DON’T WORRY, IT’S ONE OF OURS: Among the late Graeme Mudge’s scale models of World War 1 aircraft is a British biplane believed to be a Tiger Moth (pictured). Picture by Paul Rickard
Medical and plastic surgery procedure illustrations, travel sketches, water colours of Gisborne’s buildings, set designs, sculptures, abstract oil painting — the late Graeme Mudge did them all.
It should come as no surprise then to find he also made a collection of model fighter planes and bombers from the World
War 1 period. These are no plastic Airfix jobbies but are handcrafted from softwood and iceblock sticks.
Mudge based his scale replicas on drawings in model aircraft magazines, and even made a pocket-sized, Observer’s Books-like volume of warplanes.
He formatted his hand-crafted, bespoke book with its plan and elevation drawings of the aircraft with blocks of text. The book was never published and Observer’s Books stopped publishing the series in 2003.
Mudge hung his model warplanes from the ceiling in a studio nook of the family home’s living room and there they continued to dog-fight on the end of their cat-gut strings until late last year.
