It's like washing your car.

I geared up a long time ago to animate lost Doctor Who stories in a new and fun way.  Then they went and found almost all of the episodes that were lost.  They'd been missing for over 30 years.  You'd think you were safe at that point and you could go ahead with your silly puppet projects.  But NOOOOOOOOOOOO, somebody has to go and find them all!

In all seriousness, I am thrilled at the news that so many lost stories have been found and will be enjoyed for generations to come.  As for this project, it's like washing your car to ensure it rains.  Get started, draw the characters, get it all ready to go, and of course they all turn up.  If you really think about it, that makes me solely responsible for the find.  So before you saying anything, you're welcome!

I'll continue this blog in some capacity, if anyone is ever reading it.  I'm always drawing and designing.  I'll just post what I've been up to every so often.

Hartnell Test Animation

Test animation of the man himself.  

At this point I am getting very close to animating a full scene with a background.

Troughton Animation

This is a more complex animation for 2nd Doctor Patrick Troughton.

Unlike the McCoy animation, every body and facial motion has been key framed.  This allows for subtle emotional beats.  After another test or two with backgrounds, I'll be ready to begin making the episode itself.  Stay tuned!

Advanced Syncing

This is an update to show the progress of the synchronization.  The test subject is 7th Doctor Sylvester McCoy.  Instead of stationary lip movement, the entire puppet is beginning to come to life.  I haven't rigged his arms yet, which is why they are still out to his sides.

The work continues.  Stay tuned.

Rigging Hartnell

William Hartnell is being rigged for animation.  

Video Testing!

I've begun working on animating my characters, starting with The Doctor.

It's not nearly complete.  Right now it's simple lip synchronizing, but it's come a long way!

Watch This Space

This is a brief intermission as I learn the finer points of flash animation.  As I understand it so far, it involves a bunch of nonsense and a great deal of swearing at friends and loved ones.

As I work it all out, please enjoy William Hartnell and The Silence.

Class Photo

Every character involved has now been designed.

General Cutler's son is also designed, but he's just a head on a screen, and not worth putting up right now.  There are a few things still the be drawn - The TARDIS, the radiation suits, the dreaded Z-Bomb (pronounced Zed), various props, and the very frightening and not at all ridiculous Cyber Ships!

The focus now shifts towards making a few storyboards.  The conceit of this animation is that it is very very simple.  It's meant to be like watching an animated Punch and Judy show.  Characters will bob up and down, flail their arms, and act like puppets.  But I still need to set up just how the characters will interact: who will be on stage together, how they will flail, and all that.  We'll see.  I'm just pleased to have reached this milestone.

Boring Dyson

And now the other scientist in the story.  It's Dyson. 

Nondescript doesn't begin to cover it.  It's a short, balding scientist wearing a suit and tie.  There's not much you can do to spruce him up.

Dr. Barclay

I've begun working on some of the more minor (can something be more minor?) characters.  Here we've got Dr. Barclay, a civilian scientist at Snowcap Base.  

The plain clothes make a welcome change!  

General Cutler forgot that it was Casual Friday.

General Cutler

The secret to any good piece of fiction is a psychotic general who can fly off the handle whenever it's needed.

General Cutler is the gruff commander of Snowcap Base, where the Cybermen first land in 1986... in 1966.

Our Heroes

The Doctor, Polly and Ben

(with telesnap for fun)

I'm now going to pretty much be designing exclusively for The Tenth Planet, episode 4 for awhile.  I've got the main three characters made, as well as that $#%# Cyberman.  Now it's time for all the secondary characters.  

Off we go.

Animated Anneke

Now Polly is properly color corrected.  Did a few minor tweaks and smoothed out some edges.  I think this is pretty much the final version of her template.

And with that, I'm pretty sure that I will make The Tenth Planet episode 4 my first full animation puppet project.  Now on to Ben Jackson!

Polly Part 2

I got started and didn't want to stop until I got this finished.  I'll look at it again tomorrow with fresh eyes to find all the mistakes I probably made.

I don't have a color reference for Polly's Tenth Planet outfit, so pink will do for now.  The more I think about it, the more I'm leaning towards doing The Tenth Planet.  We'll see.

Polly

Just getting started on my next character.  This is the earliest stage of designing Polly Wright.

Much more work to do.  But I think this design is off to a good start.  Stay tuned.

"Maaaaaa-vic Chen!"

Well, after two major snow storms and some family business, I'm back to designing.  I got away from those finger-crippling Cybermen and decided to make someone who was more suited to caricature.

Mavic Chen, that smarmy super villain who sold out the solar system to the Daleks in the year 4000.

I still haven't made a final decision about where I'm going to start with an animation.  I'm certainly not starting with the entire Daleks' Master Plan.  But I couldn't resist drawing Chen.

Silly Hats

I shoveled several feet of snow today, and my appendages are about to drop off.  No Cybermen, Daleks, Yeti, or Lethbridge-Stewarts tonight, be they Colonels or Brigadiers.  Just two silly hats.

Cyber Monotony

This guy was just a pain.  Oh well.  You only have to make the template once.

I'm glad most 60's alien villains were just cardboard boxes with appendages.  I altered the head slightly from the original draft.  He was made to look a little more cartoony to fit in with the style I'm using.  Who'd have thought that such a primitive design would be so much harder to duplicate than a later one?  I've should have drawn a Macra instead.

10th Planet Cyberman work in progress

This is a nearly completed 10th Planet Cyberman head on top of the rough sketch for his body.

This gives me a rough idea of the proportions of the body which I will go back and clean up.  I may either shrink the head or expand the body, because the proportions aren't quite in proportion.

I've been considering trying to animate the 4th episode of The 10th Planet, since that story is missing only that episode.  We shall see.

Buddies

Stay tuned!

Completed Hartnell

This was not an easy likeness to capture.  After a lot of work, I got what I wanted.    I cut down his chin and removed the wrinkles from his forehead.

Carrying as much stature and dignity as a large-headed flash animation puppet can, Doctor #1 is a wily and intelligent character with a soft heart.

Much, much more to come.  That means much, much more work to do!

Refining Bill

Hartnell's face is now much closer to how I want it.

The hair has been darkened, his eyes lowered, his expression calmed down, and his cheek bone defined.  He's still clearly a work in progress.  I've roughly sketched his outfit, which is bound to change a little.

Making Hartnell Cute

Patrick Troughton lent himself to caricature more easily than his predecessor, William Hartnell.  Troughton had impish features and a mischievous face.  Hartnell had patrician dignity and a hawkish aspect.  In other words, his template is taking a little more time to perfect.  In the meantime, here he is in extremely rough draft form.  The face still needs work.  The curls in the back of the hair need tightening up.  Once he's got a frock coat, it may help to pull it all together.

He may look better with slight eyelids.  His current expression makes it look as though he's mistakenly seen Chesterton naked.  I may also go over the borders of his hair in a darker gray to make them stand out more.

This is going to take some work.

No McCrimmonations

Over the last day I've been drawing and tweaking the 2nd Doctor companion, Jamie McCrimmon.

The project is still in its infancy, which means that now is the time that I need to figure out how like and how unlike I want these characters.  I want them to be recognizable, certainly, but also simplified and exaggerated.  I still need to tartan up the kilt, and I may or may not be altering the face.  I'm not overly designing the outfit because I want a base model that can be easily adjusted and have features added to it.  If I wanted to give him a sash, it would be a separate feature layered on top of him, rather than drawn onto the template.

This Cyberman is an example of the balancing between attention to detail and avoiding too much detail.  If these characters were being made as actual puppets, you wouldn't see every last bit and piece of the original design.  The trick is to make it look like it has as much detail as it needs, but absolutely no more than it needs.

Getting Started

Greetings, everyone.  This is the first installment of Doctor Who Hand Puppet Madness, a blog chronicling the process of recreating lost Doctor Who episodes through silly animated hand puppets.  Here you will find rough sketches of William Hartnell's wig, drafts of Patrick Troughton's eyebrows, attempts at Jamie McCrimmon's kilt, and other things that I'm too frightened to even imagine at this point.  Basically I will be laying bare the creative process from first design to finished product.  The budget is zero.  The time is variable.  This is the definition of a labor of love.   

There's a lot of seriousness in the world of fandom.  I don't like that.  One of my aims here is to defy seriousness at all costs.  Seriously.  I hope to create somewhat faithful, but ultimately entertaining recreations of lost Doctor Who stories with puppet animation.

Patrick Troughton's 2nd Doctor

There is a lot more to come.  Stay tuned!