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So this was an exciting one...

A lot of Who fans out there might know that today is the debut of George Mann's novel "Engines of War"- which for the first time gives us a story that happens completely within the Time War. A much smaller fraction of fans who follow my Tumblr blog might also know that I've been working on a giant commission project for the last month that involves drawing almost all the Doctor Who companions from TV and other media. Well, I'm lucky enough to know George a little bit, and he mentioned that "Engines" would feature a new companion- so of course I jumped at the chance to collaborate directly with him on depicting her. This may not be a BBC-approved design, but it IS author-approved, which is the important part for me.

George suggested singer Hayley Williams as a starting point for Cinder, and I wound up sticking pretty damn close to that facially (if this were an official gig, I would've kept that more subtle- but since it wasn't...). Her costume is kind of Joan Jett meets Snake Plissken- very much a post-apocalyptic punk to compliment the War Doctor's own look. The scavenged Dalek gun is based on descriptions in the book, with some aspects borrowed from a similar prototype toy Character Options showed off a few years ago (I don't think it was ever produced, sadly). But if any really dedicated cosplayers or prop-builders out there ever want to try to recreate it, the body of the gun is an old French MAT-49.

And by the way, I can't overstate this enough... pick up the novel- it's fantastic. I realize I have a slight bias here, but it was a real joy to read and delivered WAY more then I expected from an official BBC tie-in book. Even without the geek-out stuff (and there's a lot for New AND Classic series fans), it's just a damn good story. It throws a lot of light on one of the most mysterious chapters of the Doctor's life, and depicts some stuff that's as epic on the character level as it is on the cosmic. Once you've read it, you won't look at Hurt's scenes in "Day of the Doctor" the same way again. Hopefully this is just the first of many War Doctor novels, audios, comics, etc, etc. Remember folks- all the 8th Doctor started with was 3/4 of a TV movie.

It won't hit the US till September, but you lucky folks in the UK can get the novel right now: www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-En…

Description
So this was an exciting one...

A lot of Who fans out there might know that today is the debut of George Mann's novel "Engines of War"- which for the first time gives us a story that happens completely within the Time War. A much smaller fraction of fans who follow my Tumblr blog might also know that I've been working on a giant commission project for the last month that involves drawing almost all the Doctor Who companions from TV and other media. Well, I'm lucky enough to know George a little bit, and he mentioned that "Engines" would feature a new companion- so of course I jumped at the chance to collaborate directly with him on depicting her. This may not be a BBC-approved design, but it IS author-approved, which is the important part for me.

George suggested singer Hayley Williams as a starting point for Cinder, and I wound up sticking pretty damn close to that facially (if this were an official gig, I would've kept that more subtle- but since it wasn't...). Her costume is kind of Joan Jett meets Snake Plissken- very much a post-apocalyptic punk to compliment the War Doctor's own look. The scavenged Dalek gun is based on descriptions in the book, with some aspects borrowed from a similar prototype toy Character Options showed off a few years ago (I don't think it was ever produced, sadly). But if any really dedicated cosplayers or prop-builders out there ever want to try to recreate it, the body of the gun is an old French MAT-49.

And by the way, I can't overstate this enough... pick up the novel- it's fantastic. I realize I have a slight bias here, but it was a real joy to read and delivered WAY more then I expected from an official BBC tie-in book. Even without the geek-out stuff (and there's a lot for New AND Classic series fans), it's just a damn good story. It throws a lot of light on one of the most mysterious chapters of the Doctor's life, and depicts some stuff that's as epic on the character level as it is on the cosmic. Once you've read it, you won't look at Hurt's scenes in "Day of the Doctor" the same way again. Hopefully this is just the first of many War Doctor novels, audios, comics, etc, etc. Remember folks- all the 8th Doctor started with was 3/4 of a TV movie.

It won't hit the US till September, but you lucky folks in the UK can get the novel right now: www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-En…