Loose Doctor Who doodles

It may be no surprise that I prefer the older Doctor Who material. For its charm rather than its quality, I'd point out. I think the series could work without the time travel element, and perhaps without the doctor even. This would be more like Star Trek TOS, with some characters appearing out of a door at this week's location rather than out of the Galileo shuttle. Wheel in Space = DS9. Place Box = Enterprise-Defiant (advanced and maybe from the future but with just teleport and phasing abilities so its door can appear where practical for the story).

I'd redesign a lot of the factions, giving them more rigid structures for power struggles, cultural and military might. I kind of prefer Daleks being pure robots of unknown origin, but drew a little walking octi here anyways (symbiotic?). The pilot creatures had claws in one episode, which might be interesting visually. My Daleks hover... which could be a cool effect on camera. It probably could done by hiding an arm behind the prop or out of frame, using wire controls for the arms/eye.  In a comic it's not even a problem of course.

Never liked Davros' mask... something more like Scorpius might work but I wouldn't make him the creator. Could be an engineered commander of one of the Dalek factions, an bit like Star Wars' Thrawn.

Might draw some more later...

EDIT - and so I did:

Tried coming up for some shuttle shapes with a retro/pulp aesthetic. Iterated on my old Quark (box robot) redesign. Now it has the fold-out arms feature. Sontarans get a nasty mouth (wouldn't work with an actor inside -but hey). The Cybermen have a body horror element, not showcased much in the show. They're almost like cenobites (-definitely in pain). I decided to show their teeth at least. I've also got the beginnings of a story for all this:

http://androidarts.com/doctorwho/WheelRough.txt 

Older stuff on page, including a sector map:

http://androidarts.com/doctorwho/doctorwho.htm 

SNEAK EDIT 2 - crew

Made some crew portraits, weapons, and Drathro's sibling. Drathro is from 2 Mil CE but it's possibly timelord related so I could probably work it in. I like its curved horned head. Also added details to the story.

EDIT 3: Osiran

I'm not too keen on "egypt was aliens" stuff in this case (though I do like it in Stargate), but... I'm drawn to the mummy robots and Suketh's strange animal face which has some character of its own (Suketh's suit is unique too I suppose).

So, including an Osiran who nudges the characters at certain points (Vorlon style) could be a fun long-plot element. Might not need to mention egypt or make references beyond the superficial visual designs (leaving any connections up to the reader's imagination).

Ice Warriors and Alpha Centaurians are allies I'm thinking.

SNEAK EDIT 4: The Master

I don't know if the Master will be in the story, but since my universe is different he could be one of the good guys (some kind of Hari Seldon professor)... perhaps left the Place Box behind to find at a strategical point in time. It's nerfed, without a time circuit.

SNEAK EDIT 5: ...and a Drahvi

...which actually has the same haircut as the Chumblies... maybe intentional. Movellan ships bury into the ground I think, so maybe a turret on top would be useful.

EDIT 6: ...and ships.

Galaxy 4 (Drahvis vs Rills) is one of those lost* stories with only one ep recovered. The basic idea is that the Drahvi are good looking... only on the outside, whilst the Rill are the inverse (~what a twist~). The Rill breathe ammoniak or something so I thought their ship could have some greenhouse stuff going on. The Drahvi ship is seen in some clips and has a spider-claw theme which I elaborated on. Makes it a bit nasty and grabby looking, hinting at their nature. I gave the Drahvi some snow/dazzle-like camo since they're militaristic. Didn't like the trypophobia eyebrows so I arranged the face dots in another fashion. Could be a rank "barcode" thing.

I don't know where the horned black suit is from, I just saw it in a still.

* Lost because BBC unfortunately junked their tapes after airing back in the days of the first and second doctor. The tape copies that survived were those sent to be aired abroad, and forgotten. Returned copies were also junked :/

EDIT 7: Suits and ships

In my headcanon, The Dominators are a bit like the Kzer-Za. They dominate rather than exterminate/cleanse like the Daleks/Kohr-Ah. If we are to believe Rago and Toba, the Dominators have conquered several galaxies. Perhaps Galaxy 4 too, home of the Drahvi and Rills. I can imagine that the Drahvi are thralls and the Rills are mostly left alone as they are pacifists. The more aggressive Toba does attack the pacifists on Dulkis in the TV story, but the Dominators don't know much about the Dulkians having just landed to refuel. Rago is more pragmatic and often advocates against violence. 

The Daleks are more prone to facing extinction... well, they have more stories and are facing the timelords. Still, I don't think they are as quite as powerful, with their one-track minds.

The 2nd Doctor story The Space Pirates has some mixed costume and ship designs. Five out of six episodes are missing but some stills survived. The Space Corp cruiser design has an interesting top silhouette but it's much too flat/squished I think. It has a hangar bay which can carry a smaller needle-nosed ship (the studio model appears to be around hte same size for these, so a separate bay model was used to shrink the shuttle). I gave my version some volume with a cylinder shape, then a flat back and wings. I want to avoid modern ship aesthetics, and also limit my shape usage a bit to establish a dialect.

I simplified the Government Beacon relying more on the front view silhouette. It can split into modules (with internal life support).

I gave the dominator ships a horn on the top, similar to the Quarks and the hair style I used.

I liked one of the helmets in The Ice Warriors, it reminded me of the Zeon soldier helmet a bit, judging by a degraded still shot. Could be combined with a breather mask.

EDIT 8: Yeti and stuff

The Abominable Snowmen were robots made by an ethereal and evil great intelligence to assist it in taking form in our dimension. It's hinted that it's some sort of semi-transcended being which got banished and turned rogue. The props team did a good job on the suits, giving them a rather iconic shape. Again five out of six episodes are lost. The novelization* goes into a bit more detail than the TV episodes and is quite evocative. There's apparently a Star Trek food replicator onboard the TARDIS. There was so snow on location so the idea of tracking footprints in the snow couldn't be used when filming. It's a pretty spooky and atmospheric story overall (Tibetan monastery with an ancient monk which gave me 40K Chaos Emperor vibes), and a sequel called The Web of Fear was made soon after. I don't like that one as much. Not sure if I like any of the stories set in contemporary UK cities actually. Perhaps one of the reasons why I stayed away from the 3rd Doctor and a lot of the newer stuff which hyperfocuses on contemporary companions.

* I found it as an audiobook (read by David Troughton) on YT.

I haven't seen the episodes with the calcified Melkur creature, nor the story with the Gundans, but I liked their design.

It's always fun with big collars in sci-fi so I borrowed some from an unknown episode. I remember Planet of the Vampires (1965 movie) had some too. My Dominators have a hair spike like their Quark robots.

EDIT 9: ~~~Showers~~~

I was listening to the The Daleks audiobook, which is the second story of the first doctor I believe. I never liked the origin story of the Daleks, and the early Doctor is a bit of a nuisance before the character develops. 

Anyways, the writer took some time to describe the internal facilities of the TARDIS, including the shower system, which is a cylinder with water jets coming in from all directions... plus there's some sort of oil massage mode. There's also a big contraption which does haircuts, and the food replicator is also mentioned here. It seems it produces something akin to nutritious "Mars Bars" of some programmed taste (like bacon & eggs), meaning, no fancy finished Star Trek meals.

On my more primitive space station the showers could be more like a car wash with a spinning thing to make it more exotic than a regular shower. Onboard the Place Box, which is an advanced but older relic, there could be some maintenance and cleaning robots. The design of these share a lineage with the Mechon. One of them looks a bit like the Place Box itself. Built by something like Star Trek's Soong perhaps. One of the cleaning robots are described as a box with four polishing pads... I think by Terry Nation who rarely described anything in detail but left it up to the art & prop designers... so many franchises owe it to these people. H.R.Giger is one of the few known ones I'd say. Maybe James Cameron too (I believe he did designs for the Queen, Powerloader, and T-800). After the success with the Daleks attempts were made to repeat it with the Chumblies, Quarks & Mechanoids, but those fell rather flat. The Cybermen and Yeti did better but can't really compete with the Daleks. Had the Dalek design been mediocre the show would've been cancelled after episode 2, I'd wager.

...

Now where were I? The maintenance robots. On the abandoned/forgotten (human) colony world Mechonus these robotic helpers evolved into the Mechon(oids) over the centuries. They'll eventually come to match even the Daleks in strength.

Elite for the BBC Micro has polygonal ships which might fit the Mechon in style. My meshes here are different though. Don't wanna swipe the Cobra MkIII. 

The Place Box was adrift in space for centuries and never found because it's in black body surface mode, i.e. absorbing all sorts of radiation (using it to charge its power cells perhaps). It is found only when it eclipses a larger asteroid in the belt.

Since the Place Box might be a nerfed TARDIS the control room is different, though I'm unsure about the layout. In the show we rarely ever see much beyond the control room (such as corridors, bunks, storage). The first Doctor has a bunch of strange decorative stuff scattered around in the main room. Sometimes they use a scanner screen to view outside. I like the idea of putting some green plants and library bookshelves in there to make it more homely. A slide-out resting bed might be useful too, for when a character needs rest or is wounded but should remain in the scene.

Also on the sheet: a doodle of Padmasambhava from The Abominable Snowmen. He's got two modes: tired/ancient/kind, then strong and ominous when Tzeentch possessed (basically). Not a character for my story but I wanted to draw him. The faces at bottom are random and I might exclude the Silurians (they have multiple face and mask variants in the show) and stick to just the Sea Devils.

SNEAK EDIT 10: Trooper & some guns on first sheet