Canberra's Tardis has been completed, but some finishing touches to the Doctor Who tribute were abandoned after street artist Geoff Filmer was waylaid chatting to passers-by checking out the new-look utility box.
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The Tardis - the time machine of popular science-fiction hero Doctor Who – mysteriously appeared near the Red Hill lookout last week, but it turned out to be one of three utility boxes Filmer revamped on behalf of ACTEW Water.
Mr Filmer had estimated it would take him 10 hours to transform the concrete utility box which had been badly graffitied, but rain put a hold on his initial work last Monday.
He went back on Tuesday to do some more work on it, and left just a few finishing touches to finish off before the existence of the Tardis became public knowledge.
Mr Filmer planned to paint lightning at the bottom of the Tardis, as appears when the time machine touches down, but he had an unexpected distraction on Friday.
"There was an endless stream of people coming past," Mr Filmer said.
"I added a little bit of colour and then I had to leave it because it took me three and a half hours with all the talking; so many people came by."
"It's finished, I'm happy with it, but the wild, mad lightning I was intending on doing, I kind of just went, 'I think I'll just have to leave it' because I have too many other things to do."
Mr Filmer now makes timelapse videos of all his work, and a few onlookers made it into his time-altering, Whovian-style production.
He said the response had been overwhelmingly positive from those who came to check out his work, something he thought bode well for fututre projects with ACTEW Water.
"I think they were a bit blown away by how well it was received," Mr Filmer said.
"They were a little bit, 'well we'll just do three and see how it goes' and were [wondering] 'are we going to get people ringing up complaining'.
"It's really great how they are supporting arts in Canberra and Canberra artists."
