First Post
I like Doctor Who a lot. I also like Star Wars and as a fan of the latter my fandom included amassing heaps and heaps of action figures and ships in my youth and then again in my adult life. It always annoyed me that there were never action figures of Doctor Who as I was growing up; I wanted to bring the Doctor into the Star Wars universe so bad that I built my own Daleks out of toilet paper tubes but there was never going to be a way for me to create Cybermen or the TARDIS or the Doctor himself.
A company called Dapol took a stab at it and marketed some iffy at best Doctor Who figures close in size to the Star Wars line but a side by side comparison showed them to be too tall. They were not the best efforts they could have made either; faces were not very accurate and the limb joints were poorly made and would break. The original run was two variations of the seventh Doctor (light and dark jackets), two variations of his companion Mel (pink top and blue top), K9 the robot dog and the Daleks in different colourings. The line expanded to include the Cybermen, the Ice Warriors, Sea Devils and Sontarans, as well as the Master, a Time Lord and the second, third and fourth Doctors, as well as a TARDIS playset. And then that was it. Poor sales killed that line off but it was not because no-one wanted Doctor Who toys, they just wanted better ones than Dapol could offer. I myself got almost all of them but turned them into Christmas ornaments.
Years later in 2005 a company called Character Options secured a license from the BBC to produce a new line of action figures on the 5.5 inch scale, which again made them too tall to integrate with the Star Wars 3.75 inch line and too small to put with the Star Wars Black Series 6 inch line, but it didn't matter anymore; Character seemed to have this sorted out and was putting out not only characters from the current series but the classics as well, and the spin off series Torchwood and The Sarah jane Adventures. Not only were the toys made to a good quality standard but they were far more accurate, and it wasn't long before all the Doctors were represented, as well as classic monsters and some companions. It seemed like the toy collecting Doctor Who fans finally got their wishes fulfilled - a new series on television and the action figures we wanted as kids to go with it.
That is, of course, until things started to go wrong.
The new run of toys focussed more on the current series, which made a sort of business sense, but the problem there was the characters they were choosing to make were not really memorable or fun enough to warrant repeated play, so they sat on shelves. The Doctors and the companions went easily enough as did the Daleks and other recurring monsters, but retailers who gambled on the line found themselves with characters they could not shift and thus did not re-order. The scale of the toys also meant that they were not able to be linked with other toy lines for cross-play adventures, leaving the Doctor out of plotlines with Marvel heroes or the Star Wars characters. And the price point was far higher than other toy lines so parents making choices for a gift would have to consider how deep into the wallet they were going to dip. And in the UK they could be found in any toy shop, but in North America fans has to rely on specialty shops and comic stores, and as such the prices were even higher. Fans who were after more classic characters found it hard to get a complete set because of this and aftermarket sellers made a killing on eBay. Critics of the decline of the brand point to a man named Al Dewar who was in charge of selecting what characters would be made next; if this is true then his choices were not the best ones - fans the world over specifically requested characters from the classic series and were rewarded with more secondary characters from the new series and repaints of things we already had. We as fans even went as far to say we would pay extra to get the ones we wanted in a subscription service as initial production fees were usually blamed for a character not being created, but to no avail. Eventually the releases went from waves of 6 at a time to maybe two a year as convention exclusives, and a disastrous exclusive of a new series character that the majority of fans did not like, and then eventually none for a long time, just replica sonic screwdriver toys and then an ill-fated 3.75 inch line which was years too late to really interest anyone. The quality of the smaller scale was no better than Dapol's really, they just got the heights accurate for interactive play with Star Wars toys at last.
But Doctor Who fans are not ones to sit and cry about not getting what they want. When the series went off the air in 1989, new adventures in novel form were published, and they were written mostly by fans. Eventually when we wanted more Who it was the fan-run company Big Finish that got a license from the BBC and released original full cast recordings with the stars from the classic era back in the roles we knew them for. Fans come in all shapes and sizes and mindsets of course; series producer Steven Moffatt calls himself a fan but regularly insulted the intelligence of fans by dumbing down the show and making it palatable to sell Dalek socks and nonsense marketing crap to the masses, and the aforementioned Mr Dewar was supposedly a fan but seemed to treat the ones who tried to engage with him over the choice of toys with contempt. (For the record I never met him or spoke to him myself but I read enough comments online from enough people to make me think maybe they were onto something). So without the things we wanted, some of us with a bit of imagination and some passing skills did the unthinkable: we made our own toys.
A custom action figure can be as simple as a repaint or as complicated as sculpting an entire new toy from scratch; it all depends on what you can do and what you want to try. Some work out great. Others not so much. There are online forums all over though with ideas about how to customize an action figure, and back in the day I made some pretty good custom Star Wars action figures from simple repainted astromech droids to head swaps to swell the ranks of my Imperial officers or my rebel forces. Armed with that knowledge and a bit of determination born of frustration, I got hold of some extra Doctor Who figures and started making the ones I needed to plug the gaps in the collection. Character Options gave us enough to work with; it was not really a sacrifice to take a figure I didn't like and take it apart to make something else. And they gave us enough of the ones we liked to be able to tweak them and make variations or give them new outfits. My success rate has been pretty good although I can look at them and realize I could improve on some given some more work and some new techniques. So far I have customized almost 100 toys for Doctor Who, and my collection is much bigger than it could be if I merely accepted that they were not going to make a Vicki or Harry Sullivan figure. Some of my choices are not for everyone; I made some that were of personal interest and others which were just easy to realize while not necessarily being a crucial character to add to the shelves.
But I did it and I keep doing it, and I want to share some of my successes and some of my... well some which could use a bit of work.
Watch this space!
A company called Dapol took a stab at it and marketed some iffy at best Doctor Who figures close in size to the Star Wars line but a side by side comparison showed them to be too tall. They were not the best efforts they could have made either; faces were not very accurate and the limb joints were poorly made and would break. The original run was two variations of the seventh Doctor (light and dark jackets), two variations of his companion Mel (pink top and blue top), K9 the robot dog and the Daleks in different colourings. The line expanded to include the Cybermen, the Ice Warriors, Sea Devils and Sontarans, as well as the Master, a Time Lord and the second, third and fourth Doctors, as well as a TARDIS playset. And then that was it. Poor sales killed that line off but it was not because no-one wanted Doctor Who toys, they just wanted better ones than Dapol could offer. I myself got almost all of them but turned them into Christmas ornaments.
Years later in 2005 a company called Character Options secured a license from the BBC to produce a new line of action figures on the 5.5 inch scale, which again made them too tall to integrate with the Star Wars 3.75 inch line and too small to put with the Star Wars Black Series 6 inch line, but it didn't matter anymore; Character seemed to have this sorted out and was putting out not only characters from the current series but the classics as well, and the spin off series Torchwood and The Sarah jane Adventures. Not only were the toys made to a good quality standard but they were far more accurate, and it wasn't long before all the Doctors were represented, as well as classic monsters and some companions. It seemed like the toy collecting Doctor Who fans finally got their wishes fulfilled - a new series on television and the action figures we wanted as kids to go with it.
That is, of course, until things started to go wrong.
The new run of toys focussed more on the current series, which made a sort of business sense, but the problem there was the characters they were choosing to make were not really memorable or fun enough to warrant repeated play, so they sat on shelves. The Doctors and the companions went easily enough as did the Daleks and other recurring monsters, but retailers who gambled on the line found themselves with characters they could not shift and thus did not re-order. The scale of the toys also meant that they were not able to be linked with other toy lines for cross-play adventures, leaving the Doctor out of plotlines with Marvel heroes or the Star Wars characters. And the price point was far higher than other toy lines so parents making choices for a gift would have to consider how deep into the wallet they were going to dip. And in the UK they could be found in any toy shop, but in North America fans has to rely on specialty shops and comic stores, and as such the prices were even higher. Fans who were after more classic characters found it hard to get a complete set because of this and aftermarket sellers made a killing on eBay. Critics of the decline of the brand point to a man named Al Dewar who was in charge of selecting what characters would be made next; if this is true then his choices were not the best ones - fans the world over specifically requested characters from the classic series and were rewarded with more secondary characters from the new series and repaints of things we already had. We as fans even went as far to say we would pay extra to get the ones we wanted in a subscription service as initial production fees were usually blamed for a character not being created, but to no avail. Eventually the releases went from waves of 6 at a time to maybe two a year as convention exclusives, and a disastrous exclusive of a new series character that the majority of fans did not like, and then eventually none for a long time, just replica sonic screwdriver toys and then an ill-fated 3.75 inch line which was years too late to really interest anyone. The quality of the smaller scale was no better than Dapol's really, they just got the heights accurate for interactive play with Star Wars toys at last.
But Doctor Who fans are not ones to sit and cry about not getting what they want. When the series went off the air in 1989, new adventures in novel form were published, and they were written mostly by fans. Eventually when we wanted more Who it was the fan-run company Big Finish that got a license from the BBC and released original full cast recordings with the stars from the classic era back in the roles we knew them for. Fans come in all shapes and sizes and mindsets of course; series producer Steven Moffatt calls himself a fan but regularly insulted the intelligence of fans by dumbing down the show and making it palatable to sell Dalek socks and nonsense marketing crap to the masses, and the aforementioned Mr Dewar was supposedly a fan but seemed to treat the ones who tried to engage with him over the choice of toys with contempt. (For the record I never met him or spoke to him myself but I read enough comments online from enough people to make me think maybe they were onto something). So without the things we wanted, some of us with a bit of imagination and some passing skills did the unthinkable: we made our own toys.
A custom action figure can be as simple as a repaint or as complicated as sculpting an entire new toy from scratch; it all depends on what you can do and what you want to try. Some work out great. Others not so much. There are online forums all over though with ideas about how to customize an action figure, and back in the day I made some pretty good custom Star Wars action figures from simple repainted astromech droids to head swaps to swell the ranks of my Imperial officers or my rebel forces. Armed with that knowledge and a bit of determination born of frustration, I got hold of some extra Doctor Who figures and started making the ones I needed to plug the gaps in the collection. Character Options gave us enough to work with; it was not really a sacrifice to take a figure I didn't like and take it apart to make something else. And they gave us enough of the ones we liked to be able to tweak them and make variations or give them new outfits. My success rate has been pretty good although I can look at them and realize I could improve on some given some more work and some new techniques. So far I have customized almost 100 toys for Doctor Who, and my collection is much bigger than it could be if I merely accepted that they were not going to make a Vicki or Harry Sullivan figure. Some of my choices are not for everyone; I made some that were of personal interest and others which were just easy to realize while not necessarily being a crucial character to add to the shelves.
But I did it and I keep doing it, and I want to share some of my successes and some of my... well some which could use a bit of work.
Watch this space!
That is a fantastic write up about Doctor Who figures and their history and how you've expanded your collection. Keep up writing your blog because I want to learn more.
ReplyDeleteThanks Christine - I was surprised and delighted to find your comment here. I have several posts already on the go as drafts so there will be at least one a week as I move ahead.
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