Lead Time Lords: The Eighth Doctor

"I'm a Doctor - but probably not the one you were expecting..."

Like you, dear reader, I imagined I’d be kicking this whole Paint A Doctor carnival off somewhere logical, like, for instance, the First Doctor. More fool us. Yes, My William Hartnell figure is in the mix, and very near completion, but first, here’s a chap I completed earlier than Bill: the Eighth Doctor, played by Paul McGann.

This Eighth Doctor is the last TV Doctor model made by Harlequin Design before they went out of business and their moulds were purchased by Black Tree. It came out not too long after the 1996 movie and, well, it shows. 

Most of the Harlequin range is idiosyncratic – heroic scale miniatures are almost by definition exaggerated and would look quite horrifying at human scale; but there’s something even more disturbing about Harlequin’s Eighth Doctor – the bubble perm, the slightly outward-bending legs (not an uncommon affliction in their DW range, I have observed), the weird hand clasp – and on the whole the figure has a sort of end-of-the-line rushed look to it. It’s incomplete in detail, and comes across as a little cursory – perhaps a fitting treatment for a cult TV hero who at the same time had been given short shrift in his homeland and was in the process of being farmed out to the ignorant colonies for a second chance at survival.

But I digress wildly. Here’s the Eighth Doctor, the only version around to this day (although, watch this space…) It’s actually a pretty straightforward model, and I’ve painted him as well as I can, including a couple of passes at doing eyes (I hate doing eyes and most of the time avoid it if I can), and some time taken with washes and blends to get that elusive bottle green/shot black velvet effect on his Doc Holliday jacket - though it comes out a lot more green in these pictures than in real life. Harlequin really didn’t try too hard on the costume here , and the hand positioning doesn’t do them any favours, but given the lack of overall ‘pop’ to the Eighth Doctor’s ensemble, I worked a bit to find opportunities for contrast and detail. Ergo, some green stuff buttons front and back, and a fob chain (nobody knew in 1996 how important fob watches would become to the series) were made, and I painted his cravat a grey-blue, rather than yet another variation on grey or beige as in the TV special itself.

The Doctor’s hair I’ve left untouched, simply because I think I’d do more harm than good in attempting a re-styling. Finally, the all-important base. Originally this was to be a Seal of Rassilon, in keeping with the motif in the movie. I had one all painted and ready to go, but faced with a crisis of application – I don’t like to cut the bases of these guys, I replaced it instead with some light card floorboards to represent his Vernean wooden TARDIS interior, and I’m pretty happy with the result!

Mrs Simian on seeing this figure complete thought it pretty good, then said as an afterthought, “It is Tom Baker, isn’t it?” You can’t win ‘em all.

A Doctor a Day?

Well, it could happen. I won't tempt fate, though!

November has come, and with it the 50th anniversary of Twentieth Century Time Lord the Doctor. And, maybe, time to dust off my old figures for a tidy-up:

This is the last time I'll post one of these old WIP shots of the Doctors as they were back in 2009, I promise! To recap, I wrote these guys up back here, and to be honest, some of them have come a wee way since this photo was taken. Not a huge way, but progress was made before I turned my attentions to Real Life and more recently my Hobbit-themed figures. Since then a few variant figures have arisen (Crooked Dice Miniatures in particular did a couple of rather nice Eleventh Doctor figures), word has it that heresy have a John Hurt-themed 'Doctor' figure lined up for the forthcoming anniversary episode, and then, of course, why - it's the turn of Mr Peter capaldi as the Twelfth Doctor. No figures yet, of course, but I believe sculpts are in process and will turn up sooner or later...

In the mean-time, there's space to finish off these bad boys. Like the Hobbit figures I've not just painted the figures, but also added bits and pieces with green stuff to bring their likenesses into line. And I'll blog on those as I go, of course.

Wish me luck, and don't mention the November 23rd as a deadline!

Doodle a Day: 31/10/2013

Happy Halloween/Splendid Samhain everybody!

here is th capital it's been trousering down with rain today, with the CBD's north-south streets like Featherston and Taranaki producing the dreaded spring and autumnal 'wind tunnels', ergo... sideways rain by the skip load. Not great for running off to work in, or waiting for a bus home, but not too shabby for dissuading those pesky Trick or Treaters!

Anyway, in honour of Featherston Street and Halloween, here's a nifty, shifty combination of the two. Pleasant dreams, Mr Meromo!

And, with October drawing to a close, that also wraps up Doodle a Day; a pleasure and a challenge, but something of a relief now it's over. Thanks to everyone who's followed, chanced upon this thread (you know who you are and I know what you were drawn to!) and especially those who've commented on and off to blog - I might yet revisit this in time, though probably not this year!

Doodle a Day: 30/10/2013

Second to last Doodle for this month, and while I'm also two days shy of the Day of the Dead, here's my little candy skull character and his seedy leedle friend:

Libido and Mortido were my first proper cartoon characters, and found their way into two or three issues of Dunedin comic zine Treacle, as well as (via reprints) a Wellington zine nearly ten years later. The characters, if you could call them that, were pretty much one-liners: Libido the helpless and hopelessly deluded priapic would-be Lothario, and his buddy, death-obsessed risk taker Mortido. neither could resist their respective temptations, although in the limited run of stories I steered well clear of giving ether guys what they wanted - Libido especially. What can I say? I was a squeamish cartoonist.

Mortido was my favourite, and was (and clearly still is) the easiest to draw. His design had actually sprung from an earlier idea of 'Dead'-themed single panel cartoons ('Dead Tired', 'Dead Heat' etc.) Libido, on the other hand, resisted any sort of consistent drawing throughout his life - to this day, in fact. Usually the inspiration for his weirdly exaggerated proportions was a cortical homunculus. Those things creep me out, and so it should be no surprise that Libido I generally find a chore to draw.

I haven't drawn these guys in maybe fifteen years! I should plant a tree or something.

Doodle a Day: 29/10/2013

A late post tonight as I just went and saw Gravity. Wheee! What a movie! Anyway...

Halloween is almost upon us, so time for some spookier doodles. So far I've done the ghost of a werewolf, and then more recently a werewolf... so just to shake things up, here's a ghost!

A Japanese ghost, according to my dream of 24/9/2010 after which I woke and scrawled: "Along a winding coastal road in a late 70s car (a Charger?) Young woman's head and shoulders emerge from out of the road ahead. I have to be careful as, if she emerges fully and has no form below the ribs and waist [stop sniggering back there - Ed] she is a ghost." Despite that, apparently it was okay, she wasn't a ghost, but my memory doesn't record whether I stopped the car or just kept on driving!

The image in my head is as you see it above, so don't get any ideas about the nature of my dreams, okay? In fact, my little dream diary records no fewer than three Japanese folklore-themed nocturnal flights, including the above (which, according to Wikipedia might be called a teke teke or something), a dream about a creature with a dish-like head full of water called in my dream a 'Golle' (although in Japanese folklore it might properly be called a kappa), and finally the most cryptic of them: ""19/9/2010: I'm writing on creatures of Japanese folklore and find reference to a [fit?] I don't know the name of. Nearby creatures help out with cards and suffixes/tables for the purpose."

Clearly, I was going through 'A Phase'. Thanks for not asking what it all meant!

Doodle a Day: 28/10/2013

Today I broke a rule of Doodle a Day - but it was a late rule. I re-drew the same subject when an earlier attempt- well, earlier attempts, had failed. Lou Reed did not resemble Brad Garrett nor Paul Holmes, so I had to do the late, great grump some honour...

Lou Reed was for a long time in my youth an old man, when he was really only the age of my Dad. I knew of him and The Velvet Underground in my teens, but I was a little stunned to realise that he made the album that really introduced me to his solo work - New York, when he was only two or three years older than I am now. And these days, 71 is old, but not OLD. To some people, he's probably still the young man of the Velvets, the glammed up street punk from Transformer at least.

But I digress. New York was one of the soundtracks to my first year of university, and in following years I'd learn a few VU songs through fellow bands (one of our contemporary groups, My Deviant Daughter, did a running and not-entirely faithful cover of Sister Ray) and shared music collections - White Light/White Heat, Heroin, Venus In Furs... lots of stuff novel, ground-breaking, or just fun (I'm Sticking With You, naturally.) And what I heard of Songs for Drella, I liked.

I don't own any Lou Reed past the Trainspotting soundtrack. I think I might try to rectify that really soon. When Jet Jr wanted to hear some David Bowie from You Tube today, I suggested we listened to something 'David' had made with his friends 'Mick' and 'Lou' instead; and so we listened to the singles from Transformer, which is where I might as well begin.

A pen sketch of Lou Reed wasn't of course what I'd planned for today, so today's idea will probably be posted tomorrow.

Doodle a Day: 27/10/2013

For the second time this month I find myself drawing a werewolf! Odd.

Anyway - a worked-up pencil study for a picture of said beastie surprising a warrior wumman PC (Player Character), based on an old D&D game of distant memory.