The Seventh Doctor and Benny

Illustrated in Deleter #3 Black Drawing Ink with crow quill pen and brush on Stathmore 9x12 Bristol Board.

A bit of a concept piece. This one is inspired by the Seventh Doctor's New Adventures companion Bernice "Surprise" Summerfield. I based Benny on Lisa Bowerman. An actress who played the part in several Bernice Summerfield audio adventures as well as in a couple Doctor Who audio adventures alongside Sylvester McCoy.

The Seventh Doctor's been given a few different appearances in the New Adventures series of novels which were published back in the 1990's. Most artists who either did cover art for the novels or comic strips for Doctor Who Magazine during that time got rid of the question mark jumper he wore in the series and gave him a different fedora with the brim turned down as opposed to the one he wore in his television episodes and the 1996 telemovie.

I wanted to create my own "New Adventure" style Seventh Doctor and I got my inspiration from a few different sources.

I retained the fedora his Doctor was famous for. The hair and the stiff Edwardian collar were from his costume from the 1996 Doctor Who telemovie. The coat was inspired by the illustration Lee Sullivan did for the animation that went along with the BBCi web episode "Death Comes to Time". I really liked his design and really wanted to use it.

I added a couple of my own little touches to the illustration. I placed a little question mark pin on his lapel. I was kind of sorry when they stopped using the subtle little question marks on the Doctor's lapels and to be honest, I think the production went a little overboard with the question mark jumper and the big question mark handle on the Seventh Doctor's umbrella. I'm sure I might get a little grief for that, but I always felt his costume would have been so much better if it were just the dark jacket and the chequed trousers.

So, I wanted to do a little nod to the question marks that appeared on Tom Baker, Peter Davison and Colin Baker's lapels. Because it was something out of my childhood that I will always identify with Doctor Who.

The spats were my own little touch ;-)