the 'what every good Doctor Who story needs' project

[anevilgiraffe]

it's a classic stalwart of British tv sci-fi... and I've always planned to build one...

the trusty quarry...

now, I had one main limiting factor with this - space... I ain't got much...

so the first consideration was storage - as I can easily get hold of boxes that used to contain reams of A4 paper, the quarry will be based around a footprint of a sheet of A4, it can (and will) be smaller than a sheet of A4, but everything should nestle in together nicely...

next of course came the look of it, and what choice... rock quarries, sand pits, gravel pits... and yet, oddly, I do have a favourite quarry and what a quarry it is... half of pre-War London is built from it, it was a WW2 naval installation and starred in Doctor Who twice and Blakes Seven once...

Winspit in Dorset...
http://www.doctorwholocations.net/locations/winspitquarry

great massive blocks of stone that doubled as Skaro, Atlantis and Mecron II

now I'm realistic enough to realise it's not going to be a rock for rock, crack for crack match up... especially with the in a box requirement, so I wouldn't bother with the Skin Room cave, concentrating on the North Front area and the massive outcrop that hides the Skin Room... this area should give me a nice corner terrain piece, which can double as an abandoned Skaro, a Silurian shelter on Earth and (with a bit of dressing) a Dwarf mine...

so, after much playing with paper cut outs I had a plan...

the plan was, of course, completely flawed...





aside from what you see there, there is an end piece which trails off to the table edge (similar to the entrance to the real quarry) and plans for 'in table' pieces so this rock wall doesn't just spring from no-where...

on reflection of it at that stage (you're looking at 2 A4 long pieces, one an L shape A4 wide) I realised that the distance between the long open cave and the smaller central cave was too short, similarly the distance from the corner to the central cave as also too small... even allowing for my fudging for gaming/storage, it looked wrong...

so foam was cut and swapped about and the central cave got a section of it's own, the L shape was lopped down.... the resulting 'wall' is now 2 foot long from corner to end of the long thin cave section... which is a happy coinkydink for future plans... I've made the central cave taller than in real life as well, so, well, tall things can exit safely...



the corner section is midglue so declined this photo opportunity...

I reckon, to reflect the cliff face, it needs at least another 3-4 layers of the 25mm thick foam, with some more 5mm layers added in for some variety...

[Operator5]

That's nice. I like the blocky-ness of it. Obviously, being a quarry, it would look that way, but you pulled it off well.

[uti long smile]

Ha! Brilliant.

Pic 3 is Destiny of the Daleks if I'm not mistaken! Remember to take those rad pills.

[anevilgiraffe]

Ha! Brilliant.

Pic 3 is Destiny of the Daleks if I'm not mistaken! Remember to take those rad pills.

yep... Destiny of the Daleks and the Underwater Menace used the location...

Destiny is the earliest Who story I can remember watching... I was 6 and I remember drawing a Movellan at school the next day... that quarry sticks in my head... 

[6milPhil]

Really good solid work, looking forward to see what you end up with.

[uti long smile]

How sad am I that I could recognise the location from your foam and not have to look at the link? I blame your superior craftsmanship.

I can remember watching episode one very clearly. It was the season opener and I was just getting into the programme properly after devouring loads of the Target books from the library.

Can't wait to see how this develops!

[ballistic_bro]

Looking good, I like your idea of intermingling the thicknesses.
That link to the locations site is great, aswell.

[Doomsdave]

This is shaping up very well.  I will of course crib your ideas shamelessly for the Dwarf mine entrance that I have put off building.  Loking forward to your updates.

[Silent Invader]

Nice going.  Thanks for sharing, Will look forward to following updates. 

[anevilgiraffe]

well I'm running out of foam at the moment - may redo the outcrop, not happy with it... and away from home next week, so it'll be a wee while...

[anevilgiraffe]

just caught up with the two end pieces after a week away housesitting... first is the corner piece, with the passage that leads to the Skin Room cave, and alongside si the central cave piece and then the wide gallery... at the end is trailing edge that would take the rest of it 'off table' as it were... I've put some platforms on that end piece to allow for figure placement... I may or may not make the top accessible, haven't decided yet, will probably not to be honest...





I had the pieces stacked up earlier while I was working on the trailing end and the long gallery looked quite good high up the cliff face... I won't do it on these ones, but may do another piece with a high gallery just for some variety... it's also just big enough to fit the Dalek saucer in... very Thunderbirds...

[matakishi]

Very impressive, it looks just right.

[uti long smile]

Have I mentioned I lurve this?

[magokiron]

Love it!!!

Any updates?

I really like to see how this project progresses and see it painted.

Best wishes.

[anevilgiraffe]

got a couple of painting commissions on the go at the moment... then need to dent my own lead pile...  probably next month...