(Lead) Mountain Musings - "Black Tree Design” January 2024

"You are one of the most evil and corrupt beings our Time Lord race has ever produced."

This month's themed attempt to diminish my sizeable stash of metal, plastic and resin miniatures will focus upon my resurrection of an old "Doctor Who" aliens/monsters galactic conquest campaign I started way back in 2019, using many a model by "Black Tree Design". To be honest, having both dug out the homemade ruleset and dusted down the figures which featured in it, I plan to reboot the Cybermen's conquest of the Milky Way from scratch, beginning with just the original six playable factions: Cybermen, Voord, Sutekh, Great Intelligence, Nimon, and Silurians.

However, other competing civilisations/entities can be introduced into the melee as time goes by, as happened before with Sharaz Jek and his android army. Resultantly, I have dug out a whole horde of the Penzance-based company's extra-terrestrials from my backlog, many of which are either still in there little plastic bag or simply unprimed/undercoated upon a plastic circular base - meaning once painted they'll also be eligible for entry in to the Fourteenth Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge (AHPC).

"Black Tree Design" WIPs - Some Robomen slowly being shaded and having their details 'picked out'

Whilst I must confess to owning a few of these slightly cartoony-looking sculpts since "Harlequin Miniatures" originally released their "Doctor Who: Invasion Earth" game in 1996. The vast majority were actually purchased between 2015-2020 as a result of John Olsen repeatedly putting on a series of sales across the range. One of my aims is therefore to try and tackle some of the oldest models first, starting with a mixture of seven Robomen and Robomen Guards.

I've actually been pigmenting these somewhat chunky minions of the Daleks for a few days now, and recently started work on their hands/heads. Ordinarily, I don't usually pigment a figure's flesh until towards the end of the paint-job, as I'm prone to start with the feet and progressively muddle my way up. However, I was quite recently advised by two of "Warlord Games" professional painters to get these areas done first as a 'well-done' face can apparently maintain a hobbyist's motivation to complete the miniature - especially when ploughing through a production line of similarly posed subjects.

"Black Tree Design" Repaint - DW422 - Harry Sullivan

In addition, I've actually found a little time to touch-up the Harry Sullivan figure by "Black Tree Design" that I finished well over four years ago. I don't plan to revisit any other previously-painted models. But have always been disappointed with how the large rectangular eyes of the Fourth Doctor's companion turned out, and the time-travelling medical officer's incredibly dark clothing - courtesy of some splodgy "Citadel" Nuln Oil washes.

I therefore went 'back in' to correct the fellow's eyes and tidy up the surrounding cheeks, as well as take out my "Vallejo" Heavy Blue and Heavy Bluegrey, and extremely carefully dry-brush his jacket and trousers. This extra work certainly seems to have ammended some of the issues I was having with poor Harry's overall look, and may well now encourage me to set about penning some rules for a certain Time Lord and their TARDIS crew to make a randomly-generated appearance (or two) in the aforementioned campaign...

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