Capaldi Tardis Exterior

[auton710]

My own pics from filming. Got a good couple of shots with the TARDIS. Doctor Who Filming - Cardiff Bay Mimosa (Day 2)  http://www.flickr.com/photos/114416687@N03/sets/72157641577144485/

[DoctorWho8]

Lots of nice shots you took there.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/114416687@N03/12795018815/in/set-72157641577144485/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/114416687@N03/12795124243/in/set-72157641577144485/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/114416687@N03/12795189714/in/set-72157641577144485/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/114416687@N03/12795043365/in/set-72157641577144485/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/114416687@N03/12795146903/in/set-72157641577144485/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/114416687@N03/12795161653/in/set-72157641577144485/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/114416687@N03/12795501344/in/set-72157641577144485/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/114416687@N03/12795511184/in/set-72157641577144485/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/114416687@N03/12795552324/in/set-72157641577144485/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/114416687@N03/12794967853/in/set-72157641577144485/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/114416687@N03/12795304654/in/set-72157641577144485/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/114416687@N03/12794992983/in/set-72157641577144485/

The windows unlit.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/114416687@N03/12795610524/in/set-72157641577144485/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/114416687@N03/12795069373/in/set-72157641577144485/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/114416687@N03/12795005045/in/set-72157641577144485/
Bill "the Doctor" Rudloff

[NotaMountainGoat]

Definitely looking a bit more weathered than before, particularly the base.

[kiwidoc]

The base looks like it's been slid in and out of the truck on it's side a few times too often all ready.  I'm sure they'll be touching that up regularly.    There's no excuse for the lap cap though! 

[galacticprobe]

Definitely looking a bit more weathered than before, particularly the base.

The base looks like it's been slid in and out of the truck on it's side a few times too often all ready.

Well, let's not forget that this TARDIS is supposedly been through quite a bit since she rebuilt herself in "The Eleventh Hour" (flaming papers burning off of her in "Vincent and the Doctor", breaking through the 'plughole of the universe' - twice - in "The Doctor's Wife", sinking through acid-soaked ground in "The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People", breaking through time barriers in "The Angels Take Manhattan", just to name a few), so she's bound to start looking a bit rough around the edges.

There's no excuse for the lap cap though!  

In one of those photos, looking up into the lamp cap, it looks like they've taken the Gardman lamp cap from the precious lamps and just plopped it down over the existing top of the Newhaven lamp, which would explain why the cap looks like it's sitting lower on the lamp when viewed almost straight-on. They may have done this for ease of building the lamp: easier to just sit the hollow Gardman cap onto a Newhaven Lamp without having to cut and mangle a Newhaven just to fit the old cap to it. (Just my speculation, but remember, we're probably not going to get that great a look at the underside of the lamp cap in the series.)

It would be nice to get those photos posted in the 2013 TARDIS Reference section in case those Flickr links go dead - which has happened to us before - but the problem is the fracking watermark on the photos and the Forum rules. Other forums have some really nice photos, which have watermarks, and no one on those forums seems to care about them. We've missed out on one of our member's fantastic builds because of a "fake" watermark issue; that member has since left our Forum due to that issue and now only posts on the RPF, which is one of those forums that doesn't care about watermarks. The watermark issue is also the reason why that 11th Doctor and his real wife River Song, who built that fabulous TARDIS that was at Timegate (see my post on that TARDIS in http://tardisbuilders.com/index.php?topic=2884.msg54747#msg54747), won't even give TARDIS Builders a second thought: I know; I asked them about it. I seriously think we need to revisit that rule on watermarks. We're missing out on a lot of cool photos that other forums are getting to see because of it.

Dino.

[Kingpin]

Part of me secretly hopes that the spots of grey around the base are intended to look like concrete showing through... rather than it just being the primer...

But unfortunately the BEEB has gone too far down the road in saying Police Boxes were wood, so I doubt they'll correct that mistake.


Nice to see the box receiving some weathering... I wonder if it'll be a permanent mod or temporary, like the stuff we saw in The Snowmen.  It looks like they've changed how the phone panel lights again.

[Volpone]

OK. I'm going to be a bit of a nerd with a pet peeve of mine.  Hopefully I don't gain too much ire from the mods.  Apologies. 

The TARDIS exterior doesn't acquire wear and tear.  It essentially resets itself at the end of each episode.  It disintegrates and it reassembles at the beginning of the next episode.  So, say someone paints it pink, like in "The Happiness Patrol."  Or someone paints "BAD WOLF" all over it.  Doesn't matter.  When it dematerializes, that paint isn't part of the TARDIS, so it remains behind.  And when it is time to materialize, the Chameleon Circuit goes into its database and constructs a mid 20th century London police box. 

I'll allow for vagaries in the data on the Chameleon Circuit due to wear and tear and data corruption (who here has a computer that is more than 5 years old, let alone thousands?).  I'll even allow that if the computer decided to, it could write the data from the last physical appearance into the database and replicate it when it rematerializes, but there is no reason that grime and vandalism is going to carry over to the next adventure. 

(And yes, I realize my viewpoint puts a big hole in the idea of jumping onto the outside of the TARDIS to get to the next destination.  If I have to nail it to the door of a church and be excommunicated for it, so be it. )

[galacticprobe]

Volpone, you're forgetting the few times the TARDIS had an arrow stuck in her door. The arrow didn't disintegrate; it appeared in the start of the following story and the Doctor pulled the arrow out (Classic Series: 7th Doctor, "Silver Nemesis" - arrow goes in during Part 2, and stays stuck in the door through demats/remats until close to the end of Part 3; New Series: 10th Doctor, "The Shakespeare Code" - arrow goes in at the end just before demat - "Gridlock", the Doctor pulls arrow out after the remat on New Earth). My guess would be that anything that gets imbedded or scratched into the outer shell of the TARDIS becomes part of that "block transfer computation" that makes up the police box look - sort of like a change in the computation.

If the TARDIS' renewed her shell during every demat/re-mat sequence, then her look would always be pristine. As we've seen in both the Classic and New Series, that's not the case. In the Classic series she was always battered and worn. The only time the shell was "renewed" was after the Time War and the 10th Doctor's explosive regeneration, when the TARDIS was so damaged that she, herself, had to regenerate (or as the 11th Doctor said in "The Eleventh Hour", "Still rebuilding: not letting us in"): even the exterior was severely damaged - lamp on top smashed, windows shattered, etc. So while the TARDIS exterior does change some over time, any knicks and scratches that accumulate on the shell become part of the new block transfer computation when she demats, and are kept when she remats. Things that are just stuck on the outside - like glued paper ("Vincent and the Doctor") or snow ("The Unquiet Dead") will just fall away like the snow, or burn off in the vortex like the paper.

As for hanging onto the outside "for the ride" as Jack Harkness and Clara did, they were lucky; Jack's immortality saved him (remember he was "dead" when they arrived on Utopia after the TARDIS flew to the end of the universe trying to shake him off); And Clara had the TARDIS extend the force field to protect Clara during her ride to Trenzalor. Presumably, that force field was also extended when the TARDIS rescued the Doctor and the alien in "Hide".

As for a changing exterior, did anyone else notice in those close-up Flickr photos the new St. John Ambulance logo? Now it's got the thin inner circle between the bottom of the lettering and the black disc with the arrowheads and animals in it. (I guess my old 2010 St. John logo I created is obsolete now.)

Dino.

[hb88banzai]

Part of me secretly hopes that the spots of grey around the base are intended to look like concrete showing through... rather than it just being the primer...

But unfortunately the BEEB has gone too far down the road in saying Police Boxes were wood, so I doubt they'll correct that mistake.

(snip)

Well... I'm probably going to get my own share of flack for this, but technically the first TARDIS shaped Police Boxes were made of wood - all except the roof, anyway. Forty-three of them to be precise, plus some prototypes that were a little less TARDISy.

Frankly, it even seems more likely to me that one of these early wooden boxes would show up in a junkyard in 1963 than one of the later concrete ones. The TARDIS just scanned around for Police Boxes when building here disguise, saw lots of different types and made a gestalt that suited the situation and her and the Doctor's whims. Perfectly logical, and quite endearing really. So personally, I think it fits just fine with BEEB canon - the TARDIS exterior is made of wood, like quite a few Met Boxes before her.

[warped in storage]

I think it fits just fine with BEEB canon - the TARDIS exterior is made of wood

Isn't the Tardis a living thing? It would make sense if it always sets in a different form, but always made of an organic material.

[NotaMountainGoat]

Yeah, it might be better to say the exterior resembles wood, since who really knows what material the TARDIS is actually made of (unless they did say at some point, and I'm not remembering).

And do we know if they were really trying to mimic a concrete texture on the original Hartnell box? Because it's always looked to me like they were just loading on tons of thick, crusted paint to make it look as old and battered as possible. The effect has never looked particularly like concrete to me.

[hb88banzai]

Sorry - shorthand. Obviously conflating the TARDIS as a device and the TARDIS as the wooden Police Box form it's currently stuck in can lead to confusion, but since we were talking about the latter it seemed a reasonable simplification.

It's certainly not made of wood itself, but the chameleon circuit makes it more than merely resemble wood as it feels like wood to the touch and sounds like it when rapped with a knuckle or when the door is slammed shut. If it looks like a penguin and walks like a penguin one might as well call it Frobisher.

And no, TARDIS's have taken the form of lots of non-organic things on the series. A stone pillar immediately comes to mind - and a computer - and a caravan to name just a few. She is certainly a living thing, but it's not really a form of life that we're familiar with, all wrapped up in energy, space, time and the Vortex the way it is, so organic vs. non-organic is probably not relevant at all.

But this is supposed to be about the prop, so back to the new exterior -

The colour in these latest shots make it look a bit greener and and lighter than it has been to date in the new series, also going a fair ways back towards the desaturated tone of the Eccleston/Tennet/Hurt TARDIS's. Looks a bit odd with the white trim. Previous pictures didn't make it look quite that different, so it must be the exposure and lighting.

The St. John badge is now a fairly stock sign (more like a sticker) as per the actual ones produced by the St. John Ambulance Association from the late 1960s to the present. Kind of refreshing to see it full and complete for the first time on the TARDIS.

The phone door sign now seems a little less crowded than the Smith one. Looks like there's more negative space between the lettering and the frame, particularly at the top, creating a slightly more balanced, less cramped look.

[galacticprobe]

And do we know if they were really trying to mimic a concrete texture on the original Hartnell box? Because it's always looked to me like they were just loading on tons of thick, crusted paint to make it look as old and battered as possible. The effect has never looked particularly like concrete to me.

Quite right, Goat. In the un-aired pilot the TARDIS was quite pristine. For the premise of the series - that being the Doctor having stolen the TARDIS from a repair yard and the "Old Girl" being old and not operating properly - they wanted the TARDIS to look like a battered old police box. So for the refilming of the pilot for the first episode of the first story, they covered the prop with Artex (for those who don't know it's a textured paint) to make it look like it had been painted with a few thousand layers (okay, maybe a bit exaggerated on the number of layers, but you get the idea), and then painted it that mottled blue-grey.

In fact, they "grunged" the prop up so much that they actually had to tone it down a notch or two, which is why in the second story ('The Daleks') the TARDIS prop looks a little less battered than it did in the first story. So they weren't going for the look of a concrete box; they were going for a look of something that looked really old and pretty-well worn.

Dino.

[superrichi1a]

Back on the Capaldi box, it looks like one of the New Haven lamp spokes is broken, and, owning one myself and knowing it's pretty tough, WHAT HAVE THEY BEEN DOING TO THIS POOR THING? Perhaps this also goes some way to explaining why I couldn't shake the notion the lamp didn't look quite right last month...
Also of note is how, again, the TARDIS has been raised off the ground by a food 2 inches or more this time. What's the reason this time do we reckon? Can't be the weather, surely, they've put it in the wet before, and it doesn't look like it needs any sort of levelling. A gap that big will quickly become visible on screen if they're not careful.
Heartened by the SJA badge change, looks much nicer now! Is it still a sticker or painted on, too? I could be wrong but it looks to me more 3D, like a plate...
And the windows have changed again! Ergh, madness! The translucent black inserts are back. So it seems like we're going to be getting an extremely inconsistent TARDIS this year. They keep saying they're going back to the Classics, but I was expecting they were talking more in terms of story than TARDIS presentation 

[hb88banzai]

The St. John badge looks like a sticker or applique of some sort.

Look at the full size versions of this pic --

http://www.flickr.com/photos/114416687@N03/12795043365/sizes/o/

...and particularly this one --

http://www.flickr.com/photos/114416687@N03/12795146903/sizes/o/

There's a portion of the badge that's pulled up at the edge.

OMG - I've never noticed that before. Look at the phone door sign on that last picture at full "original" resolution. It's at an angle and you can clearly see that the letters are three dimensional - raised well above the surface of the plex and just stuck on. I knew the Smith sign had slightly raised lettering, but this seems a lot thicker - maybe 1/16" to 1/8"? That's just crazy!