It’s some time since I looked at my collection of Doctors and his world has progressed a bit since then.
I managed to get to a Gaming show a few months ago and had a look for figures that I might use for my missing 3 Doctors. Crooked Dice had versions of the 14th and 15th but I didn’t like their faces or the stance of the 15th Dr.
I then found a company I’d not heard of before, called Tangent Miniatures.
In their display of painted figures were a number of Who related ones, under assumed names, including a Fugitive Dr who looked near perfect.
I asked if they had the 2 missing Dr’s and their reply was they were new and hadn't been painted yet for display. I purchased unseen; a big mistake as these Dr’s were 3D printed, where as Fugitive was cast metal.
Once again I fall fowl of the need to check figures in the flesh before I buy, and is why I never buy online – I’ve been let down by so many manufacturers in the past. It’s normally because they have a different sculptor for each range – its the first time the same range has had such a divergent of styles in it as to make the figures incompatible with each other.
Tangents Miniatures’ web site says the metal figures are designed digitally, and those in their show display were great, so I’m at a loss to understand why they would now design and sell such cartoonish 3D prints to supplement the excellent metal range they already had.
This was not the end of my problems.
I decided to fatten the Doctors up with a mixture of putties and I’m reasonably happy with the end results, however the stuff the figures are printed in is rubbish, its very brittle, cracks easily and had an air pocket causing another break.
When priming the figures numerous ends from the printing supports showed themselves as did the printing layers. Tangent say the metal figure are digitally sculpted and the fact it has been cast from a 3D print became very apparent when primed. (Even Duncan Rhodes would have found two thick coats were not enough).
Hopefully Crooked Dice have three years or more to improve their sculpting before the next Dr is due.
