the 'what every good Doctor Who story needs' project

it's a classic stalwart of British tv sci-fi... and I've always planned to build one...

the trusty quarry...

now, I had one main limiting factor with this - space... I ain't got much...

so the first consideration was storage - as I can easily get hold of boxes that used to contain reams of A4 paper, the quarry will be based around a footprint of a sheet of A4, it can (and will) be smaller than a sheet of A4, but everything should nestle in together nicely...

next of course came the look of it, and what choice... rock quarries, sand pits, gravel pits... and yet, oddly, I do have a favourite quarry and what a quarry it is... half of pre-War London is built from it, it was a WW2 naval installation and starred in Doctor Who twice and Blakes Seven once...

Winspit in Dorset...
http://www.doctorwholocations.net/locations/winspitquarry

great massive blocks of stone that doubled as Skaro, Atlantis and Mecron II

now I'm realistic enough to realise it's not going to be a rock for rock, crack for crack match up... especially with the in a box requirement, so I wouldn't bother with the Skin Room cave, concentrating on the North Front area and the massive outcrop that hides the Skin Room... this area should give me a nice corner terrain piece, which can double as an abandoned Skaro, a Silurian shelter on Earth and (with a bit of dressing) a Dwarf mine...

so, after much playing with paper cut outs I had a plan...

the plan was, of course, completely flawed...

aside from what you see there, there is an end piece which trails off to the table edge (similar to the entrance to the real quarry) and plans for 'in table' pieces so this rock wall doesn't just spring from no-where...

on reflection of it at that stage (you're looking at 2 A4 long pieces, one an L shape A4 wide) I realised that the distance between the long open cave and the smaller central cave was too short, similarly the distance from the corner to the central cave as also too small... even allowing for my fudging for gaming/storage, it looked wrong...

so foam was cut and swapped about and the central cave got a section of it's own, the L shape was lopped down.... the resulting 'wall' is now 2 foot long from corner to end of the long thin cave section... which is a happy coinkydink for future plans... I've made the central cave taller than in real life as well, so, well, tall things can exit safely...

the corner section is midglue so declined this photo opportunity...

I reckon, to reflect the cliff face, it needs at least another 3-4 layers of the 25mm thick foam, with some more 5mm layers added in for some variety...

knobrot iDaleks...

for some reason my ftp software is buggering about so I can't upload the pics to Frothers or LAF where it's been brought up... so...

free with this weeks Doctor Who Adventures magazine (comic) are 5 new style Daleks... in horrible orange plastic... right... they are a bit crappy looking, but that's because they look exactly like the iDalek and that looks crap... there are 5... but of the 5 I had, only 1 had the two halves aligned correctly, and it's taken me 20 minutes to pop the other 4 apart so I can try and glue them straight... they are big, obviously... but eyeline wise match the Heresy Nerdlord...

and the MU old new style Dalek - which I still prefer...

Oi! Spaceman!

Donna Noble...

converted from the KissKissBangBang not-Pussy Galore from Artizan... helpful assistance from Andrew Rae on the hair... with the base figure I could have gone for the Partners In Crime pinstripe or the Sontaran Strategem outfit... I figured the pinstripe would be a bit much with the Doctor in it as well so it had to be the other one...

bit of a mixed bag on this one I reckon... not 100% happy with my g/s'ing (noticed little niggles when I was painting her) and I spent far too long doing and redoing her trousers (didn't help that the reference pics had been doctored and had the trousers either grey or beige) before I figured that would do... all in all, I like what I've done, but could be so much better - may start from scratch at some point, the base figure is fine, I just need to get better with the g/s...

needs varnishing and grass adding... but out of Dullcote til payday and the gloss would kill any pics... I may feel better about it after the Dullcote...

Salute 2010

well that was a cracking day... Frotherheim eventually got working smoothly after a few bum starts... we almost had too much scenery and too many figures oddly... but sterling efforts for all...


The other Frothers game was brilliantly done and looked great - World War 1 Subutteo:

and other fun stuff was to be seen...

Star Wars Lego:

Weird War Two with the cracking Area 51 UFO kit under the camo netting:

of course, some time was spent taking plenty of reference pics of the Doctor Who Miniatures game (the Mobile HQ did special duty on the day) and that oil rig...

and Antenociti's Governance of Technology game look superb, every building with fully accessible interiors... cracking work...

got to chat to plenty of folks... said hi to Andy at Heresy and checked out the not-Doctors I painted for him in his display cabinet (forgot to get pictures of them myself before I sent them off to him)... as for purchases, I got a lovely Bell heli for UNIT from Karl at the DWMG table (not a proper purchase in terms of trade stands, but most welcome), some of Mantic placcy skeletons to go with the free ghouls sprue and some control panels from Antenociti that I reckon can get Daleked up quite nicely... Ian from Fenris mugged me and I ended up with load of really lovely deep ones... and lots of sundry other little things picked up or thrust at me so that was great (I have classic GW pygmies! completely politically incorrect and lovely!)

Salute 2010 - Frothers presents Frotherheim...

Frotherheim - where the sky rains with fire and all below is ruined and wracked.
Frotherheim - where looters and adventurers seek rich pickings in the wrecked buildings and mysterious rocks that have fallen from above.
Frotherheim - where the survivors blame the warbands for all the ills that have befallen them and happily execute them in cruel and unusual ways in Execution Square.
Never was a town more cursed than Frotherheim.
In every alley way scum waits to cut your throat.
In every shadow lurks a monster ready to rip you asunder.
Fame and fortune or shame and an ignoble and rather painful death await all who venture within!

Frotherheim is a game run by Frothers for Salute 2010 using the Song of Blades and Heroes ruleset.

Prizes have been generously donated by such companies as Blood Moon, Otherworld (yes, you have a chance to win the uber massive Otherworld giant!), Dave Thomas, Fenris Games and Red Box Games.

Come and see us on table GD03 where death, glory and spankingly good prizes await you!

Salute next week...

still buggering about and staring at stuff for Salute... have much Who-ness planned once Salute is out of the way, in the meantime the results of several snatched moments in Photoshop and I get a new logo... well two technically... haven't the heart to get rid of Ernst Stavro just yet though, so the monocled bugger will hang about still...

wonder if I should make the A more visible... hey ho...