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.

Geek Like Me

'Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks' by Ethan Gilsdorf (2012)

On a recommendation from the Save or Die podcast I recently read through Ethan Gilsdorf's Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks, an autobiographical journey by the author, a journalist, who revisits an Eighties childhood of roleplaying games through literally revisiting and immersing himself in many of the elements past and present of a fantasy geek lifestyle. Along the way he meets other gamers, lifestylers and geeks, some of whom also tell their story through Gilsdorf.

Gilsdorf is around my age, but got into gaming earlier, and seemed to stick with it larger, and yet his experiences of leaving the game seem pretty familiar to anyone who has left home, entered adult institutions and fumbled their way through the sought treasures and pitfalls of adult relationships. In fact, the author's late childhood of nursing a severely disabled mother while entering his teens weighs heavily on the narrative, as does his confessed difficulty with committing to his longtime girlfriend. In a way, the premise of the book as quest oriented helps tell his story - the work of the journalist being one of discovery, detective, conflict and intuition, much like that of an RPG character; however, it's a piecemeal journey, with interruptions, revisions and deviations. There's also an returning element in Gildorf's writing that admits to a form of arrested maturity in the writer - something he explains in part to his unenviably difficult teens, but nevertheless it intrudes into the narrative. In short, there are times when the quest seems to be aimed at more than just awakening and examining the geek in Gilsdorf's head, but also pursuing a warrior queen of his very own, and to me it sat uncomfortably.

Nevertheless, there's plenty here to absorb if, like Gilsdorf, you've been somewhat divorced from the world of roleplaying games and are interested in how its various worlds - tabletop gaming, LARPing, historical reenactment, online MORPGs and fan culture, have evolved. As anyone who has followed the fortunes of games like Dungeons and Dragons can attest, the fortunes of the game and its community have waned and waxed over the years and fought their share of demons - from Eighties Satanic Panic to the collapse of many of its gaming studios, to the emergence of new media and the digital age. I found a lot of interest in Gilsdorf's visit to the spiritual antecedents of RPGs, in particular Guedelon in France, where a castle is being constructed strictly according to mediaeval methods including manpower, and the modern re-enactors, whose lives I do not envy, but dedication and philosophy intrigues me.

Perhaps the book rather extends its stay, though. The coda, a visit to New Zealand, seemed tacked on to complete Gilsdorf's mission of visiting a fantasy world up close and offer the best chance to immerse himself in one post-Lord of the Rings movie trilogy. But anyone who has tried to accomplish this will probably tell a similar story of the variable fortunes of attempting to meet screen with reality. It's a rather flat ending, and somewhat unsatisfying. I recommend Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks with some hesitation, but will say that its coverage for the time is pretty generous, and while told from a US perspective, doesn't seem to be especially parochial. Gilsdorf himself comes across as a pretty intense individual - sometimes apologetically so, and as noted above, this personality drives a lot of his book: your mileage may vary. Fr my pafrt I finished the book a little less patient with its writer, but happy to have been on some of his journey at least.

Here, recently posted on YouTube is Gilsdorf's original films of his teenage gaming group in jittery, blurry Super 8, with the soundtrack 'Kids' from Stranger Things. As an artefact of its time it's damned near perfect.

May to September

The last three months have been a bit of a blur. And Gorillaz, some TV and film, modelling and RPGs. And podcasting, of course. And work. Lots and lots of work. Some of this will be covered over the next month as I undertake yet another wave of blog in-fill, So watch this space...

The Little Shop - second Hour

Now, I'm not normally a fan of the phrase "dairy conversion" most of the time, but here I'll make an exception.

Here's the latest on my Little Shop of Hours:

It turns out etching in brickwork can be five parts misery and five parts delight when it comes to painting! But on the whole I'm deid chuffed with the colours of the bricks (done somewhat on the fly) and once I'd sorted out a fitting colour for the sills and window frames (good old, though now a little clumpy Catachan Green) things fitted in better. Which is more than can be said for the roof section, which seems to have warped in construction, but we'll get there. Up next: winders and doers!

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!

Bat bricks

Junior and I made a Batcave.  He dictated, and I sourced the bricks and made sure things stayed together and worked.  Come with us for a tour!

The Batcave took six to eight weeks to build, as it filled a number of evenings and wet weekend days, with constant revision, experimentation and checking with the Foreman on whether this was what he had in mind (he slept, mainly.)  We were never going to be able to afford a modern - or even retro set, so we made our own, a combination of what we'd seen in other sets, and what we wanted to have in our own (the toilet was an early addition.)  It took ages, and drove me a little crazy sometimes, but having tried and failed on at least three occasions before, I persevered for the last big push. The breakthrough? When I realised that unlike all the other AMAZING Batcaves across the internet, ours didn't need to be all-black or all-grey,and could use the same '66 Batman hypercolour approach if we wanted. From then on, I realised we could colour code the set for different activity zones, and we were off!

The Batcave is now in repose, back in bits and pieces in the usual Lego boxes. More recently, Jet Jr has expressed his desire for a Lego TARDIS. Hmm... I wonder...

Every Batcave needs a power source, so here's Two Face next to the 66-inspired Atomic Pile

Bat-Toilet! No other Lego Batcave set has one. I checked.

The core of our Batcave is Junior's old Lego Juniors Batcave. One day: batpoles.

In the meantime, Wayne Manor's outside walls make for good climbing practice, old chum!

A Mighty Micros Batcopter pimped out '66-style, with turbos and wings. The helipad rotates, of course!

Batsuits, Batwings and Batarangs in '89 colour scheme. The rungs lead to the helipad

The garage. We made our own '66 Batmobile out of an old Lego Jr Spider-Man car. Take that, Marvel!

Alfred uses his Butler's entrance to the Bat Computer Lab to inform Master Wayne he has a visitor in the kitchen.

The Joker - that Nefarious Knave of Notoriety is loose in the Bat Laboratory!

Gassing Up.

'I've Got to Go to Work...'

...meanwhile, in Gotham City, Commissioner Gordon strikes up the Batsignal

basing some of the Cave on the Lego Batman '66 model, we made out own Manor floor with sliding bookcase.

Bricklite switch for the Bat Toilet!

The sloping roof is hinged for Batpole access.

One of Jr's favourite bits, the non-canonical Moosehead.

Villains' Rock! Another made-up bit on a shelf of stone.

In his study in Stately Wayne Manor Bruce Wayne looks out the window...

The full thing. Pretty moveable, in case you were wondering!

Wonderful

Wonder Woman (dir Patty Jenkins, 2017)

So this is what winning feels like?

After the turbulence of DC's first three (and largely male-dominated) superhero outings, the time has finally arrived for Diana of Themyscira/Wonder Woman to fully take the lead. Very happily - and despite assurances from too many places that WB could do no right, Patty Jenkins' film is a triumph.

It's not only director Patty Jenkins who is vindicated here, of course. There's the matter of the casting of Gal Gadot by Zack Snyder; set up in BvS and, by all accounts, widely regarded as the highlight of that movie by audience reaction. Gadot's early casting image and announcement was, while not controversial, not without comment from the peanut gallery  and a fair amount of it negative. "Too skinny!" "too dark!" "Not American-looking enough!" (??) "She should be [insert actor from other IP/MMA fighter]. But once again, Snyder's casting eye has been proved dead-on, and our new Wonder Woman is truly a household name. Not bad for an actor on the verge of quitting Hollywood.

Gadot is helped along the way of course by a very capable supporting cast: Connie Nielsen is majestic as Hippolyta, Robin Wright is formidable, Chris Pine every bit his charismatic self as romantic lead Steve Trevor, Danny Huston intimidating as Ludendorf, David Thewlis layered in his role, and Ewan Bremner and Lucy Davis? Just fantastic. The story is straightforward, but not too by-the-books, and I would say perfect for a full-length debut. There are equal pars humour and emotion, and the film's European and WW1 setting is both unusual and novel - we definitely need to see superhero movies escape modern day US more, and with a near-immortal as its hero Wonder Woman was a very good choice indeed

There are a few weak spots, naturally. The setting, as contained as it is, occasionally makes the film seem small in scope, and the CG-heavy finale, while de rigeur, doesn't counteract this. But when used for Themyscira it's wonderful, and the intimacy of the movie actually helps the story (plus Diana and Steve's dance in the snow at Veld looks beautiful)

Foe the moment, though, the big win for Wonder Woman the movie and character is its message. The power of love is a tough sell - even tougher in an age of digital explosions, outlandish set pieces and  epic battles. Unless those things are part of the message (in which case, god help us all), then the story has to go small - but Wonder Woman does it's damnedest to have it both ways, throwing in sacrifice, mercy, and the unforgettable bravery of the No Man's Land scene, and Diana emerges from all of these things stronger, more sure of her purpose, and still the same idealist she was as too adorable youngster back on her island paradise. That's winning.

The next movie is going to have to work very hard to top this.