Adventures in Time and Space

I started by trying to imagine the Cyberman point of view – in this story, they develop those curious tear-duct shapes in their eyes. The Cybermen, and their Cybermats, also develop an almost organic affinity for metal. Beyond that, and the image of all the debris floating in space, the painting very much got carried away with itself, washing over all the layers and getting so many effects coming out.

Fury is a story where the setting is used to perfect effect. The sense of something under the surface, a largely unseen force, makes for emotive drama. Its a story of sea-changes. I wanted to reflect this in my sketch, to bring out the sense of loss, or change of direction, felt by characters in the story. The melancholy image of Victoria on the beach, the pipe drawing who-knows-what up from the sea-bed, the refinery as a hub of human activity. I was really influenced while painting this by my own reflections on the time I lived on the coast, and the sea-changes in my own life at that time. Somehow, I really feel that living by the sea gives you a perspective on where you are in life, and the powerful presence of the tide makes you feel the constant changes around you.

RRRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRR!

That is all.

I wanted to bring some of the spicy colours and hallucinogenic heat to this image that I felt was under-emphasised in the actual production.

Looking at ways to do this one, I recalled a technique that had worked well in The Keys of Marinus sketch – obscuring the silhouetted figure – and used it here to explore the image of the warrior embedded in the ice. The ice-sheet itself presented a nice opportunity to play around with abstracts.

Padmasambhava’s eternal terror!

I was just really struck by the image of Padmasambhava imprisoned as the vessel for the Great Intelligence, and the menacing atmosphere of that Welsh Tibetan Mountain-side.

Well it’s taken me three whole Cyberman stories now to get round to the whole Body-shock imagery of the half-human monsters. Hopefully I’ve created something confrontational, contrasting organic and linear shapes, and the tones of blood and ice that I feel sum up this story, the Cybermen at their most chilling and menacing.