Song for the Butterfly-Jellies

I painted my sketch of the Second Doctor. Patrick Troughton plays one of my favorite Doctors, and I adore him and wish more of his lost episodes could be found!

This was originally a sketchbook drawing. The reason behind this one is because of several sources mentioning that Patrick Troughton loved butterflies. He mentions them in an old PBS interview , and even the Second Doctor (right after his regeneration from William Hartnell, when his companions don't believe he's still the Doctor) says, "I'd like to see a butterfly fit into a chrysalis case after it spreads its wings." In his biography of his father, Michael Troughton writes that his father had used to collect them as a boy and, as an adult, used to call out the names of different species of butterflies when he saw them in the garden.

My idea here was for the Doctor to play a song on his trusty recorder for some weird alien jellyfish-butterflies, who probably appreciate his music more than his TARDIS companions ever did.

The picture is done in my usual way: acrylic gouache and ink, with Photoshop touch-ups.

ALL the Doctors are Done!

Sorry I haven't been updating this blog as frequently as I should have, but I've been happy to say I've been somewhat crazy-busy on lots of different projects... all at once! (And still maintaining a full-time job at a bookstore at the same time. Yes, coffee. Lots of coffee. Bring it on.)

Anyway, I last told you (in my previous post) that I was midway through my Doctor Who portraits. (And being a giddy fangirl.) And now, I'm happy to say: they're all DONE! All fifteen! (Fifteen, because I added two variants: two versions of the Eighth Doctor, and two versions of the War Doctor.) And yes, there's a distinct possibility that you might be seeing a non-canon Peter Cushing Doctor coming soon, as well as a Richard E. Grant Shalka Doctor... but that might be a little while yet.

Here are the Doctors that were still in progress when I published my last post, all finally finished. (See my previous post for the other finished Doctors.)

The First Doctor (William Hartnell)
Because he's the one who started it all, I wanted to make him look sort of like a wizard
coming out of his TARDIS. The scraps of paper blowing around him have the
date of the first episode, 23 November 1963. In the sky behind him is are
two "classic" versions of the Dalek saucers.

The Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker)
On Gallifrey, with its two suns, trusty K-9 and a bag of multicolored jelly babies.

The only one of my Doctors showing any teeth.
(I think Tom Baker has more teeth than the average human anyway.)

The Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison)
Playing cricket on Androzani, with the falling star in the sky symbolizing Adric.
Peter Davison has the hardest face of all the actors to get right.

Whereas Tom Baker and Patrick Troughton, for instance, pretty much
draw themselves, Peter has more delicate features that are
more difficult to exaggerate.

The Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy)
The master strategist on a chessboard, things seemed to
blow up a lot around the 7th Doctor.

I decided Seven got to have Daleks in his picture because he infact blew up
the Daleks' homeworld, Skaro (although temporarily, it would seem).
(Also, I was given my very own question mark umbrella as a
Christmas present from my sister this year!)

The Eighth Doctor (Paul McGann)
I did a Time War version of Eight (which was in my last post) and that was
the only finished one I got to actually show Paul McGann when I met him.
(This earlier version of the 8th Doctor wasn't finished in time for that con.)

This is Eight from the tv movie, with his velvet frock coat and longer hair and
magnificent gothic TARDIS. (Still my very favorite TARDIS interior.)

The Young War Doctor (John Hurt)
Seen only briefly at the very end of  "Night of the Doctor", young John Hurt's image was
actually taken from a production of Crime and Punishment that he did many years ago.
I actually watched this and made sketches of him for this version of the War Doctor.

There was an odd coincidence about this picture as well:

A wonderful charity short film was made about the young War Doctor called
Seasons of War and I was contacted by the makers of it when they saw my
picture. It seems we both used a Dalek eyestalk as a symbol.
In Seasons, the War Doctor uses it as a telescope (pretty ingenious, if you ask me). In my
version above, I think he just ripped it out of a Dalek as a trophy of war. (Well, maybe
he then goes and makes a telescope out of it later but here he looks like he just
wants to hit someone with it. Young Captain Grumpy. Also notice that there's
Dalek-gunk on his watch in the corner of the picture. Ewww.)

The coincidence was pretty amazing! And I made new friends!!

The War Doctor (John Hurt)
My older version of the War Doctor, with Arcadia (the main city of Gallifrey),
behind him and under siege by Dalek saucers. The sentient bomb, The
Moment, is nearby waiting for its activation. 

I was extremely happy that Sir John actually got to see the finished version
of this picture! (He had previously seen the sketch.)

The Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston)
My favorite 9th Doctor episodes are "The Empty Child"/ "The Doctor
Dances", which take place in London during the Blitz. I thought some
of the most dramatic images of this time period (and which
were used in the show itself) were of the searchlights
and the barrage balloons in the sky.

I'd already used the Tower of Big Ben in the Third Doctor picture, so
I couldn't resist putting in St. Paul's Cathedral, site of so many other
Doctor Who invasions.

It took me a few tries to get the shape of Christopher Eccleston's head right.
Because of his severely short haircut, there wasn't a lot of hair
for me to camouflage it with!

The Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith)
The very last of my Doctor illustrations to be finished. I have him set him in
Stonehenge, in the episode "The Pandorica Opens". I was trying to get a
kinetic pose out of him, with a twist at the waist like he was in mid-spin.

(It may not look it, but this was a very painful Doctor to pose for in
front of a full-length mirror. )

                
               And here they all are together in one collage!

So, yes, this took me a year to finish, but it was great fun and practice... and I met a lot of new friends just by attempting this project!