IT'S A MAT!

After the last post's Lady Gaga, now to Time Lords. More concept work for Millennium fx, this time the unstoppable Dr Who. First up is a bunch of designs for David Walliams' character Gibbis from last weekend's episode "The God Complex'. Now the final design used for the sculpt was not one of mine but these are along similar lines. I did like my weird balaclava type head sock which was a nod to my playground memories of how pulling the collar of your school jumper over your head made you look like a moleman.

Walliams and the finished make up were both great: sneery, petty and cowardly but strangely likeable. I had nought to do with the episode's other alien creation, the incredible minotaur.

Yesterday's episode "Closing Time' featured another creature whose look I worked on. A foe from the Dr Who series of my youth, the Cybermat returned. I had more to do with the final design of the Cybermen's pets than Gibbis. Some of my first doodles are much closer to his original look and some were a nod to the look in more recent computer games; but the final one used is a cute little worm fellow whose head and eyes were an attempt by me to mirror the shape of the modern cybermen's face plate. He lost his scurrying fingers and tail tendrils along the design stages, making him a tad adorable for an evil alien. Luckily his mouth plate slides back to reveal a very unpleasant set of teeth.

Here's a fan trailer with lots of mat action:

One very satisfying nerd fact for me is that the cybermat's puppeteer was the supremely talented Tim Rose, who created and operated, amongst others, Admiral Ackbar. 10 year old me is so impressed right now.