12 Sept 07 This weekend will mark the official launch of Champ The Chopper, a new children's book illustrated by Weta.

Champ The Chopper, is written by Author Rebekah Palmer, and illustrated by Weta Workshop designers Daniel Falconer and Chris Guise. On Saturday, the book will have its official launch, and members of the public are invited to come along and join in on the fun.

Above: the Kids Rescue Team, illustrated by Daniel Falconer.

Daniel and Chris had a great time working on this series, and Daniel says readers can expect to see more from their favourite characters in future. "Here you can see the core Kids Rescue Team- Champ, Pete, Zoom and Piper, as they pose together in this first pass design for the last page of the book. We later went in and added Scratch the Cat, who, while she doesn't have a huge role in this first book, is a character that author Rebekah Palmer promises we'll see much more of in coming adventures. "

Above: Piper, Poppa and Champ The Chopper, illustrated by Chris Guise.

"These two small pieces show two sides of a conversation going on via the radio head sets worn by Piper (at her helipod station back at the hangar) and Pete, flying Champ alongside poppa out on a mission. These are actually "in-progress" pieces that were used when we were mocking up the page layout of the book. They were replaced later with fully finished illustrations for the final book in which Piper's helipod console was made to look more like the final approved design and Champ and Poppa were tweaked some more as well."

The launch will be held on Sat 15 Sept, 2pm, at the LifeFlight Trust Rescue Helicopter hangar, next to the Warehouse in Rongotai, Wellington. Gold coin donation for entry.

To read more on Weta Workshop's role in this project, click here, and to view the official website for Champ, click here.