Saturday 16 May 2009

Doctor Who in 6mm

I was inspired recently to return to an old project by a post over on the excellent Firezone Studios Blog, that made a similar use of some 'Not' Daleks, otherwise known as the NSF7 Attack Robot from Irregular Miniatures:


I've been a fan of the BBC show since I saw my first episode way back in 1975 or so, probably the Green Death (I'll never forget those giant maggots!), that was shown on the cusp of the Tom Baker-era, he who will forever be 'my' idea of the Doctor. I was absolutely charmed, then to discover that Irregular did some interesting look-alike models in their 6mm Sci-Fi range, and just had to get some to paint up as various versions of the arch enemy of all arch enemies, the Daleks!

Unfortunately, there were no other 'Not' miniatures available, so I had to persevere and trawl various ranges to provide other characters from the show. The Riot and Civilian ranges provided a couple of figures that would serve as Tom Baker and his companion, and a quick and somewhat rough-looking scratch build (Very small effects budgets on that show- don't you know!), provided his means of transport, the T.A.R.D.I.S., as you see above.

Next, of course, bearing in mind that the Doctor would need some armed backup, I invested in some of VN9, the Green Berets from the Vietnam range to stand in for the beret-wearing 1970s era U.N.I.T troops, although, I'm yet to find a suitable 'Brigadier' as their leader; perhaps a figure from amongst their WWI miniatures, I wonder...


At least I had to have the ubiquitous Land Rover for the Command Stand, and here, in terms of scale, I found the Navwar BM32 the best fit, Irregular's own offering being rather squashed and ugly:



Just like Phil over at Firezone, I wanted to cast the net wider for other villains that the Doctor might face, and was reinvigorated in my search by his work with his own Daleks; skimming the GZG website for another project, I knew I had found my Sontarans; those clone-warriors could only be depicted by their DM135, UNSC Marines in HardSuit, the best fit for those helmet wearing potato-heads, if I ever saw one:


Commander Lynx leads his troops into the quiet of the English Home Counties:


Now a look at my own meglomaniac pepper-pots, here in their Tom Baker 'Genesis of the Daleks' grey livery:


again, here in their newer outfits for the recent series of the show:


and appearing on behalf of the Imperial Faction, some white ones alongside a scratch-built (well, filed down) Heavy Weapons Dalek:


Next, the Doctor and his companion wished they had turned left instead of right after leaving Gallifrey, and come face to face with Daleks of an earlier era, those who needed a metal surface to travel on!
Finally, framed by two of his enemies, the Doctor wonders just who will appear next; depending of course, if I can come up with some other likely stand-in minis.....Cybermen anyone?



2 comments:

  1. Excellent work. I grew up with John Pertwee as The Doctor, though Tom Baker was certinly my favourite. JP drove around in a ridiculous yellow vintage car - Bessy or Betsy or some such.
    You must get a figure for The Master - the best villain of the show.
    That episode with the giant maggots was superb! You should certainly make some of those!
    Good luck with it and keep us posted!

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  2. Hi Mad Carew, of course, I knew something was missing...the Master! How we can represent Roger Delagado's moodiness in 6mm I'm not quite sure however!

    I always think John Pertwee took himself a bit too seriously, although he certainly introduced the action element into the character; I liked Baker's 'otherworldliness' - he actually had the feeling of being an alien - with those mad eyes - and the jelly babies of course!

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