Happy Birthday Doctor!

50 Years ago a very strange man stepped out of a time and space travelling blue police box. Five decades later, he's still doing it! Yes, it's Doctor Who's birthday, frankly, if you are British you'd have to have lived under a rock not to know. Sorry non-Whovians, I'm throwing my hat into the ring too!

I had already painted a fair few pieces of Doctor Who stuff but I knew I wanted to do something extra for the 50th anniversary. Then Andy Foster of Heresy Miniatures brought out his Dr. Payne miniature which bore an uncanny resemblance to John Hurt's "War Doctor" from the anniversary episode (haven't seen it at the time of writing). The plan crystallised: I would represent one of each of the available regenerations of the Doctor. A quick order to Andy and suddenly my one Doctor had become four! Let's go in chronological order, which we now know to be:

John Hurt. I am very chuffed with how this one came out. My favourite of the three new ones. His costume was painted from vague promotional shots so I might need to make some small adjustments after the episode tonight. The black leather I'll talk about in the Ecclestone section, but of the rest the most interesting bits are actually the waistcoat and hair. In the shots I could get my hands on the waistcoat is a rust red with bronze brocade. Now, I'm not a Golden Demon winning lunatic so I needed to indicate the effect without actually painting it! What I ended up doing was putting a red basecoat mixed from Mephiston Red and Mournfang Brown. Adding XV-88 to the mix gave me a slightly yellow tone of the base colour which was mottled on to the base colour. A wash of Reikland Fleshtone and a remottling with more XV-88 added finished a nice deep layered colour that was a good approximation of what the waistcoat looks like from distance. The hair was one of those revalation moments. John Hurt has that salt-and-pepper greying hair that is so hard to paint. I suddenly figured how to do it. Basecoat the hair and beard with Dryad Bark. Then drybrush the hair first with Astronomicon Grey and then Ulthuan Grey. Go heavier on the beard, beards grey first and faster (trust me). Finally wash the whole hair with Agrax Earthshade. The finished effect looks pretty right. Another one for the memory banks!

Chris Ecclestone comes next in the timeline. Frankly, the reason I left the black leather description for this chap is that there is not a lot else to his paint job! The first of the New-Who Doctors had the most BORING costume! I've played with a lot of different methods for black leather but I like this one a lot. Basecoat with Val Leather Brown. Next, glaze with multiple layers of black wash. I used Secret Weapon Heavy Body Black as this stains quite badly and is fairly shiny. Perfect for this task. Two layers of that gave that lovely brown-black tone. A light drybrush of Val Leather Brown around the edges reinforced the worn leather look and finished it off nicely. As I reckon the Eccleston coat is the same one from the Hurt incarnation I painted them identically. Next death!

David Tennant, the man who made Russell T Davies's scripts watchable. Great Doctor. I'm not completely happy with the face, might have another go at some point (I only really had a day to paint these three). His painting is fairly unremarkable but if someone wants to replicate the colours: the suit is Val Luftwaffe Blue and Macragge Blue mixed. The coat is Val English Uniform highlighted with Val US Field Drab. Athonian Camoshade glazes and shades the colour nicely. Some mucky red and white Converse trainers finish his "look". Mucky white is fairly easy. Ceramite White is washed in a thin mix of Steel Legion Drab and then highlighted with a mix of Ceramite White and Steel Legion Drab. Simples. Another death, another Doctor:

My Matt Smith doctor was painted a while ago (he's my favourite NewWho to date, see). I have a full article on him from back then so I won't go over it and instead talk basing for a moment:

The bases are the nice Black Cat base toppers, metal casts. For three of the Doctors I've used their victorian brick paving as it fits the time bothering nature of the character. For whatever reason Chris Ecclestone's Doctor always feels more rooted in a council estate in Norf Landon so he got an urban one instead.

So there you have it. My tribute to one of my favourite sci-fi characters. Why do I like the Doctor so much? Well, the format helps, he can have a new setting, a new foe every week. The enemies are mostly ace (occasionally deeply naff) and when it is well done it is creepy without being traumatic so you can watch it with kids. But the most important thing? Do me a favour, picture in your head what you hear when I say "Male lead, action hero". I'm guessing that there will be clean cut, cool, probably all-American, square-jawed hero probably with a firearm. The Doctor is smart, dorky, pacifist and awkward. He solves his problems with tricks, cunning and guile. Violence is always a last resort but he can stick up for himself if he needs to. And with all of that he is still awesome. A manic blur of energy and complex vocabulary in a malfunctioning spaceship. There are precious few decent role models for geeky lads. The ones who will never be jocks. Never be cool, top of the attainment tables and bottom of the heap status-wise. The Doctor is their hero, and he's always coming to save the day.

So where next with my own little Whoniverse? Well, that rather depends on how many of us wheedle Andy to make more Doctors! I want all of 'em! I'd like companions too, there are models out there but their likenesses aren't as good as Heresy's. More bad guys are definately in the offing. If I can find Cybermen then they are in. Probably some Weeping Angels from Crooked Dice. Otherwise known as Paint All The Things! I doubt they'll ever make it to a wargame, they're the closest thing to display models I do. So happy birthday Doctor Who. May you have many, many more.

TTFN

Victory of the Daleks!

Greetings all, remember these guys?

Well, at the same time I acquired three more to represent the three daleks featured in the ace episode "Victory of the Daleks", really, spitfires in space? How can you beat that? I did a lot of work on them at the time and then forgot about them for ages. Tonight I finished them and can share with the world!

The three daleks are composed of one of the bronze/brass Daleks up in orbit and two Daleks pretending to be "Bracewell's Ironsides". We'll look at those first:

Obviously, Black Tree's Daleks don't come with the webbing that the Ironsides have. This was added by first skimming the "striped" middle area with ProCreate to cover that up. Into the soft putty was pressed two of the triple pouches from the Space Marine Assault Squad sprue. I then added the belts by rolling thin sausages of ProCreate and then pressing them flat. I cut the buckles into the strap and then left to harden. Colours needed to be the classic British WWII vehicle green (best match is Vallejo Russian Uniform) which was then toned with a glaze of Black-green ink and a thin wash of Badab Black. The webbing was painted in English Uniform and a mix of English Uniform and Khaki.

I deliberately chose the most warped and distorted casting (gods I wish Black Tree would commission some new masters as they are the ONLY place you can get these) to be the orbital Dalek. The Doctor mentions that they are old, damaged and at the end of their rope. Thus a slightly mangled casting worked well. The colours started with a very heavy drybrush of Tin Bitz. A 50:50 mix of Tin Bitz and Dwarf Bronze followed by pure Dwarf Bronze was then drybrushed over to build up the texture and the colour. Finally a mix of Dwarf Bronze and Mithril Silver provided the high point highlighting before a glaze of Brown and Yellow ink mixed in roughly a 1:2 ratio was applied to warm and deepen the shade. Finally the "Dalek Bumps" were painted in with Vallejo Brass. Finishing touches were picking out the silver elements with chainmail and the rubber elements with Charadon Granite and washed with Badab Black.

I'm still looking for a name to call all of these film and TV models I keep painting. Small Screen Soldiers didn't work for me nor did Celluloid Champions (although that one is better). Any bright ideas?

EDIT:

Thanks to Pete we now have a name for the range of TV and Film inspired miniatures that I've been painting, they will now be Cathode Ray Conquerors!

For those born more recently than I you can find out what the hell a Cathode Ray is by clicking here. Thanks Pete!

Thats all for now, more harlequins before the end of the week, until then...

TTFN

Exterminate! EXTERMINATE!

Here they are, the on-ly tru-ly su-per-i-or be-ings in the gal-ax-y! The Daleks:

I couldn't let my Doctor continue for long without his arch nemeses. The problem with Daleks though is they are very definately recognisable as Daleks, you can't make "Pepper Pot Space Robots" and expect to get away with it. As a result there is only one source for 28mm Daleks out there: Black Tree Designs (formally Harlequin) who have the license for the pre-Eccleston years. Now I was not expecting perfection from these figures. They are after all really quite old sculpts, I was however expecting little more than the results when they arrived.

This is the back of the figures. Now this is after I spent some considerable time cleaning them up. There is a huge mold line up the front and the back row of nobbles were fused into long ovals. I ground out the nobbles with my dremel but short of carving out and resculpting the back section there was nothing to be done. After a good bit of grumbling I decided that I would just give them a fairly simple paint job rather than trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. I suspect that the problem is mold degredation. Normally you would cast a new mold from tins taken from the master mold but I have a nasty feeling that it is the master mold that may be on the way out for these fellas. Still, they are Dalek shaped and that is the main thing.

On the positive side the eyestalks are ace! The plungers needed to be dremelled out to give them more of a plunger "dip" in the middle (could have said concave I suppose!). As far as painting I was in a quandry. There are many different shades of Dalek schemes, While I like the Eccleston/Tennant era bronze I was always more fond of the old school grey/black. I do have another three of these which are getting converted (two into the WW2 Ironside Daleks and one Bronze/brass one to represent the participants in Victory of the Daleks) to allow me to field all sorts of different era Daleks (how? With what rules? Under what circumstances? Who cares?! I'm geekin' out here). The paint scheme was created with an Adeptus Battlegrey and Boltgun Metal mix to give a metallic grey. The nobbles were painted a dark grey and given a gloss vanish. Any glowing blue bits were simply painted flat white and then glazed in blue ink. Oh and while we mention the nobbles there are 52 on each Dalek. That is 204 for the four. This was not a quick job.

To give the Daleks someone to O-bey, I painted the fourth Dalek as a black Dalek Supreme (mostly for variety). Essentially he is just highlighted black with a gloss varnish and nobbles painted in the same mix as his more basic comrades.

Well, there we go, not the greatest models on Earth but they are Daleks and thus cool! They are the right scale to fit in with Heresy's Dr Hugh and from the front aren't bad looking at all. Now if only someone would sculpt some cybermen worthy of the name! As a final thought, while Black Tree own the classic Doctor licence I can't understand why anyone hasn't gone for the new era license. With all the various companies and sculptors making tribute figures would it not be better to be able to make the Ood? The Sontarans? The Judoon? Heck, if everyone making tribute now was up for it I would apply for the license and retroactively commission the real figures. We could make quite the co-operative venture. Anyone interested drop me a line ;)

Check back on Saturday for my review of the Finecast Dark Elf Bolt Thrower kindly reserved by my FLGS (thanks Firestorm Games). I'll give it a fair and open review and I've got samples of Forgeworld and Privateer resin to compare against. Till then

TTFN

A Madman with a Box

First off, apologies for my silence over the last week. To make up for it, here is the greatest space ship in all the galaxy!

Yes! The Doctor has his TARDIS at last. [See parts one and two for my other Dr Who themed models.] This is of course not a model of the TARDIS but rather the "Glaswegian Police Box" from Hasslefree which just so happens to resemble a TARDIS...

The model is a beautiful sculpt, cast in resin and cut at the lower edge of the roof to allow all that lovely cutout detailing in the roof sections to exist. The model had precious little flash, no voids and no casting blocks, quite a stark - but pleasant! - contrast for someone who has mostly bought Forgeworld resin. The quality of the casting is such that the POLICE markings are engraved in the resin:

And yes, I know that the TARDIS is supposed to have Police Call Box and all sorts but this is good enough damnit! Painting in this sort of detail is simplicity itself, just black out the section with the thinnest coat of black you can manage and then allow capillary action to pull thinned white paint from the brush into the detail. A couple of layers like this builds up the colour and the results are very nice. Another favourite outcome are the windows:

I debated whether to paint the windows glowing white as though the TARDIS was active. In the end though I decided that the simplicity of the model would work better with the inactive glass effect. This is really simple for those who haven't tried it: The trick is to avoid blue entirely and start with a basecoat of Fenris Grey, shade down the appropriate areas (i.e. top and side of a lens or low and side of windows like this). Once dry you can add a little Space Wolves Grey to the Fenris and add highlights, a little catchlight of white and a gloss varnish seals the deal nicely.

And that is that really, this last fortnight has been a bad one for the good people of chez pirate viking. In between deaths of family members-in-law and my car failing to save vs. immobalisation and getting scrapped there hasn't been a lot of room for painting. Once I am back from visiting folks I shall get with the mojo again and crank out some more exciting things for you all. Till then:

TTFN

High Elves and K9!

It's been a quiet week on the blog hasn't it? Well, here are the fruits of my latest labours:

I've recently acquired the frankly gorgeous Island of Blood High Elves. I spent a long time wandering the halls of the interwebs looking at colour schemes and combinations. I didn't want to do the stereotypical blue and white but needed a "clean" look to the army. I finally found one that was almost entirely cream, brown and gold on cool mini or not and loved the effect. The effect is very subtle and looks better in real life than in photography but I'm really happy with the finished look.

The colour combination basecoat is Dheneb Stone for the cream, Scorched Brown for the leather and Khemri Brown for the woodwork. The metalwork is simply Mithril Silver washed with a 1:1 blend of Badab Black and Asurman Blue and rehighlighted with Mithril Silver. The leatherwork is worked up from the Scorched Brown by first highlighting with a 1:1 mix of Scorched Brown and Bestial Brown and then a final highlight of Bestial Brown before shading down with Devlan Mud. The cream is shaded down with Gryphonne Sepia and then gradually highlighted up again, first with Dheneb Stone and then with increasing amounts of Skull White added to the Dheneb Stone.

The woodwork is achieved by lining in the woodgrain with a mix of Khemri Brown and Bleached Bone and Khemri Brown and Chaos Black. I just got some new brushes - a brand called Raphael - and they are wonderful for this sort of work. I can't stress enough about how important good brushes are. You simply cannot paint well with lousy brushes, I know a bad craftsman blames his tools but you will never be a good craftsman without them. Shell out some cash (these are £5 each minimum) and then look after them! You'll be glad you did.

The cream would look a bit washed out without at least one accent colour to lift the scheme. I was going to go with a rich purple but thought that it would look weird on the dragons. Instead I figured a strong red would work better and went with it:

The only problem was the sea and seaweed-esque (a word I never thought I would type!) ribbons on some of the sea guard. It needed to work as a "sea" colour but not leap out of the model and alter the balance of the model. As a general tip, if you want a desaturated effect build it from a foundation colour. For this mix I used roughly 1:1 Hawk Turquoise and Adeptus Battlegrey with a tiny dot of Chaos Black. Highlights and shading were done simply with Skull White and more Chaos Black. I've talked a lot about red lately what with Blood Angels and all so simply put; the red on the High Elves is the standard Blood Angels method with a tiny bit of Liche Purple added to deepen the tone. I'm really happy with how the gemstones turned out. It's a tricky thing to explain but I hope to do a proper tutorial at some point. The only part I'm unhappy with is the skin. For some reason I tried to use Elf Flesh again, I don't know what I do wrong but it always, always ends up chalky and a bit naff. Thankfully these are rear rankers and won't be noticed in the unit. I'll be going back to my tried and tested Tallarn/Ogryn/Bone mixes thank you very much!

Also this week we have another in the series of Doctor "Hugh" models that Heresy are producing. I present K9 for your delification and delight!

I decided to paint him in his modern - slightly battered - form, his "skin" is a nice metallic grey tone that I had to really think about how to replicate. I ended up mixing Fenris Grey and Boltgun Metal with a little Chaos Black. Try this mix! It's great! I was so happy with the overall finish that I am trying to find an excuse to use it again. Maybe some truly grey Grey Knights... hmm, something to muse on. Anyway, more K9 pics!

Yep, that's a tartan collar. 1.5mm across. For this I can thank my dear lady wife who pointed out that K9 has a cute tartan collar and if I was being authentic then so would the model! Thanks dear! It turned out fairly nicely anyhow.

So here is a nice group shot of my growing Doctor Who "gang" to finish this post. I've just got the next lot of commission models from my Chaos client - an Alpha Legion rhino and some Emperor's Children Noise Marines - so these will be up soon!

TTFN

Trust me, I'm the Doctor...

The moment I saw these models on Heresy Miniatures website I absolutely had to have them. I've been loving the series and Matt Smith has been a brilliant choice only almost eclipsed by Karen Gillan. Painting was a breeze with both taking only about an afternoon each, so Ladies, Gentlemen and Derivations thereof (bonus geek points if you get the episode reference) I present to you - in deference to Heresy's naming structures avoiding the wrath of Aunty - Dr Hugh and Amelia Lake!

I love the work that Steve Buddle has put in to these models. Just to show how tiny and detailed these figures really are I have included a scale picture:

So, now to look at the good Doctor in more detail. The jacket was a real challenge. Tweed is not an easy effect to portray:

The only way to paint the tweed effect was to paint on a base layer and then hundreds of fine lines in a checker pattern, some with a redder tone to the base layer, some with a greener tone and some with a brown/black mix added for the dark lines. Please, please don't ask me what the exact colours were as I just eyeballed the layers. I know I started with Graveyard Earth over a Khemri basecoat and that I used Red Gore and Orkhide Flesh for the green and red shading but that is all! I shaded the jacket with Devlan Mud in the creases.

In the same manner, the shirt is actually a fine red pattern over grey that resolves at a distance as the fine lines you see painted on. I'm sure you will agree with me that it is the details that make this model. The sonic screwdriver, the clips on the braces, everthing. Wonderful work.

And so onwards to the plucky assistant!

The only parts that are really useful as painting advice are the hair and fabric. Painting convincing red hair is tough, too often you see bright orange masquerading as ginger (I have been guilty of it myself). Recently I figured it out: Vermin Brown basecoat, Devlan Mud wash, highlight with 2:1 Vermin Brown and Vomit Brown and finally 1:1 Vermin and Vomit browns. This gives a convincing red without making it look comical.

The leather jacket is deliberately over-highlighted with the edges and folds being almost pure fortress grey, this is to give the impression of light shining off it. I also gave it a thin coat of gloss varnish but don't rely on it to create the leather effect. You won't always have spotlights to help. The Denim is fairly easy, you need to use drybrushing to achieve the textured effect, a basecoat of shadow grey highlighted with fortress is my personal favourite.

Well that's all for today! Hope you like these models as much as I do. If you have any questions about technique or colour that I haven't covered then please ask in the comments. It is always nice to get comments, proves there are readers out there!

TTFN