Paraparaumu College students win at Weta Workshop comp

Hunter Black's character The Comet of Elemental Arms and Alyssa Pricket's Fujiha.

Three Paraparaumu College students have won awards at Weta Workshop and Massey University's Earth Guardians Character Design Competition.

The competition is about letting your imagination run wild and creating unique characters.

The brief was to create a character to defend the earth, using nature and the elements to inspire the designs.

Students then had to explain their creation, explaining where their character lives, what special powers it has and links it may have to specific places, myths and legends, customary Māori narratives and deities.

Paraparaumu College head of visual art Nicola Hoddinott said visual art students have been interested in character design for many years with it gaining momentum this year partly due to lockdown as well as the introduction of a new assignment.

Mignon Ferreria's highly commended artwork Lios.

"A number of students took up the opportunity to get creative and invented their own characters for submission to this year's Earth Guardians competition."

Year 10 students Hunter Black and Alyssa Prickett entered the junior competition along with Year 12 student Mignon Ferreria who entered the senior competition.

Mignon's character Lios, a golem of overwhelming size and strength, won the Weta Workshop Rising Stars Highly Commended Award.

With over 300 entries, Mignon was delighted to be a finalist and recognised with a highly commended award selected by a Weta Workshop panel led by art director Paul Tobin and voted by the public.

"During the time of lockdown when we were first introduced to the new unit, Ms Small [Gen Small], our visual art design teacher, suggested that we do some ideation and develop concepts for elements that could be associated with an Earth guardian," Mignon said.

"My first concept had been an owl-like creature, but after being told that my rock golem character would be more fitting, I went with it as my final concept."

Mignon won $150 and a tour of Weta Workshop.

Winning awards in the Go Costume junior category, Alyssa and Hunter also won a signed copy of the book White Cloud Worlds edited by Weta Workshop senior concept designer and art director Paul Tobin.

Hunter Black drew inspiration from his Māori culture while Alyssa Pricket used her Japanese culture to inform her work.