The Doctor Sketches--All 13! (well, 15, really)

My early take on Twelve's costume from back in October.
Aside from the longer hair and the scarf, I think
I wasn't completely far off. I even suggested,
 "He should have cool shoes...like Doc Martens."
*I is proud*

Back in December in this post, I talked about my lifelong geekiness for Doctor Who, and I expresed the idea of doing a portrait of each of the Doctors, in order. My sketchbook goal was Hartnell to Capaldi--
and I have done the thing!

I am in the process of turning them into finished illustrations done in ink and gouache (the same style as this early imagining of Twelve back in October, before we knew what his new costume would be. There's a new version below...)

Here they are, in their proper order and with notes. All of them have a clock in the corner to denote the chronological number of their incarnations. (You'll see in the case of John Hurt and the War Doctor, I used 8:30.) When I was posting them online as I finished each rough sketchbook drawing, it was pointed out to be me (I'm looking at you, Rob Lanning!) that I really should be signing them. I hadn't bothered because they were just sketchbook drawings, right? And I was all excited about scanning them into my computer and going, "Ooh, look! I made a THING!" that it never occurred to me to add my signature. So in the later sketches, the signature gets put around the rim of the clockface to keep it consistent. And in the finished versions, the clock will also be better drawn and more detailed.
                                                        Here we go!

                                             First Doctor

Very VERY rough sketchbook drawing of William Hartnell  (First of the Doctor sketches.)

His was the very first sketch I attempted (as he should be) and in contrast,
this sketch isn’t is as “finished”as the later Doctor drawings.
This will get corrected when I do the inked and painted version. :)

Second Doctor

Patrick Troughton.
Again, a little rougher than the later sketches.
With snow and Cybermen…
He's one of the easiest Doctors to draw
and he actually pretty much drew himself,
due to Pat Troughton's wonderfully animated face.

I adore Patrick Troughton. He’s the Doctor I would probably pick to travel with
(if any of them happened to show up, that is…) His companions have a very low fatality rate.
And then there’s he and Jamie, of course, a whole other matter. (ahem)

                                                      Third Doctor

Jon Pertwee was my first Doctor and still one of my top three favorites.
As I confessed in my last Doctor Who post, I had a wee bit
 of a crush on him when I was a little girl.
 Not only was he elegantly dressed and had great hair,
but he also knew kung fu! (Well, Venusian aikido.)

Some sketchbook silliness that came out of talking about Jon Pertwee and Venusian aikido. Here the 3rd Doctor is kicking some Sea Devil butt.
(The Sea Devil on the bottom right is all, “Don’t hurt me! Don’t hurt me!”)

                                                                   
                                                                                   Fourth Doctor

Tom Baker looking just a little bit psychotic…
With K-9 and jelly babies and the twin suns of Gallifrey.
I don't think I need to add anything more about Tom Baker and his tenure--
he was the longest reigning Doctor (on television) and is still
one of the most beloved.

Fifth Doctor

 

Peter Davison's Doctor might have been a little more mischievous than he let on.
Peter Davison certainly is. Here he is with his trademark cricket bat and ball,
with a falling star in the background that might be Adric. (sniff)

Sixth Doctor

Colin Baker, whose Doctor finally shone brightly in the
Big Finish audios and the Doctor Who comics.
I couldn’t resist putting in Frobisher, the shapeshifting alien penguin,
who is only a character in the Doctor Who comics and a companion of Six’s.
(Not to be confused with the Frobisher Peter Capaldi plays in Torchwood,
who is definitely not a shapeshifting penguin. At least, I think…)

Seventh Doctor

Sylvester McCoy, arguably the scariest Doctor.
Things seemed to blow up a lot during his tenure.
Plus I’m going to have him  standing on a chessboard.
(And the chess squares will be drawn in better perspective…)

                                                             
                                        Eighth Doctor

Paul McGann, still one of my three favorite Doctors, in part to the Big Finish audios and his having the
coolest TARDIS (in my opinion). I admit to being very fond of Eight’s gothic TARDIS with its candlelabra
and books. In the book “Vampire Science”, Eight has a room completely devoted to butterflies.
I thought the butterfly could also symbolize regeneration, as well as time travel in the Ray Bradbury sense.
(“A Sound of Thunder”.) The 2nd Doctor also referenced butterflies after his regeneration.

Time War Eight. I wanted to do the later version of Eight before I get to the War Doctor.
Scruffier, sadder and more disillusioned… and being menaced by Dalek saucers.
What you probably can't see in this sketch is that the watch he's holding is broken...

War Doctor

John Hurt. You’ll notice that his “number” on the clock is 8:30.
Because John Hurt is fun to draw, I also did did a young version
of Captain Grumpy (below) (how he appeared very briefly
at the end of Night of the Doctor). :)
Young War Doctor is holding a Dalek eyestalk.
Crashed Dalek saucer in the background, plus Dalek guts. Yuck. :)

Ninth Doctor

Christopher Eccleston. "Are you my Mummy?"
My favorite Nine episodes, “The Empty Child”/ “
The Doctor Dances”… :) Also probably the happiest you’ll ever see Nine.

Tenth Doctor

David Tennant. He’s standing infront of New New New New (etc.)
New York. But from the distance he’s at, it’s
 probably New New New New (etc.) New Jersey. ;)

                                      Eleventh Doctor

Matt Smith."Helloooooo, Stonehenge!”

 Twelfth Doctor

Peter Capaldi and the new version of Twelve.
Finally…we’re at the Midnight Hour. I chose his
 first appearance with Gallifrey and all the other incarnations’
TARDISes flying off to freeze it in time.

I cannot wait. I have a feeling he will become one
of my favorite Doctors, if not my favorite of them all.
He’s just that good.

How my Doctor sketches start:
Very messily with inexpensive pencils and a lot of erasing and re-drawing. Here are some of them in progress…


You can see that I draw all over the place, on both sides of the sketchbook pages. (I have this obsessive thing about not wasting paper… :P )

Here's the evolution of the 12th Doctor sketch:

Here's the very first stage of the 12th Doctor:
a doodle on the back of a post-it note at work that got promptly
shoved into the back pocket of my jeans for later...

Next scribbly stage of the 12th Doctor: a little more elaborate thumbnail sketch (i.e., very tiny, in pencil this time) trying to work out composition. This was the idea I'd decided to go with-- Gallifrey and the other TARDISes flying to the rescue in the background...

Drawing in Peter Capaldi's features, but I got the angle of the elbow
completely wrong and needed to re-draw it. (I was modeling my own
hands and pose in the mirror, and it's almost always difficult to draw
your dominant hand, especially when you're using it!)

And yes, that is me posing for all the above Doctors.
I just gave them all a sex change.
Now you know.

I raised his shoulder and lowered the hand,
spread the fingers apart.
Much better.

In my next post, more Doctor Who stuff, plus...
            some of the Doctors' reactions!

Heaven and the Dead City, Volume 2: Incoming!

Here is the second volume of my graphic novel series Heaven and the Dead City, with type placement! Hurrah! You can read about the making of this cover painting here.


Volume One,
available here and here.

This volume will be released in a few months (I will give information about its availability when I find out more myself). This new volume (one long chapter, really) focuses mainly on the mysterious gentleman witch Swamp and his secret existence in the Dead City.

 
We get to meet some of its other eerie and deadly denizens as well.





I am beginning to pencil Chapter Three which will posted on CO2's  website as they are finished. (You can read the story so far here as well.) Chapter Three will focus on the other city of the title (hint: the one that isn't dead) and despite its beauty and life, things are, shall we say, not going as well either...

Here are some behind-the-scenes sketches and sneak peaks at finished art from Volume Two:



Are You (Victoria) Mock-ing Me?

I have a younger sister named Victoria and let's just say she makes stuff. She's always making stuff.

It would be an understatement to say she makes "dolls". Or that she "sculpts". She is the MacGiver of finding household or thrift store things to create her many homunculi.

Here are just a few:

Victoria has always been the 3-D member of the family. Not only does she frequently astound everyone with her fantasy and science-fiction themed sculptures, but she excels at set design, miniatures, costumes and making props for her partner Rob Lanning's films at Merninja Productions (where she serves as executive producer.)

Whether it's designing and putting together suitably sensational Halloween costumes, or decorating and painting a dull apartment like a Tuscan home, she seems to have a bottomless genius for transforming the ordinary into the beautiful or fantastical. (She actually found a cheesy fiberglass fireplace from a thrift store and turned it into a work of art. When she was done with it looked like it had been imported from an Italian villa.)

 Me, I just draw and paint stuff.

Victoria began to make her sculptures for the fun of it, and of course the joy of it turned into a full-time job and she began Victoria Mock Studios, in which she makes a continuing parade of ethereal fairy tale ladies, mythical creatures and outer space monsters. She frequently takes commissions, transforming people's favorite characters (or their own creations) into sculpts. She surprised me this Christmas by turning my own character Swamp (from my graphic novel, Heaven and the Dead City), into the very first "action figure" based on any of my comics. (She said she wished she'd given him "kung fu grip", and wouldn't that have been cool...?)

The page of the graphic novel the pose
(left) was based on.

Swamp from my Heaven and the Dead City.
Sadly, without kung fu grip.

I'll just let you feast your eyes on a gallery of her creations. You can inquire about commissions here or here, and make sure to visit her Etsy store!

Before we get to the eye candy, here's some behind-the-scenes of the making of a dragon...

 

 

                                           And some familiar faces and characters:

It's Harry Houdini, ladies and gentlemen! (who sold very quickly)
(Hmm, wonder if he managed to get out of his shipping box before it arrived to its destination?)

Pilot from Farscape.

Illyria from Angel.

Kosh from Babylon 5.

And... um... Robot Monster? (This is Rob's fault.)

And finally, yes, that is a unicorn horn that Victoria constructed for Rob's truck. You see, it's also the fab Uni-Truck, which features in the hilarious web series, Unicorn Hunters, about an inept team of paranormal investigators, directed by Rob and with lots of goofy visual input from my sister.
                                                                              Watch it here.

 And drop my sister a line and express praise for her homunculi before she makes a voodoo doll of me. (She does have some of my hair, and like everything else lying around the apartment, this has a chance of becoming part of some faery or creature.)