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I've got a soft spot for Peter Davison's Fifth Doctor. Probably because his run on Doctor Who started with a couple of very strong science fiction stories – Logopolis and Castrovalva. And I think Earthshock is the definitive Cyberman story. So I started my new collection of 28mm Doctor Who miniatures with him. It's the first time I've painted a representation of celery in at that scale.



"Books! The best weapons in the world!"

The miniature was originally produced in or after 1996 by Harlequin Miniatures, and that company regenerated into Icon Miniatures and then regenerated again into Black Tree Design. I remember buying some in the mid-1990s when the Invasion Earth game was being haphazardly stocked by the geek shop in the centre of Manchester – the Coliseum. I'd like to collect the 1980s Games Workshop range of Doctor Who figures too, but the Harlequin ones are much more readily available and have a much bigger range of monsters and aliens to pit the Doctor against.



I really enjoyed painting his stripey trousers and cricket whites. There's another version of the figure actually holding the bat which I'll treat myself to at a future point when (if) I've found some other cricketeer figures. It would be the first time since being eleven-year-old nerd I would feel comfortable playing wargames on my Subbuteo Cricket pitch.

The wonderful thing about Doctor Who is that this one figure can be used alongside most of my other wargames figures. He marries historical and science fiction, and even at a pinch fantasy. I can stick him with my ex-Citadel Normans to recreate scenes like The Time Meddler or The Real Herewad – though neither involved the Fifth Doctor. (Perfect excuse to buy the First and Sixth Doctors as miniatures though.)



"Careful now, you'll have someone's eye out with that."
The Doctor supervising some peasant archers in 1066.

Games Workshop's early Imperial Army figures are suitably generic to stand in for future soldiers. I can use these Warhammer 40K figures as the Guild of Adjudicators from the 28th century as seen in Cold Fusion.



In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only Warhammers.
The Doctor supervising the peacekeeping force in 2766.

So, what next? The Doctor Who universe has all sorts of weird and exotic aliens. I'm going to focus on the Fifth Doctor's adversaries and companions next so I can play out my favourite episodes in the medium of wargames.

I am 100% behind the idea of randomly inserting the Doctor into pictures of armies from every game system out there.

Thanks LunarSol!

Time to kick off my collection of Doctor Who villains! Presenting Omega, the Time Lord who decided to name himself after his exam grades. It's the Gallifreyan equivalent of "F Minus", which now I say out loud does sound like a good rapper name



MC F Minus in da house, rappity rappity rap.

This miniature is the 1983 Arc of Infinity incarnation of Omega. I've eschewed the bone and black scheme he was seen in the show, and went for a glowing red scheme – referencing the crimson bubble of time he became trapped in immediately between The Three Doctors and Arc of Infinity.

The classic pitfall of single-colour miniatures is it's hard to understand the overall form. To counter this I've lightened the red as it rises on the miniature, to draw attention to the chest and helmet.



Arc of Infinity Omega.

The helmet design of the miniature isn't too close to the show, missing the bauble on top and having different placement of the pipes. The sculpt does capture the puffiness of the jacket nicely. I'd like to paint another version of the miniature to match the incarnation on the show, the freehand on the cloak would be a fun challenge.



Omega and the Fifth Doctor.

Because he wears an evil cape and ostentatious helmet I thought it only fitting to give him a more dramatic base with a big slab of rock. He now towers over his foes and becomes the master of ceremonies in any scene.



Omega's minions lead the Doctor at gunpoint across a quarry.

I'd also like to paint a third version with a headswap from the Fifth Doctor miniature to represent the Arc of Infinity scene where his helmet peels off and reveals he's become Peter Davison thanks to the bio-data extract he stole on Gallifrey. But there's plenty of other Doctor Who villains to get to.

Great stuff, and nicely painted.

Thanks for the comments!

Not quite Doctor who, but released by Citadel at the at the same time as they had the Who license, and can be any one of several character in scenarios.

Over at the turbo-niche Night Horrors and Gothic Horror group, Ashley’s running a Halloween painting competition – paint one of these magical or mythological creatures from the titular ranges by Citadel Miniatures.



“Here’s looking at you, kid.”

Games Workshop had the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game licence in 1985–1987, and released a whole slew of pulp era characters to fit into H.P. Lovecraft’s stories. This miniature is LE3 Gumshoe Bogart – based very firmly on Humphrey Bogart’s character in Casablanca.



“Roleplay it again, Sam.”

The miniature’s cigarette doubles as a metal run-out point for casting. Even though I trimmed it down it’s still a bit too long. Suspiciously long. Less Casablanca, more Casablunta.



“I came to Casablanca for the water elementals.”

The photo above has enough colour for two shots, so I’ve enseipaed the next one. I normally preach that people throwing their photography into sepia is a way of crutch bad painters use to try passing off their photography as art – but since Casablanca was a black and white film I can dodge that accusation.



Bogart on the trail of the Valpurgius Cult.

This is the second of Games Workshop’s borrowed movie characters I’ve painted recently, the first being Indiana Jones from the Rogue Trader RT601 Adventurers range. These two characters both wear fedoras and both call people “kid”, which is a spooky coincidence. Well, it is Halloween…



“Go ahead and shoot. You’ll be doing me a favor.”

I look forward to collecting some more Citadel Gothic Horror miniatures. The next holy grail is Idaho Smith – the range’s Indiana Jones homage. Or the Doctor Who figures they resculpted with new heads.

For two years now I've entered a turbo-niche Halloween painting competition where entrants have to paint one piece from Citadel Miniatures' insanely characterful Night Horrors or Gothic Horror ranges – the two 1980s ranges designed to support Games Workshop's Call of Cthulhu licence. As last year I painted one half of the classic Citadel LE3 Gumshoe Detectives duo, Bogart, it seemed only right this year to paint his partner – Cagney.



Bogart and Cagney: 50% Bogart & Bacall, 50% Cagney & Lacey.

Bogart's moody trenchcoat with upturned collar, one hand in pocket and nonchalant cigarette make him instantly recognisable as a noir detective. However, Cagney was very much a a man in a plain suit (with a gun). He could easily be a mistaken for wedding guest (with a gun), a 1970s newsreader (with a gun), or an estate agent (with a gun). In order to align him with the contest's theme of REAL ULTIMATE EVIL, I thought I'd plough some effort into the base. (Actually, an estate agent is pretty close to REAL ULTIMATE EVIL, so maybe I should have gone in that direction.)



Newspapers are a shrinking industry.

The newspaper on the base is a rendition of the Sydney Morning Herald , with the he headline ALERT SUNK is a reference to the Call of Cthulhu story where Cthulhu gets his head rammed over by the steam yacht Alert. (Thanks for coming up with that idea, Michal.) I painted the headline as small as I could on a piece of thin card and then cut it out so I didn't have to worry about the normal freehand space constraints.



With the newspaper done, I figured I'd model the base as Sydney harbourside. The lapping waves effect were taken from sho3box's Man O'War Nurgle fleet (thanks sho3y). I added a Chaos Spawn tentacle to explain why Cagney's drawn his gun. With that done, I figure he's firmly anchored in the lands of Call of Cthulhu investigator.



The dynamic duo at a harbourside warehouse rumoured to be focus of cult activity, while two totally normal stevedores go about their totally normal business.

The LE3 Gumshoe Detectives, while part of the Gothic Horror range, are also part of the numbered limited editions series that Citadel Miniatures pumped out in the late 1980s. I'd like to paint up all twenty five of the codes, and am planning the LE1 Space Orc soon.



LE2 Space Marine and both LE3 Gumshoe Detectives.

Gotta think what to do for next year's entry now. The Night Horrors range and Gothic Horrors are chockful of characterful one-off miniatures. Both detectives were resculpted at least twice for rerelease later in the Gothic Horror range, so I'll see if I can track down those. I'm also obsessed by the Doctor Who miniatures that were slightly resculpted and released as Gothic Horror pieces too! Roll on 2019's competition!

Cagney came first in the competition, meaning I defended my title from last year. Congratulations to the other entrants who got their pieces finished to the deadline, and thanks to Ashley for organised the contest – why not join the group on Facebook yourself?

In related news, I won a statuette at Golden Demon this weekend, and I'll be publishing the stage-by-stage tutorial on Patreon later this week.


More of my miniatures at: www.ninjabread.co.uk
Painting tutorials at: www.patreon.com/ninjabread

Nice work on Cagney, and great thread all round. Lovely classic stuff. Congratulations on the statuette too!

Wow awesome stuff! That newspaper is stunning! You are doing a fantastic job of bringing these old sculpts to life. I am still trying to decide is that space marine is the original one or the one released a year or two ago

Love the thematic pictures by the way!

I really enjoy your work, I've read your blog every once in a while. Your painting and photography are both top-notch, and reading about obscure miniatures that I've most often never known about is really interesting!

When I was a child watching Doctor Who, I was fascinated by the idea that in the future the Doctor would undergo his twelfth and final regeneration into the thirteenth Doctor, and I would be there to watch it. THAT FUTURE IS HERE! NOW!



Doctor Who-oo! HEY! Doctor Who! Doctor Who-ooo! HEY! The TARDIS!

This is Warlord Games’ rendition of the Thirteenth Doctor, in miniature form. Technically Jodie Whittaker is the fifteenth regeneration, or infinity-eth regeneration, but whatever the canon is she represents that magical point I imagined with wide-eyed wonder when I was a child.



Various official Time Lord miniatures across the decades.

The Thirteenth Doctor is a very much an incarnation of the current trend for realistic proportions and subtle details. Compare the head-to-body ratios or the chunkiness of the clothing folds with the earlier licensed Doctor Who ranges above and you can see how the times they are a-changin’.

The details are too subtle at points on the Thirteenth Doctor, with areas like the shirt’s neckline just one coat of paint away from disappearing entirely, or her hands ending up cast as amorphous stumps you have to freehand the fingers onto. Some of the more recent unofficial Doctor Who-inspired ranges, (like Crooked Dice’s or Heresy Miniatures’ shown below) have a better grasp of how to design a modern miniature with detail that cast well and is fun to paint.



Left to right: Time Lord, Fifth Doctor, Sontaran, Roj Blake and Thirteenth Doctor.

But enough dwelling in the past and back to the present day – let’s talk about the TARDIS!



*VWORP VWORP VWORP*

This TARDIS is a single piece resin casting that comes moulded in a fetching blue colour. It’s an iconic British spaceship that connected with something really deep down in my childhood. I painted it with a subtle woodgrain effect on the doors (similar to the wooden Trebuchet featured in the recent Patreon tutorial), using Vallejo Model Colour Heavy Blue as the starting colour.

[img width=1000 height=666]https://www.ninjabread.co.uk/images/doctor-who/warlord-games-thirteenth-doctor-who-tardis-full-angles.jpg[/img]

Did you know: while the TARDIS props are constructed almost entirely from wood, the police boxes they’re based on are concrete with wooden doors?

The TARDIS miniatures suffers from visible build lines in the roof that betray the fact that the master was designed in a computer. And, like the Doctor, the sculpted detail is dangerously subtle – the “FREE FOR USE OF PUBLIC” notice is scarcely there, and won’t pick up a shading wash. Worse yet, the entire piece has undergone the moulding process at an angle which means the castings are skewed into a parallelogram shape.



Despite the flaws, I am really pleased to have painted these icons of British science fiction and have them available for games.



The Doctor exploring a mysterious alien signal in Blaenau Gwent.

Coming soon! More heroes that ride around in blue boxes. Ninjabread out!

More miniatures at: https://www.ninjabread.co.uk/
Painting tutorials at: https://www.patreon.com/ninjabread

Nice to see you back, always enjoyable.

And...they have Blake's 7 minis...?? That's tempting.

Nice work Curis

Cheers,

CB

Excellent job in painting up both 13 and the Tardis. Those braces are spot on as are all of your colours. Overall the Warlord Who range looks pretty good, there seems like the odd clunker of a sculpt (mostly facially, as with here the face just seems a touch too angry for Jodie).

Hope to see you tackle more of the range.