March Update

Stitching, Crafting & Writing - a busy March

Tapestry

The last few updates have concentrated on the Doctor Who Tapestry. I've been keeping a record of how long the work on the ancient one and the background area for him has taken based upon the playing time of the audio books I have been listening to whilst stitching. 

The previous post had the time at 43 hours 20 minutes. Additional work undertaken since then.

I completed most of the work on the Ancient One whilst listening to the first of the two new Target Novelisation Audio books: The TV Movie & Dalek a total of 9 ¾ hours. Then I moved on to the background. Backgrounds need to be simple, so I’m going for the green gas cloud that was used to kill the Ancient One at the end. This also includes binding the edge of the material. This takes some time. This was started listening to the other new novelisation audio books:  The Crimson Horror and the Witchfinders.

Doctor Who – The TV Movie by Gary Russell

Read by Dan Starkey, BBC Studios (5 hours)

 

Doctor Who – Dalek by Robert Shearman

Read by Nicholas Briggs, BBC Studios (4 ¾ hours)

 

Doctor Who – The Crimson Horror by Mark Gatiss

Read by Catrin Stewart & Dan Starkey, 

BBC Studios (4 ½ Hours)

 

Doctor Who - The Witchfinders by Jay Wilkinson

Read by Sophie Aldred, BBC Studios (4 hours, 10 mins)

 

So here I am, working with 20 shades of green to try and blend the smoke swirling up around the Ancient One. 

After another 8 ½ hours of the latest Big Finish Doctor Who releases.

Doctor Who – Stranded 2 

Doctor Who – The Lost Stories 6.1 Return of the Cybermen

Doctor Who – The Lost Stories 6.2 The Doomsday Contract

Bringing the time spent on this one character to over 61½ hours so far.

 

Next Tapestry Update

Building the Gateway

This has taken a backseat over the last couple of months again, but I have managed to make a little progress as the below photos will show. The left side now has basic wood and Daz clay coverage. I will get the basic coverage done before trying to clean up and add any details.

 Previous update

Writing.

As you will know, I seldom reveal too much about writing projects whilst they are still in development.

All I will say is that work on the new werewolf trilogy is going well, we are proofreading book two and I’m making final edits to the text for book three.

Book three has had some additional writing added to it, so I returned to the original notebooks, pulled out the pencils and got scribbling.

First draft is always handwritten in pencil. This filled the second skull book that was used for book three so I had to take up a new notebook, not having another of the skull books I found this nice little denim covered book in my collection of notebooks to use for the next 20K or so words.

Hopefully, I’ll be revealing more details of this project soon.

 

#Lockdown modelling part four

Only a quick update today. Most of the frame work for the town gateway has been completed, just the attic room to complete before I start to apply the roof tiles. After that I'll get going with the wood work and the Daz putty to make the stone work.

#Lockdown modelling part three

Some of my modelling time was snatched away from me when I discovered that the shed was collapsing.

My first foray into the shed this year, more than just grabbing something from just inside the door, revealed a staggering hole in the side and roof. I think it may be beyond repair, I've had to salvage what I can.


However, during times when I wasn’t sorting or drying stuff out I managed to progress some more with my city gateway model, the main focus of which had been how I could use that tissue box.

Many small boxes have now been inverted, re-glued and strengthened with tubes, packing tape rolls, toilet roll tubes or rolls of paper and newspaper.

If you are going to roll newspaper I found keeping it folded and rolling towards the folded edge easier, it is easier to glue this end down rather than a lot of flapping pages. Use elastic bands to hold the roll together whilst it dries then cut to lengths as required.

So here we go, almost time to think about last minute gaps and shaping the roof sections. After that the fun really begins getting the wood and stone work on.

I’ve also salvaged the bottom of two meat trays that I want to use to make the cobbled tiles for the roadway out of as well. I will probably cut these into strips so that I can stagger the layout of the cobblestones 

#Lockdown modelling part two

So last night I opened the new pack of paintbrushes and squirted some black paint into a palette with the intention of starting to paint the Doctor Who figures from Warlord Games. I did paint a lot of the old Citadel Miniatures, Fine Art Casting and Harlequin in their time but it has been years since I painted any figures so I’m approaching them with a little trepidation.

I was just going to start with one pack of Gallifreyan Guards, but I had squirted more black paint than was needed, and rather than waste it I ended up starting to undercoat Ice Warriors, Sontarans, Vervoids and Autons. Fortunately they do have some very good painted examples shown on their website so I’ll be making good use of them as a guide when I get started on the main colours.

For more info on the Warlord figures visit their website, link at the bottom of the post. 

Hopefully when this lockdown is over they might release some new material as we’ve not had any new figures since the start of last year. They have made figures from both the current and the classic eras of the show, so let’s keep fingers crossed.

Some of my earlier figures, the Harlequins on a display shelf dad made for me at the time, and some of the larger Fine Art Casting range.

Warlord Games:

https://store.warlordgames.com/collections/doctor-who

#Lockdown modelling part one

It's been some time since I last posted, but I thought during this lockdown period I should make an effort to do so.

First though TOMORROW 2PM UK TIME - don't miss Fantom's THIRD, yes THIRD, online Doctor Who Convention event. The theme this time is Cybermen, and the crew will also be there discussing their favourite Cyberman design, you might even spot me in there. That's on their YouTube Channel tomorrow.

As I'm still working full time from home, I don't have a lot of crafting time, and most of my tools, materials and paint are down in storage. So anything I do will be limited.


I've got my hands on some PVA glue and a delivery today from The Works, bless them, has given me some Daz putty, brushes and paint to play with too.











So when the pollen count come down a bit I'll be tackling the garden, in the meantime I've started work on this, not quite sure what it's going to end up being yet, but a shape is already starting to form, all recycled materials that I've reusing instead of throwing them into the rubbish.


I was going to go for a deserted town look, but having got the tissue box as one of the key parts of the build this part at least will have to be an old world building I think.

I have a small stock of old coffee sticks still here which didn’t get moved to storage with the rest of the materials so old stone and wood will be the basis of this build. I have some firework sticks as well but no sandpaper to clean them up with or the small craft saw to cut them, so the old timber frame building might be a bit limited.

I’m also still working on the Doctor Who tapestry in the evenings, I’ll post some update to that soon and some writing projects also need my attention. Hopefully more on those soon as well.