When I was a child watching Doctor Who, I was fascinated by the idea that in the future the Doctor would undergo his twelfth and final regeneration into the thirteenth Doctor, and I would be there to watch it. THAT FUTURE IS HERE! NOW!
Doctor Who-oo! HEY! Doctor Who! Doctor Who-ooo! HEY! The TARDIS!
This is Warlord Games' rendition of the Thirteenth Doctor, in miniature form. Technically Jodie Whittaker is the fifteenth regeneration, or infinity-eth regeneration, but whatever the canon is she represents that magical point I imagined with wide-eyed wonder when I was a child.
Various official Time Lord miniatures across the decades.
The Thirteenth Doctor is a very much an incarnation of the current trend for realistic proportions and subtle details. Compare the head-to-body ratios or the chunkiness of the clothing folds with the earlier licensed Doctor Who ranges above and you can see how the times they are a-changin'.
The details are too subtle at points on the Thirteenth Doctor, with areas like the shirt's neckline just one coat of paint away from disappearing entirely, or her hands ending up cast as amorphous stumps you have to freehand the fingers onto. Some of the more recent unofficial Doctor Who-inspired ranges, (like Crooked Dice's or Heresy Miniatures' shown below) have a better grasp of how to design a modern miniature with detail that cast well and is fun to paint.
Left to right: Time Lord, Fifth Doctor, Sontaran, Roj Blake and Thirteenth Doctor.
But enough dwelling in the past and back to the present day – let's talk about the TARDIS!
*VWORP VWORP VWORP*
This TARDIS is a single piece resin casting that comes moulded in a fetching blue colour. It's an iconic British spaceship that connected with something really deep down in my childhood. I painted it with a subtle woodgrain effect on the doors (similar to the wooden Trebuchet featured in the recent Patreon tutorial), using Vallejo Model Colour Heavy Blue as the starting colour.
Did you know: while the TARDIS props are constructed almost entirely from wood, the police boxes they're based on are concrete with wooden doors?
The TARDIS miniatures suffers from visible build lines in the roof that betray the fact that the master was designed in a computer. And, like the Doctor, the sculpted detail is dangerously subtle – the "FREE FOR USE OF PUBLIC" notice is scarcely there, and won't pick up a shading wash. Worse yet, the entire piece has undergone the moulding process at an angle which means the castings are skewed into a parallelogram shape.
Despite the flaws, I am really pleased to have painted these icons of British science fiction and have them available for games.
The Doctor exploring a mysterious alien signal in Blaenau Gwent.
Coming soon! More heroes that ride around in blue boxes. Ninjabread out!
More miniatures at: ninjabread.co.uk
Painting tutorials at: patreon.com/ninjabread
