rein. Don wanted him to look authentic and he [George] had to sit on that horse without a whole lot of support, so I researched ways to make it happen and basically made him to have moving hips and knees so he wouldn’t seem rigid.’’
His latest project was a mannequin of a New Zealand Medical Corps nurse to represent the thousands of women involved with the military.
Lovingly dubbed June Winter due to her June completion, she was installed at the museum last week.
He said he does not keep track of how much time a project takes to complete.
‘‘I’m passionate about it, so it didn’t really matter. I want them to take a long time because I don’t want them to be s…
‘‘I wanted to make things that people value and I think that’s kind of the guts of it really. People always ask how long it takes but for me it’s all about seeing the response, that’s more interesting and that’s what makes it worth it for me.
‘‘I kind of have this idea that it’s up to me to make any person, any item or any thing as cool as possible.’’
Having plied his trade for more than 20 years, he said it was great to have other creative outputs outside of tattooing.
‘‘I’ve always made lots of things, I’ve been involved with old cars, made the odd steampunk gun and when I was young I loved making up kitset models and model aircrafts.
‘‘I didn’t finish my diploma but I studied for two years fulltime at quite an intensive and high-quality school of design in Christchurch in the early 90s. That’s where I built up a lot of my skill base.
‘‘I’ve been a tattoo artist for so long and I really enjoy it but I also enjoy variety and different types of work and not being in just one industry.
‘‘I was getting a bit older and was looking to try some new things, something I could sink my teeth into and unexpectedly it has been this.’’
The plan was to keeping making as many mannequins for the museum as possible.
‘‘It’s amazing to be involved, it’s a team process, it’s never just me that doing it all, I just put a spin on it to make it look cool and use some of the skills I’ve acquired along the way.
‘‘I’ll happily make 50 more of them, just one little bit at a time.’’
