Tahi the Kiwi Got a Prosthetic Leg.

Tahi the kiwi, who lost one of his leg below the knee to a gin trap, got a new prosthetic leg!

To create a mould of the bird’s stump, Gino Acevedo, prosthetic and visual creature effects art director at Weta Workshop, used the same techniques on the kiwi as he would on a film star. …

So with the bird anesthetised to prevent any distress, Mr Acevedo coated the kiwi’s stump in alginate, the same material orthodontists use for taking casts of teeth. …

Armed with the Weta moulds, which replicated everything exactly, right down to the kiwi’s rough, scaly skin, Peter Allen from the Wellington Artificial Limb Centre set about making an artificial leg for the kiwi.

Without the usual communication he would have with a human customer, Allen resorted to videos to figure out just how to mimic the kiwi’s gait.

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