The announcement of the artist chosen for Tauranga's Hairy Maclary sculptor trail is expected any day, says Creative Tauranga director Tracey Ruddick Gudsell.

'Everyone's waiting, waiting. Where we are at now is we are just signing up some contracts with the winning sculptor, and then we are going to make an announcement on the sculptor and the concept. It's any day, I'm just waiting on lawyers,” says Tracey.

Tracy Ruddick Gudsell says an announcement about the city's Dame Lynley Dodd inspired Hairy Maclary bronze sculpture trail is due.

The winner of the year long selection process is a New Zealand artist and the bronze sculptures of 10 or 11 Hairy Maclary characters will be cast in New Zealand.

'It's not a local artist sadly, it took us a year to work through that process,” says Tracey. 'It is a New Zealand artist and they will be cast in New Zealand. The whole thing will be done here.”

There is also a change to the concept from the original sculpture trail of Tauranga writer and artist Dame Lynley Dodd's characters from the popular children's books.

'It won't be a trail now, it's going to be at this stage an interactive concept – so they will all be together. I'm still working through that with council,” says Tracey.

The project was boosted early last year with the Tauranga Energy Consumer Trust donating $30,000 to the tender process.

The process began a year ago with the call for expressions of interest in sculpting the Hairy Maclary characters including Scarface Claw, Slinky Malinky, Greywacke Jones, Hercules Morse, Muffin McLay, Bottomley Potts, Pimpernel Pugh, Schnitzel von Krumm, Mushroom Magee, Bitzer Maloney and Zachary Quack.

The bronzes will be life size, says Tracey.

'A smallish dog like Hairy Maclary or Zachary Quack, the little duckling, may have to be conceptualised,” says Tracey.

'They may have a surrounding. We don't want to put them on plinths or things like that, but the artist will have a vision of how they will look to best effect. They could be illustrations from the books.

'We want it to be instantly recognisable, we want it to feel alive like the books do, because all the characters in the books are very lively, they are not ever standing still really.

'So we want that feeling when you are seeing them, not like a statue as such – a really good representative sculpture of the character, that's the aim. It will be someone with a lot of skill.”