Thursday, March 27, 2014

Lead Time Lords: The Seventh Doctor

Second-to-last Time Lord time, and here’s Harlequin’s Seventh Doctor played by Sylvester McCoy – one of two versions available. Here’s the other with his tricked-up detector bodge-up: It’s quite a nice sculpt; full of character and definitely one of Harlequin’s best likenesses, and his height works well alongside his immediate predecessor and successor. I started this paint job out with McCoy’s jacket his early bone-coloured option.



Rather willfully, I even wanted to paint his scarf in tartan and give him a base with the occasional vivid blue rock, provocatively marking him out as being from the Seventh Doctor’s debut story, the infamous Time and the Rani. However, on seeing a fob chain present on the model I realised he had to be in his chocolate-coloured ‘dark Doctor’ jacket, which also means the more familiar Paisley scarf and hanky combo. A shame, as this version of the Seventh Doctor seemed to be a persistent fan favourite in the Nineties for its ‘harder’ iteration, something I wanted to kick against. But I lost!

 Lots of detail put this guy to the back of the queue until my confidence recovered: there’s the check patter of his trousers, the two-tone golfing shoes and that dreaded question mark pullover, not to mention the formerly-mentioned scarf and hanky. A figure of this size and detail deserves the effort, however, so I hope it shows. One day, maybe, someone will do a model of McCoy in his TV movie duds: no pullover, scarf or umbrella, and distinct enough in its way, until then this version will do, representing his last televised BBC story, 1989’s ironically-named Survival.

Coming up next: I saved the best for last…

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