Wētā Workshop Ltd

We are thrilled to be hosting the Themed Entertainment Association for 2025 SATE Asia Pacific and welcoming everyone to our Wētā Workshop Unleashed experience!

When you need to create a smilodon (think Diego from Ice Age but with much more terrifying machinations), ice-cold moving eyes and a bone-crushing maw seem like the just thing for the job. We crafted this sabre-toothed VFX reference bust for the TV series Time Bandits with a nylon-printed skull, a fake fur mane for texture, and some simple animatronic functions — think jaw motion for talking (it is a Taika Waititi, Jemaine Clement and Iain Morris fantasy lark, after all) and mechanically puppeteered eyeballs for watching everything like a fearsome predator. Time Bandits is available to watch on Apple TV+. Supervising Art Director: Brendan Heffernan VFX Supervisor: Tobias Wolters VFX Producers: Max Serges and Will Reece #wetaworkshop #timebandits #film #props #puppets

See you at TwitchCon!

Look who’s visiting Nefi’s Forge in our upcoming cosy game Tales of the Shire. #wetaworkshop #cosygame #talesoftheshire #hobbits

In one month we’ll be packing our bags for PAX Aus, the three-day celebration of game development at Melbourne’s Convention and Exhibition Centre from October 11-13. Wētā Workshop Art Director Stephen Lambert, Lead Game Producer Calliope Ryder, Game Designer Catherine Booth and Game Studio Director Tony Lawrence will all be there to chat about our forthcoming cosy game Tales of the Shire across two must-listen panels. See you there! #wetaworkshop #talesoftheshire #paxaus #gamedevelopment

Small details play a huge part in creating a believable story world. In The Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, a rite of passage for young apes in the Eagle Clan is to scale the monolithic remains of overgrown skyscrapers to collect a single eagle egg to raise as a companion. To safely carry the precious eggs back to their homes, the young apes must create a kind of satchel. To resolve how this might look, Wētā Workshop’s Textiles team started with a 3D print of an eagle egg and explored how natural fibres could be woven and twisted to create a secure, egg-carrying pouch. The results are three similar but individual approaches to the challenge, carefully woven by hand and decorated with feathers and beads. These highly detailed pieces were then scanned by Wētā FX and digitised to allow them to be animated on the apes. #wetaworkshop #apesmovies #designstudio #film #visualFX #VFX #props

We made a splash with our costume work for the Metkayina clan in James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water! Working with Costume Designer Deb Scott, their costumes were inspired by sea foam, sea creatures, fish scales and more for the world of Avatar. In the scene where Ronal shares a magical moment with the Tulkun, you can see her costume reflecting her softer side. The delicate colours and materials reflect her bond with the Tulkun, their motherhood, their babies. Ronal’s costumes featured hand-painted and carved shells, pearls, wire, threads, beads, crystals and knotting. A mock version of this costume was created and tested by Wētā Workshop in a pool to inform the motion in the film. Art Director: Stephen Crowe Concept Artist: Iona Maria Brinch #avatarthewayofwater #costumedesign #costume #avatar #conceptdesign #conceptart #handcraft #film

We recently hosted the Minister for Tourism and Hospitality, Hon Matt Doocey, at Wētā Workshop Wellington. He met with David Wilks, our Co-CEO, and Jade Bolstad, our Head of Tourism for Wellington, to learn more about our business and shared current trends and insights for the upcoming peak season. The visit finished with a tour of our Wētā Workshop Experience with Attraction Assistant Manager, Emily Walley, and Experience Supervisor, Dan McKenna. #wetaworkshop #tourism #tourismnz

After an extensive quest that did involve a trip to Mount Doom, we’ve found some behind-the-scenes photos of Sauron. Pictured on a volcanic plateau in New Zealand, the Dark Lord’s bodily form looked like a tower of steel for The Lord of the Rings. While the armour was worn by several people over the course of filming (including our own Richard Taylor, who wore the leg and foot armour that shattered the sword Narsil), it was donned in these photos by Mike Hughes, one of our frankly very tall crew members, for the battle against the Last Alliance of Elves and Men. In this scene, Sauron is covered in dozens of individual pieces of plate steel our armourer Stu Johnson acid-etched with an intaglio decoration, an engraved design of a poison ivy-like weed said to grow near the bridge outside Minas Morgul. In the absence of details in J.R.R. Tolkien's books, a team of artists looked to Sauron’s iron-crowned former liege, Morgoth, for inspiration, contrasting the delicate incising with great spikes and a horned helmet that resembles a horse’s skull. It’s a lot to carry when you’re plotting your dominion over Middle-earth, so we also produced a full suit in painted urethane to ensure Sauron could move and do his stunts with relative ease. #wetaworkshop #lordoftherings #lotr #sauron #tolkien #costume #film

A great big woolly rig goes for a movement test before final hair and paint work. Find the finished mammoth we made in all its glory in the Apple TV+ fantasy series Time Bandits. #wetaworkshop #timebandits #practicaleffects #puppet