50th anniversary artwork

[SiHart]

From Lee Binding:

[Si Hunt]

The bottom one is spectacular.

The top one, don't really get what the idea is. If it's to celebrate the new series, why is there a Zygon and a Krynoid in there? If it's to celebrate 50 years, why nothing from the Hartnell, Pertwee, Davison, C Baker or McCoy years? To miss out a whole decade is bizarre.

Si.

[Nyder]

I wonder how the order and size of the Doctors was decided? Poor Sixie!

[Si Hunt]

The uncomfortable implication seems to be that the Best Of Doctor Who is the whole of the new series plus a couple of things from the early Tom Baker era.

Si.

[SiHart]

Or yuo could just be reading too much into it and it might have been an unconscious thing.

[Si Hunt]

Well that's what's there. I'm a bit sick of the Hartnell era in particular getting erased from history. There was plenty of good stuff in the first 26 years of the show - as much, more than, in the last seven!

Si.

[Simon R]

The awful new series Silurians should not be included!

[Si Hunt]

The decision to use New Series versions of all the classic monsters is obviously deliberate. Less so the Tom Baker bias. Okay you've got a Voc, a Krynoid, A Mummy, A Zygon and Morbius. Why the Giant Robot as well? Nothing here apart from the Ice Warrior is from an era outside of 1974-77 and 2005-2011

Si.

[Rob McCow]

I think it looks great with the monsters he's chosen!

[Dirk Gently]

I adore the Doctors one.

The monster one is good I guess.

[Andrew Curnow]

Are these some sort of official thing, or just something Lee's done for his own enjoyment? Very nice, although I kind of agree with Si that the monster one is an oddly narrow selection.

Actually, I've a question, as I can't tell by looking - are these painted a la messrs Pearson, Skilletter, etc, or is it photoshopping? Not that there's not an art in the latter, mind you, but... well, perhaps not quite as much as if they'd been painted by hand. IMHO, that is.

[Si Hunt]

I was rather shocked and disappointed a few years ago when DWM ran a feature on how an Alistair Pearson artwork gets created. Maybe I'm naive, but I always imagined that the artists drew the images freehand - surely that's the point? This article revealed that they simply TRACE photos and then fill over them. I was stunned. All those brilliant covers, that artwork proporting to be original, and they TRACE them. Surely that's cheating?!

It certainly explained why we get the same old publicity photos appearing in "artwork" form down the years. For example, I could tell you without even thinking that the Davison above is from the "Enlightenment" video cover (and the 21st anniversary publicity photo shoot), the Pertwee is from the recent "Colony in Space" DVD cover, the McCoy is from the "Time and the Rani" DVD cover etc. etc.

I don't even know if Mr Binding does the same trick. I guess it makes sense, but it still feels to me slightly like a con. When I always drew, obviously one copies from a reference work, but I always picked up a pencil and drew freehand. It would never have occured to me to trace the images. So to (finally) answer the question, I would think they are "artwork" but maybe traced from photos with added brushwork, as seems to be the norm.

Si.

[Andrew Curnow]

Oh! I never realised that - or if I did, I'd forgotten it. I'm pretty sure my art teacher at school would have made us redo anything freehand if we'd traced it!!

[SiHart]

These images will be photoshopped, not painted I'm guessing.

[Andrew Curnow]

I must confess to also being a bit disappointed then - if the art of it lies actually in the selection and composition of the various images, rather than the skill in drawing... I mean, not being funny, I would have thought a lot more people could knock these sorts of things up via Photoshop than could draw them from scratch.

At the risk of having a "So you're telling me, there's no Santa Claus?" moment... Back in the late-70s/early-80s did Andrew Skilletter 'trace' all his stuff, or was at least some of it freehand. I'm thinking of his superb Radio Times Five Doctors, and many a Target cover. Tell me he drew them please!!

[Si Hunt]

The Five Doctors one features images which I've not seen anywhere else... so either the photos are all lost, or (fingers crossed) he actually drew from scratch...

Si.

[J.R. Southall]

I suspect the choice of monsters is partly a) to try and exclude anything that looks a bit "ropey" (let's be honest, a lot of Doctor Who monsters do when you shine a light on them), and b) whether deliberately or accidentally to replicate the kind of monsters that Character Options also chose to put in High Street shops. They're just the most popular, and the most effective.

Thing is, the 1960s, early 1970s and 1980s are all represented by modern series versions of monsters that appeared regularly during those periods - in a way, it would have been odder to include a 1970 Silurian or a Moonbase Cyberman or a Revelation Dalek when these things have all been updated by the new series. It's kind of a representation of the breadth of design in the show, rather than the specific eras in which those designs first showed up.

I know this won't appease anyone who doesn't like it, but look at the two Terrance Dicks Monster Books and you won't find Quarks, Monoids or Mechonoids (let alone Zarbi, Voord or Krotons) on the covers of those either...

[SiHart]

There's an expanded version on this jigsaw...

[Si Hunt]

All the sixties and eighties images were hiding at the edges!

Christmas is saved!

Si.

[Si Hunt]

Also suddenly it is amazing. I want the jigsaw!

Si.

[Andrew Curnow]

Is 'softclick technology' a new thing then? Cos, you know, I remember my childhood being blighted by the cacophany of jigsaws being put together...