Friday, October 28, 2011

"The Tenth Planet" Cyberman

It's another Cyberman drawing. I guess October must be Cyberman Month.

This version of the Cybermen is from their very first appearance on Doctor Who, in the 1966 episode The Tenth Planet.

These early Cybermen looked for all the world as if the TV crew raided an auto junk yard and hot glued various car parts to the costumes. Despite their rather ramshackle appearance, these Cybermen were genuinely disturbing. Maybe it's due to the fact that unlike later versions whose heads are encased in metal helmets, these have faces are covered in what appear to be gauze bandages, implying that there's some kind of grotesquely altered human underneath. They also had bare human hands, which was a bit unsettling as well.

The most nightmarish thing about them though were their voices. When these Cybermen spoke, their mouths simply gaped open and stayed motionless while a horrifying electronic voice issued forth, resulting in a truly pants-crapping effect.

This episode also marked William Hartnell's final appearance as the First Doctor. Hartnell was in poor health and decided to leave the show, so Patrick Troughton was brought in to play the second iteration of the Doctor. In the episode, the First Doctor is weakened after his battle with the Cybermen, and regenerates into the Second Doctor, a storytelling technique that's allowed the show to remain on the air for decades. Lucky us! Otherwise the series would have ended with this episode!

This is a vector drawing, done entirely in InDesign.

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