Lead Time Lords: Affairs of the Hartnell

In their day Harlequin Miniatures were tremendously prolific and varied in their choices of subjects for their Doctor Who range. Every current Doctor, including the Eighth and Cinematic ncarnations ere represented, along with every companion, nearly every major villain and an embarrasment of riches in the monster department. No manufacturer since - licensed or not, has met the enormity of their range.

As a consequence, and with Black Tree Miniatures still runing the range in a scaled-own way, the collector can have more than one version of most their favoite Time Lord. It meant that, thanks to UK-based friends, I have more than one version of the First Doctor. One has already been painted, but recently I've been working on Harlequin's alternative sculpt - and here he is

This is the unpainted version off Black Tree's site. You get the gist of it - this is the First Doctor from An Unearthly Child, his debut. OR, from The Tenth Planet, his swan song. The Astrakhan hat and cloak give the painter a few options, really, maybe Planet of the Giants at a pinch, for example. So my approach was to take advantage of that. But first, a few adjustments:

Harlequin sculptors loved their bow-legged poses, and they weren't averse to the odd stragely-positioned arm either; and so we have a First Doctor here who not only has both, but also lacks a few characteristic accessories - his monacle, for one. Plus, blink and you'll mis his walking stick in his left hand, buried underneath the cloak. In the pictures I've seen, William Hartnell carried his cane in his right hand, so a new cane and green stuff monocle were fashioned. I'd have loved to have made a scarf as well, but there's quite a lot going on under that elongated head already.

So here’s progress to date paint chips, scuffing and dodgy painting aside. I briefly considered rendering my alternative First in monochrome, but having seen examples online decided against it (harder to make the colours pop, and it’s something this figure needs.) unlike his other incarnations the Girst Doctor has so far has three distinct faces from different actors - Hartnell, Richard Hurndall and more recently David Bradley (actually there have been four if you count Edward Warwick’s Android ‘duplicate’), so while my original First Doctor resembles Hartnell the most, this alternative will do for the others.

Lead Time Lords: 'It's the End, but...'

It's been some time since I last opened my box of Dr Who minis, some of which have been fully painted, some not, and some of which need a touch up - either through chips and flaking after poor storage, or simply because they just don't look too good. Here are the guys to date:

There are some omissions, of course. A second Fourth, Third and First Doctor two of which are still in their black undercoats; and these guys need to be completed.

Here are Crooked Dice's likenesses for John Hurt's War Doctor and Paul McGann's Eighth from Night of the Doctor - and more on these in their own time; both are, literally broad brushstrokes, and Hurt's Time Lord needs a new base, because... damn.

Winter should be the season for painting, of course, but this has been an unusual year in other things needing to be done around the home and after work hours, so Spring, maybe Summer, might be the more likely time. Particularly once the daylight hours draw longer.

There's an inescapable sense of finality to this project now, particularly as avenues for 28mm (or thereabouts) figures dry up. Black Tree's sales get smaller and more deperate looking, Crooked Dice have cowed away, seemingly as a result of a C&D from the Powers What Be, and similarly Hasslefree and Heresy's lookalikes are harder to find. In their place are Warlord's new range - taller, more recent in focus, mainly, their Capaldi regal of hair but specced and guitared up like a walking Mid-Life Crisis. So this may be it: best not rush things!

Lead Time Lords: The Twelfth Doctor

Hullo! And welcome back to a new instalment of this lumbering series. There's more to come, so sit down, grab a stiff brandy and settle in.

Here, then, is the Twelfth Doctor, in the form of Crooked Dice Studio's lookee-likey Tucker Newman (great name.) Up until very recently CD were the only game in town for a Twelfth Dr figure, but new licence-holders Warlord Games have just teased everyone with their (slightly taller) version of him in his Hell Bent duds - hoodie, red 'lectric guitar, stupid f***ing sonic specs and his journeyman walk looking for all the world like the Mid-life Crisis Doctor he's sadly become. God I hated last year's season - for the most part. They do say no-one loathes Doctor Who more than Doctor Who fans.

I do digress, because the figure here is Peter Capaldi's marvellous, abrasive, alien Doctor in his first year, replete with his Hartnellesque lapel-hooking finger, his magician get up (check out that flash of red lining!) and that majestic pair of eyebrows. Why, I was so intimidated by those space caterpillars that I didn't dare finish painting his eyes for fear of catching the wee man's baleful gaze.

There was a bit of planning here, but no modification needed. It's a beautiful sculpt by CD's reliable Ernst Blofeld sorry, Veingart. Simple but effective, with the aforementioned overturned Crombie jacket front to break up the navy and charcoal stovepipes (I cheated - it may well be an all navy ensemble, but I wasn't going there.) He was a pleasure to paint, with a great likeness and very forgiving face (except the eyebrows, obviously) although I expect I may yet return to him to tidy up some of the blue and maybe... maybe, attempt those eyes. The cobblestone base is mine and I'm rather chuffed with it.

Cripes - he's looking my way again. Aargh!

Lead Time Lords: The Sixth Doctor

“He’s a loathsome, offensive brute – and yet I can’t look away!”

For what it’s worth, I like the Sixth Doctor. This is the only version of the Sixth Doctor anyone has made, as far as I’m aware. Harlequin’s model hits most of the notes, but leaves something to be desired. It’s definitely the Sixth Doctor at his most haughty (no bad thing), and the pose strikes an appropriately Hartnellesque air – something Baker was keen to hint at.

The sculpt’s a bit off in places, though – as AnEvilGiraffe has noted on his blog, the head is a bit skew-whiff; I purchased a fine saw with the intention of decapitating the model and putting this right, but I’m still too squeamish to do it! The coat has also needed work. True to the most fussy and deliberately garish ensemble of the show’s history, there’s much that’s frustrating here, in chief that the various panels lined out on the figure don’t match the TV version, meaning that the resulting paint job would reduce the clashing colours and textures. In addition, there’s no rear venting button or front lapels (I made both in green stuff). The hands cover the Doctor’s cat badge – not a big deal, it’s one of his signature accessories, but beggars can’t be choosers.

As you might expect, this challenges the painter somewhat, and believe me when say I’ve watched a LOT of Sixth Doctor stories trying to get the colours right and not too noisy, nor too subdued. It’s been an education – I didn’t even know until now that his coat sleeves are different colours, but they are! And I feel as though I could reproduce the various panels and their colours in my sleep now. As if that’s not enough, there’s both tartan and stripes to do. Here’s an early attempt at the cuffs: Technically they’re great, but they highlight a no-no when painting small scale models. On small areas the width of these stripes are good enough, but on a larger area (say, the trouser legs) the detail would swamp the colour and darken the shade, so the detail has to be dialed back. It’s an interesting dilemma! Finally, the base. As the pose again seems to be struck from Baker’s first full story, the unloved The Twin Dilemma, this base references the slug-ravaged surface of Titan 3, as the new Doctor contemplates his future as an outcast pariah, cut off from space and time. Famous last words, eh?

And now, with the Sixth Doctor completing the set I have struck my own hiatus! Heresy and Crooked Dice are, I am assured, currently producing their own model stand-ins for Peter Capaldi’s Twelfth Doctor, while CD are also striking ‘Professor Kane’ - their version of John Hurt’s War Doctor (Heresy have done him already but I don’t have him yet) and “Marwood – an Edwardian scientist trapped forever in New Year’s Eve”. Looks like I’ll get my better McGann wish granted after all! I may have more to paint come the middle of the year and winter’s approach, so until then, in the words of John Nathan-Turner: ‘Stay Tuned.’

Lead Time Lords: The Seventh Doctor

Second-to-last Time Lord time, and here’s Harlequin’s Seventh Doctor played by Sylvester McCoy – one of two versions available. Here’s the other with his tricked-up detector bodge-up: It’s quite a nice sculpt; full of character and definitely one of Harlequin’s best likenesses, and his height works well alongside his immediate predecessor and successor. I started this paint job out with McCoy’s jacket his early bone-coloured option.

Rather willfully, I even wanted to paint his scarf in tartan and give him a base with the occasional vivid blue rock, provocatively marking him out as being from the Seventh Doctor’s debut story, the infamous Time and the Rani. However, on seeing a fob chain present on the model I realised he had to be in his chocolate-coloured ‘dark Doctor’ jacket, which also means the more familiar Paisley scarf and hanky combo. A shame, as this version of the Seventh Doctor seemed to be a persistent fan favourite in the Nineties for its ‘harder’ iteration, something I wanted to kick against. But I lost!

 Lots of detail put this guy to the back of the queue until my confidence recovered: there’s the check patter of his trousers, the two-tone golfing shoes and that dreaded question mark pullover, not to mention the formerly-mentioned scarf and hanky. A figure of this size and detail deserves the effort, however, so I hope it shows. One day, maybe, someone will do a model of McCoy in his TV movie duds: no pullover, scarf or umbrella, and distinct enough in its way, until then this version will do, representing his last televised BBC story, 1989’s ironically-named Survival.

Coming up next: I saved the best for last…

Lead Time Lords: The Eleventh Doctor

Matt Smith, we hardly knew ye. Well, so it would seem with the number of variant lookee-likees going around at one stage. Heresy began with their Nerdlord, and followed it up with a second pose, while Crooked Dice produced their own Tweedy Mattinson, followed by some variant heads (one bearded, one be-stetsoned, one fezzed-up) AND THEN, after Smith changed his wardrobe dramatically last year to a grey and mulberry palette, CD brought out a bespectacled version. I haven’t seen too many of those painted up, and wonder how it’s sold?

My figure here is the original, and is by no means the most accurate (I couldn’t say which one is, to be honest), but seems to capture adroitly the early days of Smith’s reign, somewhere between the first DWM photocall (hence the pose and hair style), the costume unveiling, and his actual performance which, if anything, really galvanised the character of the Eleventh Doctor. I swear you could actually see poses and sculpts being adjusted in keeping after his first few stories. Nevertheless, this is my Eleventh Doctor, and I’m happy with the figure as is. Smith’s first year is my favourite of his, so it’s no contest.

What can I say about this figure? Trousers are black and grey with a blue wash over the top; I had a go at the Harris tweed of the jacket, but your mileage may vary, his bowtie is red which means (I think) he’s in the past according to once-popular fan theories (it’s blue for the future, apparently), and the most-welcome ‘pop’ of green from his increasingly multi-functioning sonic. Oh just give it its own series, why don’t you?

With the ‘modern’ sculpts and the Eleventh Doctor done we’ve nowhere to go but back to my notable omissions: the dreaded Eighties Hiatus Doctors!

Lead Time Lords: The Tenth Doctor

A month ago in 1986 BBC Controller Michael Grade put Doctor Who on ice, imperiling the series and effectively sacking its star. In 2014 we're mercifully nowhere close to that sort of real-life drama, but for myself I am approaching something of a hiatus, as I'm running out of Doctors to paint! Oh, sure. I have a few in reserve - some alternative Tom, Jon and Bill, and a conversion idea for Pat. Plus there are more recent Doctors (War and the Twelfth) to come, but I don't have those, and so with four Time Lords left to post it's time for me to wind this thread down and move on. Thank God. So, with no further ado here he is, Heresy’s Dr Hugh McCrimmon, doubling nicely for David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor.

Heresy produced two versions of this in the end, including one without the greatcoat, but this is the one I like. It has enough detail in the posture to evoke both the youthful cockiness of Tennant’s early photocalls (I’m guessing this shot here) with the older, wearier, more aloof Tenth toward the end of his tenure (or second tenure, according to Time of the Doctor.) I could say a lot about what I think of this incarnation, but, er, I feel the eyes of a fellow fan burning over my shoulder as I type this. So I’ll just close on saying that he’s an interesting Doctor, and like his predecessor seems to deliberately go through a character change culminating in his regeneration. Seems to be a New Series thing, that.

Tennant’s costume stays pretty constant through his time as the Doctor, with no change in coat and a seasonal change in his suit – your choices are brown with a blue pinstripe, or blue; cobalt blue shirt or ivory (as in his last story), and a burgundy tie. I feel the browns work best together, though I’ve seen a few attempts at matching the blue to the fawn of the coat (it’s sofa upholstery, apparently) and to me the effect looks a little… forced, maybe. As is, my pinstripes here probably add enough blue to the suit. Basing was fun, as I’ve not done a snow effect before. I stared with a coarse sand primed grey then layered in lighter shades of blue before a final heavy dry brush with white and two generous dustings of Force9 snow flock. I’d been told that this is pulverised marble chips, but it feels more acrylic than anything. Never mind, the blue comes through where I want it and the effect (an attempt to render a Christmassy scene, or perhaps the Ood Sphere) is good enough for me.

Lead Time Lords: The Ninth Doctor

Hah! Bet you thought I was going to be painting the Sixth Doctor. Well, no. Later. I have plans there, you see, and things to talk about in detail. Oh, detail… So here’s the ‘Ninth’ Doctor (I’m sticking to the pre-Day of the Doctor numbering for the sake of my sanity) as portrayed by Christopher Eccleston.

I really liked Eccleston’s Doctor, but I was disappointed at the same time that his tenure was so short and so defined by a single ‘amazing ™’ companion and character arc. That Eccleston turned down the chance to return to the role for the Anniversary special is also a shame, because I think we lost the opportunity to see him outside the Bad Wolf trappings as well. As it is, he’s something of an interregnum Doctor to me.

 Like his TV counterpart, there’s not a lot to say about this model – there’s very little in the way of alternatives out there – none which are readily available AND of equal quality sculpt-wise anyway. Heresy’s ‘Malcolm Ecclescake’ is pretty much what you’d want from a ninth Doctor figure; yes, the pose is not entirely him, but after version after version of Harlequin’s cross-armed posed old Doctors, the last thing you need is a self-hugging Eccleston figure mimicking his occasional onscreen posture. And maybe he’s a bit more ‘grim oop north’ in his expression than you might like, but otherwise he’s great. Fantastic, even. The jacket is high on detail, the face is suitably angular, there’s dynamism there, and they even got his ears right. Heresy’s model comes in two parts, his ‘sonic’ arm being needed to be glued on, but otherwise required little clean-up.

Colour-wise the limitations of Eccleston’s wardrobe show – black moleskins, battered black navvy’s jacket, and an assortment of toned-down shades of vest, from an olive drab to burgundy to grape. My purple option was decided on just to liven the figure up a bit, and I’ve weathered the jacket and given the trouser legs a bit of a liquorice green-black just to break up the overall darkness there, Initially I wanted a smooth, white marble and gold base to mimic the floors of Cardiff’s Temple of Peace aka Platform One, but once again my limited skill with that sort of thing showed all too clearly (an uneven and distinctly bumpy mess), and so a reddish colour scheme is on my base, once again to prevent the figure from being such a buzz-kill colour-wise.

Lead Time Lords: The Cinema Doctor

The harder the pushin’ the softer the Cushing, as Spinal Tap nearly sang.

After the slog of painting the Fifth Doctor’s trousers (a literal flannelling, I must say), I gave myself a breather and chose a Doctor figure I was especially looking forward to.

In fact, I started quite a few Doctors, include the even-trickier Sixth Doctor and his coat of many colours. But this is the one I finished, and it’s the one with which I am the most content.

Like the Eighth Doctor figure, Harlequin’s Peter Cushing cinema Doctor is not a frequent attendee in painting galleries, probably because he’s not generally regarded as part of the TV series continuity. Many fans have tried to fit him into their ‘canon’, but few have done it in a way that draws crowds – even Steven Moffat couldn’t manage it for the 50th Anniversary and gave up before filming. Fair enough, but we miss a treat when we overlook Cushing’s Dr Who, star of two glorious technicolour outings in the 60s, and an unsuccessful punt at a third (again, the fan community has had fun with the notion, and some even rate Cushing and Doug McClure’s At the Earth’s Core as a squint-and-it-fits follow-up). The human Dr Who of the two movies is innocent, gentle, impish and paternal, and Cushing is every bit his charming self in the role.

I’ve tried to find touches of that charm and the technicolour (a stark contrast to the TV series at the time, of course) in this figure. I believe I read on An Evil Giraffe’s blog that the Cushing Doctor’s mould is beginning to show signs of age, and that the castings have suffered as a result. Possibly this is why my figure has a slightly pinched-looking face, with heavy hands which look like Dr Who was carrying a lead snowball in each (I filed away as much as I could.) Beyond that, however, the figure’s pretty clean, with only some filing of Harlequin’s infamous paddle feet needed to help things along. The colour palette I’ve chosen is closer to that of Cushing’s second movie, Daleks - Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D, with grey trousers instead of the Dr Who and the Daleks ochre-brown version. The sculpt’s moustache is a little fuller and droopier than the real thing (making him look a little like Rene Auberjonois' Clayton from Benson), but I’ve not touched it, as I don’t think I could do any better with green stuff. In fact, for the adventurous modeller, there's possibly room here to add a green stuff scarf and fob chain to match the film version - however, at this stage I am not an adventurous modeller!

Finally, the base: very nearly a ruined street in keeping with the Earth invasion storyline of the second movie, I instead wanted to use something that would compliment the costumes colours and not match the grey of the trousers too much; so a lurid Skarosian turquoise and green it is, and I’m really happy with the result. Perhaps it lacks some specific detail or points of interest, but colour-wise I like it.

And now, that side-step having been made, it’s back to the TV Doctors…

Lead Time Lords: The Fifth Doctor

Here he is, the Fifth Doctor, my beige nightmare as played by Peter Davison

This is the last of the Doctors produced in miniature by Citadel, and here’s the soft-toy cuddly version, below:

Painted by Menace Miniatures

Harlequin’s update is posed suspiciously similarly – an update in a way that three of their other twentieth-century Doctors were.

That said, Harlequin’s Davison is a little better in proportion – although look out for the bendy legs once more, and perhaps on the whole the figure lacks some further realisation. The face for one is disappointing – there’s no discreet likeness to speak of with regard to the actor, and the eyes are something of a challenge, looking more like buttons than anything else. By far the most annoying aspect of this figure is an affliction that strikes a lot of the Harlequin Doctors – a serious case of paddle-foot. Shoes should not be hard to sculpt, and here it just looks as though someone stopped trying once they finished off the trousers. I’ve attempted to sculpt some laces in green stuff, just to give the feet a bit more definition.

In all, perhaps Harley’s Davison (ho ho) is a victim of the company’s similar approach to the Eighth Doctor – a little rushed, culminating in something that lacks dynamism or real character. He doesn’t even have a hat, although an alternative sculpt (pictured here) at least gives him a cricket bat, which might do if you ever needed a Doctor to co-opt into a Shaun of the Dead-themed miniatures game.

Finally, hat tips are due to three miniature painters whose work I studied at length to get this puppy finished – once again, An Evil Giraffe’s eyes and palette are wonderful, and faced with any number of options for rendering the Fifth Doctor’s problematic striped flannels, I took much inspiration from Mark Evans’ job (sadly no longer online, it seems). Finally, the curiously-named No Such Agency of the Lead Adventure Forum produced a rather lovely model from this mini, complete with a cricket ball for added colour, so there’s definitely hope . I must, however, confess to getting a little tetchy with Harlequin’s range, and I think my impatience shows here. To be honest, I’m very much looking forward to working on some more recent sculpts from other manufacturers.

Lead Time Lords: The Fourth Doctor (1)

"You might be a doctor, but I am THE Doctor. 'The Definite Article', you might say!"I

Still working my way through Harlequin's Doctors Who, and so I'm up to Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor, or at least one of Harlequin's three versions:

This is, as far as I've seen, not that common a choice of figures among painted collections I've seen. But thanks to a UK-based friend from the over ten or so years ago this was purchased, this was the one I got sent (cheers Dave!) when Harlequin went out of business and places like Forbidden Planet had them going for a song. Je ne regrette rien as they say in Rome, and so this version is the one I have. I'll paint one of the other versions recently sourced (cheers Jamas!) in due course.

Actually, I rather like this version, as it strikes most of the notes you want to with the Fourth Doctor - jelly babies, long scarf, long coat, teeth and curls, wild eyes (though that might be my painting again.) My quibbles are small - for instance, the scarf should be looped around the Doctor's neck; it doesn't look quite long enough this way, but some things I just don't want to attempt with green stuff, because that would mean sculpting around the back of his neck as well, and I can't see how I could better things, really. It's a trade-off anyway - you get the scarf, but not the buccaneer boots (thus firmly positing the Doctor somewhere in his Seasons Fourteen to Fifteen phase), you get the hair, but not the hat - that sort of thing.

Still, face aside, the ensemble was pretty straightforward to paint once I'd found a story to base everything on (either Hand of Fear or Robots of Death - I forget which.) The coat is a chocolatey velvet, so a semi-gloss seemed the order of the day, and the scarf is in reasonably muted colours - that Begonia Pope, she knew what she was doing.

And that's one of the Fourth Doctors!

Lead Time Lords: The Second Doctor (1)

Over the break I didn’t just holiday – I also painted. First off the rank is a completion of my Second Doctor figure. As with the other four ‘classic’ Doctors of their range, the Patrick Troughton iteration was first rendered lead-wise by Citadel Miniatures as a gargoyle 28mm piece in the mid-80s. Check out Modeller Chris Clayton's excellent paint job.

Harlequin’s 90s effort adopts a similar pose – though there is a rarer, alternative version, based on a still from the as-yet missing debut Power of the Daleks, featuring the Doctor with 500 Year Diary and birdcatcher’s hat:

But back to the one I have, the more regularly seen Oscar™-style pose with recorder. Unlike the ‘Power’ version this is a tad more generic, which is useful, but wiser heads than I – notably An Evil Giraffe, have seen the error in Harlequin’s design – inadequate pockets and a too-short jacket, making the Troughton Doctor a little less tramp-like in appearance. AEG rectified this masterfully with green stuff, and I’ve followed suit as best I could. In addition, and because I also think the recorder a little lazy in rendering, I’ve added some green stuff tassels. There’s not a lot of colour variance between the First and Second Doctors’ outfits, so I’ve strived for as much as I reasonably can; the tassels help to break up a mid-section that is equal parts unimaginative (come one, guys – it’s the Second Doctor!) and sausage-fingered. The result is that my Second Doctor with his grey trousers, red hanky, salt-and-pepper hair and George Hamilton tan is more your actual Eighties incarnation of the Second Doctor – fresh from a trip to Seville, if you will (and not to suggest, I trust, that he is an orange.)

I’ll make no apologies – it’s not a great paint job, and is a little wobbly in places, but it’s time to press on. I do have another of these figures sitting around, however, and might well revisit the Cosmic Hobo in time – again, with some green stuff to hand, and maybe with an eye to a different kind of coat altogether, and from a less-Mediterranean clime…

Lead Time Lords: The First Doctor (1)

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Guv’nor, the First Doctor as played by William Hartnell.

I don’t think Harlequin did a bad job on this one. It is a tad generic, but compare it with the previous version created in the Eighties by Citadel Miniatures:

Already the two, while posed similarly, are quite different creations. What I like most about Harlequin’s offering is the face – there are hints of Hartnell’s mischievous grandfather Time Lord in the sculpt, whereas Citadel’s caricature is the sort of thing you might expect a newcomer to the series might present as a summation of the first Sixties Doctor – old and stooped, cantankerous and difficult to love. There’s a whole story of the actor and his complicated part in the role he’d come to define and inhabit still being told in fandom and to the series’ viewers. Mark Gatiss’ wonderful An Adventure in Space and Time does much to redress the balance, but we could also do with examples shown by Harlequin here, not so much recasting but reaffirming the youngest of the Doctor’s incarnations as an occasionally impish, curious citizen of the Universe.

The detail is also kind on this figure, although the fingers are perhaps a little roughly defined, and the face of my model had frightfully sunken cheeks and a moulding line across its mouth – not an easy flaw to remedy. That said, it’s a relatively easy one to paint if you don’t include the trousers (three passes, including one with a fine non-permanent pen) and the face, which I paled up a little to indicate the relative age of the Doctor and also reduce any contrast with his white hair. It’s something I could have done less with previously on the Third Doctor figure, actually, but will probably concentrate more next time I’m up to painting that particular incarnation. There’s going to be another First Doctor figure to come as well, although that’s some time off yet as well.

Additions include a golden(ish) sandy base (the First Doctor explored the Gobi desert, Saladin’s Persia, Ancient Egypt and the desert planet Aridius on television); my reference for this is a still from the (at time of writing!) missing serial popularly called Marco Polo. I’ve seen a few Hartnell Doctor figures painted with grey trousers, but I’ve gone for the more ivory colour shown in that story as well as others around it (Reign of Terror being another). Green stuff was used to fill in one of the cheeks (it really was quite a deep depression) and fashion the First Doctor’s rather practical blue-stoned ring, shown off by Harlequin’s regular ‘hands clasped across the chest’ Doctor pose.

And that’s the First Doctor done!

Lead Time Lords: The Third Doctor (1)

Here’s my next Doctor paint-job from my lead Time Lords project: Jon Pertwee’s Third Doctor. It’s another Harlequin model, and one of two that the sculptors did (I’ll cover the other one later).

 As it is it’s okay – the likeness is pretty good from a couple of angles (although I’ve observed in the past that he does also bear an uncanny resemblance to local politician Winston Peters), but it’s a pretty static pose, reach as it does for something a bit more dynamic The Doctor thrusts an accusatory finger at an unseen person – yeah, that’s sort of Pertwee-esque, I guess.

The costume he wears is without doubt his Season Eight/Terror of the Autons model, with purple-lined stain cape and red velvet jacket with some nice black frogging on the front.If that last sentence suggests to you that I’ve been frequenting cosplay blogs in search of colour clues for painting, then I admit it – I have. Pertwee’s Doctor is quite the clothes horse, with seemingly very few episodes where he shares exactly the same outfit (I could check, but probably won’t, that he even finds time to change between Frontier in Space and Planet of the Daleks, technically two interlinked stories.) Sadly, this mainly-black ensemble is the one we have, and after starting earlier with the First and Second Doctors, I’d got thoroughly sick of black by this time, and so I’ve added some other colours to my blacks, in an effort to try to introduce some sympathetic blending.

Thus, there’s some purple in the Doctor’s trousers here. I’m not sure if it entirely works, of r shows for that matter, but it makes me feel a little happier. I could, of course, paint black gloves on this Doctor as well, but, really, life’s too short. The only positive thing I could get from that is being able to overlook the distinctive Greek coin ring that Pertwee wore on one hand (fashioned from a relic he found while diving in the Mediterranean, you know) Otherwise it’s black shoes, black trousers, black cape and black frogging. With a dreary match-up like that there was only one thing for it base-wise, and that’s a vivid mustard-coloured rocky surface, recalling the famous tenth anniversary Radio Times cover. And we’re done!

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!

Lead Time Lords

So it's come to this - a Doctor Who-related post. Still, there's a cross-interest with this post as it's also about painting miniatures. And here they are.

These Doctors Who are for the most part examples of the range initially made by Harlequin Miniatures around 1998-2000, and subsequently bought and still for sale by Black Tree Designs. Harlequin's range was laudable but eccentric, and remains the pre-eminent version of DW miniatures in 28mm. Almost the entire old series was accounted for plus the TV Movie and two Peter Cushing films by Doctors, companions and other series regulars plus a serious stab at most of the show's best, worst and more infamous monsters. There were strange omissions among these though - no Rani, Meddling Monk or Valeyard for one, and Gallifrey was represented by one figure for the President (so no Borusae or Rassillon, no Chancellary Guard - not even a Maxil or Castellan). But as it went it wasn't a bad range in its time; some sculpts and likenesses were better than others, and the sizes were a bit understudied perhaps, but these factors can be surely overlooked by the range available, including several variants of Doctors Hartnell through Davison plus McCoy (there are three Fourth Doctors counting the deerstalker and cloak 'Talons' version).

Harlequin's/BTD's line ends with a small Paul McGann Era ensemble, and there is no official license for the new series. Eagle-eyed enthusiasts have found some pretty decent likenesses elsewhere though, as shown above. Heresy Miniatures, as part of their Scientists and Civilians range offer a "Dr Hugh McCrimmon", a "Malcolm Ecclescake" and a "Nerd Lord" which are pretty good likenesses for the newer Doctors, and enthusiasts have used figures from Heresy's range as well as Hasslefree Miniatures for a few other recent characters (a generic not-Buffy with some modification becomes Rose Tyler, for example), and for the time being these make-dos are as good as you'll get - if not better than the Harlequin jobs (and certainly better than the 1980s caricatures from Citadel).

So, story over, here's my little army of Doctors which were originally painted in quieter times a couple of years ago, though none are what I'd call complete, needing for the most part some highlighting and work on the faces. The Sixth Doctor's coat is a work in progress (famous last words), as is the Fourth Doctor's scarf. The Eighth Doctor is simply undercoated black, with a drybrush of grey to help the detail along (for some reason Harlequin gave him a perm and a HUGE head); the more recent acquisitions are awaiting even a proper undercoat, just given a thin wash of black for a bit of detail again. The Third Doctor isn't a bad Pertwee likeness, though takes on an air of Winston Peters from some angles - there's an alternative pose I'd like to get and paint in Time Warrior colours to break up the run of Doctors In Black the Terror of the Autons version seems to muster. Oh, and the alternative Fourth Doctor with hat and shorter scarf is a figure with great character and attire fit for a time when you want a touch of burgundy but don't want to go all Season Eighteen.

Miniature painting, I keep saying, is a winter sport and I have the aforementioned Tolkein Grenadier minis to redo as well. Wish me luck!