Dr Who in 6mm: Invasion of the Dinosaurs

I remember fondly, many moons ago, at the twilight of the John Pertwee era of the BBC series Dr Who, watching some episodes that absolutely terrified me. Young as I was, I suppose it was quite an impressionable age, but the life-like and realistic depictions of terrible monsters roaming the streets of a deserted London left a great impression on my mind.

Having come, then, to rather a stalemate in my search for suitable enemy proxy figures to expand my vision of recreating Dr Who with 6mm miniatures, I decided to fall back on this unique addition to the hall of TV monster adversaries.

This post then, will see me looking at some of the available minis, and how they might take their place alongside the Sontarans, U.N.I.T. and the Daleks.

For those of you unaware of the original episodes, or for those who were there first time around, but have memories faded by later, inferior movies, I present to you a Fan tribute posted by someone on YouTube, which should explain all.....Cringe with terror, then, and be amazed at the special effects as you view the Invasion of the Dinosaurs!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlZnFUn72VQ

If you have recovered from the shock, let's move on with looking at some minis. I was aware that Magister Militum have an interesting range of metal dinosaurs, but was rather put off by the price, as well as the fact that their scale/size is mainly a little large for 6mm purposes. A trawl through their catalogue, however, came up with some likely contenders:

http://www.navigatorminiatures.com/prodtype.asp?PT_ID=939&strPageHistory=cat

Firstly, let's look at their DIN109 Gasosaurus, from their Menacing Monsters range:

This is a lovely sculpt of a suitably menacing biped, with hints of a junior T-Rex about it; some great looking teeth, too! The models are made at 1/160th scale, and come with a nice set of written details as to the historical animal, as well as a 40x20mm base made of hard, smooth plastic. This particular model retails at UK £2.00, so won't break the bank either, standing at around 22mm tall, and 34mm long.

Next up, influenced of course by the villains of Jurassic Park, I decided on the raptor-like DIN008, pack of Deinonychus, which provides five of the slavering beasts, with outstretched claws and......oh, I just realised the list of info on the pack describes them as herbivorous dinos!

Oh, well, a little poetic license, methinks.....

These come in at 14mm tall, and 24mm nose to tail, and retail at £3.00 for the five.

Now a comparison shot of the two types together:

Next, let's see how these monsters will look when let loose on some terrified civilians; the Gasosaurus:

Then the Deinonychus:

Of course, these tidy looking beasts were not enough to satisfy my desire for carnage creating Pre-historic behemoths, so I decide to go up a scale for some truly titanic creatures!

As always, costs reared their ugly head, (Rather like the SFX budget on the original series) so I opted for the very reasonable mixed pack of 10mm Dinosaurs available from Pendraken:

http://www.pendraken.co.uk/sub%20page/accessories.htm

These are tucked away in their Fantasy Accessories range, under AC11, 3 dinos for £3.00!

I received one mean looking Allosaur type:

and a pair of spiny Stegosauri:

I'm not sure if there are more models available as the pack comes ready-mixed, but I was quite satisfied with these at the price.

There are some casting glitches and pitting visible on these 10mm sculpts, but nothing to detract from the model, really......let's look at them up against some more 6mm mobile lunc....I mean civilians:

The Allosaurus type stands an impressive 35mm tall and 54mm nose to tail, whilst the Stegosaurus is 24mm by 49mm.

Finally, let's see the contenders lined up together; I don't fancy the human's chances much, do you?

I will of course be putting brush to mini in the near future, so look out for some Dino themed action coming your way soon....for now, let's end with some atmospheric acting and pre-historic terror in another YOUTube clip of the original:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0JM86aGKlk

TTFN!