Dark Fantasy Writer and Illustrator Glenn James has a long standing familiarity with Doctor Who. In the summer of 2014 he was asked to undertake a rather special commission for a private collector, a man with a deep and affectionate knowledge of the programme. The resulting illustration followed a very unusual route, as the following article reveals.

© By Glenn James 2014 (Black Biro and Ink, Black watercolour Paint and Chinagraph Pencil on Mount board.) Left to right: The War Doctor (John Hurt), the 8th Doctor (Paul McGann), the 9th Doctor (Christopher Eccleston), the 10th Doctor (David Tenant), the 11th Doctor (Matt Smith), River Song (Alex Kingston), Clara Oswald (Jenna Coleman, standing), the First Doctor (William Hartnell, seated centre), the 12th Doctor (Peter Capaldi, standing), the 2nd Doctor (Patrick Troughton, seated), the 4th Doctor (Tom Baker, standing), the 3rd Doctor (Jon Pertwee, seated), the 6th Doctor (Colin Baler, with cats), the 5th Doctor (Peter Davidson), and the 7th Doctor (Sylvester McCoy)
As a fantasy artist I have been asked to undertake some unusual works in my time, but this one was a real challenge: How to portray all the incarnations of Doctor Who together, and do something really fresh and original with the composition.
Putting all the Doctors together is no new thing in artistic terms. You often see illustrations or posters depicting all of them in one composition, and this was especially true at the time of the 50th anniversary celebrations in 2013. Conventionally this is usually a matter of showing the various actors faces side by side in one illustration, usually in chorological order of the incarnations, with the most current one to the fore. (more…)