"We Conquered And You Obey."

"I'm afraid the Monoids will make very short work of them."

These five 28mm metal miniatures of some “one-eyed” humanoids are produced by “Black Tree Design", and can be purchased as Code DW112 Monoid and DW138 Monoid II from the company’s "Doctor Who" miniatures range. Partially wiped out by a strain of the common cold virus before the First Doctor was able to devise a cure, the “dark and scaly” aliens first appeared in Paul Erickson and Lesley Scott’s March 1966 BBC Television story "The Ark".

Disappointingly devoid of both their voice box communicators and heat prods, the figures were primed using a double layer of “Vallejo” Heavy Green and heavily shaded with The Army Painter" Strong Tone Quickshade. The flipper-footed extra-terrestrials were then dry-brushed with (more) “Vallejo” Heavy Green before three of their “mop-top” haired heads were pigmented using a combination of “Vallejo” Heavy Sienna and “The Army Painter” Strong Tone Quickshade.

"Good. Everything seems to be quiet. And from this moment on, this planet is ours!"

However, because I wanted two of the “one-eyed race” to stand out on the table-top as character models, I decided to give one of the Monoid’s black hair to represent their despicably evil leader, One, and another with the recognisably blonde hair of his subordinate Three. Resultantly, I applied some “Citadel” Abaddon Black, “Vallejo” Heavy Charcoal and “Citadel” Nuln Oil to One’s cranium and “Vallejo” Heavy Ochre, “The Army Painter” Strong Tone Quickshade and (more) “Vallejo” Heavy Ochre to the noggin of Three.

I’m hoping to get this faction involved in my ongoing “Doctor Who” tabletop campaign at some point but ideally would like to be able to field at least another five Monoids first, all of which would be Monoid II sculpts. Unfortunately, the service from “Black Tree Design” recently has disconcertingly started to resemble that delivered during their bad old days, so I’m currently unwilling to make another purchase with them, no matter how tempting their regular sale reductions are, whilst I already have an order languishing on the books.

"Black Tree Design" WIPs - Harry Sullivan is slowly having all of his detail 'picked out'

I have though managed to dig out a wonderfully characterful figure of Fourth Doctor companion Harry Sullivan, in an effort to paint up enough assistants to justify a force based upon the Time Lord himself. As the vast majority of the TARDIS crew would be unwilling combatants at best, I am already assembling a rather enigmatic-looking party consisting of Peter Cushing’s Movie Doctor (slow but has a proven track record of getting physical with a Dalek or two), the shape-changing android Kamelion (hard to hit with his stupefying disguises) and now a Royal Navy Surgeon (who can provide First Aid to his human team-mates)…

"Reaper Miniatures" WIPs - Ape-X has had all his metallic parts dry-brushed and rusted

Lastly, I have been making some good progress on my increasingly time-consuming “Gamma World” project by ‘picking out’ all the teeth and flesh areas of my “Bones” super-villain, Ape-X, by “Reaper Miniatures”. I’ve seen some truly colourful palette choices for this brute of a model on the 'inter-web', ranging from reddish brown to a ghoulish light green. But in the end have opted for the much more common black(ish) Silverback scheme, as I thought it would make all the monster’s rusty augmentations stand out that little bit more.