Doctor Who (2005) - 2000s series

The reboot of Doctor Who had different production methods than the original 1963 run; instead of individual visual effects designers (or the freelancers they hired) assigned to each serial, it would a special effects team for a whole season. Neill Gorton and his Millennium FX company was responsible for the prosthetic effects on most of the reboot's seasons, with Gorton himself credited as prosthetics designer on several episodes. Members of Gorton's team included Rob Mayor, Vicki Bancroft, Martin Rezard, Valentina Visintin, Charlie Bluett, among others.

'End of the World' provided Millenium FX the chance to design a whole menagerie of aliens, some barely seen in the episode itself. Most of the attention of course went to Jabe (portrayed by Yasmin Bannermen), a humanoid descended from trees who was realized as a prosthetic makeup. The bark prosthetic was designed to blend with Bannermen's skin tone, with her head having a 'hairdo' of flowers.

Jabe's unnamed assistants wear more complex makeups with a bark-like texture and paler colour; being bit-parts, there was no need for the performer's face to be expressive.

One of the more complex aliens - thus reserved to a bit-part here - was the Face of Boe, a giant alien head that was realized as a large animatronic prop with functioning lip and eye movements; it would appear again in the second and third seasons.

Another one of the aliens was the Moxx of Balhoon, portrayed by Jimmy Vee in heavy facial prosthetics, as well as a static prop 'body'; the effect was achieved by having the chair prop under the Moxx's body, meaning Vee could still walk and move the chair (which was on wheels) around.

Several latex masks were created to be worn by the extras portraying the various background aliens, that were only named in one very brief sequence; the first of these were the 'Ambassadors from the City State of Binding Light', four eyed noseless aliens.

Another pair of alien extras were the 'Brothers Hop Pyleen', the performers wearing masks resembling a reptile.

The last of the alien extras were 'Mr. and Mrs. Pakoo', bird like aliens that were just realized as masks worn over the performers heads.

The antagonists of 'Aliens of London' and 'World War Three' were the Slitheen; large, slimy, cherubic-faced giants. Series producer Russell T Davies sketched a very complex and almost xenomorph-like monster design, but this was too ambitious to realize.

Neill Gorton eventually settled on a design that was more manageable to realize as a suit rather than CGI; noticeably, the head in Gorton's design had bulbous black eyes, possibly inspired by the Grey alien design so often a fixture in the sort of conspiracies the episode was parodying.

Preliminary maquette for the Slitheen suit

Three suits were made to realize the Slitheen onscreen (digital editing trickery was used to make it appear there was crowds of them in some scenes), the bodysuits being sculpted out of foam rubber, with the neck and head worn like a hat. The heads had animatronics inside to make the lips curl and snarl, whilst the long arms had a mechanism attached to the performers hands to make the claws move as well.

'Dalek' marked the return of the uh, Daleks; Gorton and his team revised the mutant inside the Dalek casing, moving away from the amorphous green brains the Classic Series usually depicted, and instead having them retain their humanoid visage; the final mutant is a pitiful squid-like creature with exposed brains and vestiges of a human face, with one eye and the mouth gummed up.

The mutant prop in 'Dalek' was an animatronic puppet, with mechanisms inside to make the tentacles move and to also make it look like the mutant was pulsating; the prop was then placed in a water tank to play the Emperor Dalek in the series finale 'Parting of the Ways', and then reused with new animatronic motors to play Dalek Caan in 'Journey's End' a few years later. Some of these images are from Neill Gorton's official twitter page, credit goes to him.

'The Christmas Invasion' had the Sycorax, an alien species themed after voodoo which reflected in the design of the actual aliens. The Sycorax prosthetic was designed to resembles an animal skull with fleshy parts underneath to allow the performer to emote.

The Catkind in 'New Earth' were realized as prosthetic facial makeups; as the Catkind characters were all nuns, this meant their concealing costumes would prevent the need for arm or full head prosthetics. Three Catkind prosthetics were made, each being slightly different; notice the high cheekbones on Casp (played by Dona Croll), compared to the more rounded features on Hame (played by Anna Hope).

The Catkind would return in the episode 'Gridlock', with a slightly different facial prosthetic being applied to actor Ardal O'Hanlon to play future Catkind driver Brannigan, with the pilot hat obscuring the rest of his face.

'Gridlock' also had another Catkind prosthetic, the briefly seen Javit (played by Daisy Lewis); the prosthetic make was adorned with fur and ears in a manner similar to classic Wolfman style makeup, but I haven't been able to find any behind the scenes images of the actress in makeup yet at all sadly.

'The Impossible Planet' introduced the squid-faced Ood, realized as latex masks that the actor could easily slip on their heads; the masks had built in animatronics to move make the eyes blink, as well as lights when the Ood turned evil.

For 'The End of Time', a variant of the Ood mask was sculpted for Brian Cox to wear as the Ood Elder, with the mask having a sculpted protruding brain on the top of the head, as well as drooping ears.

'Love and Monsters' started off the bat with a practical monster, the otherwise unnamed Hoix, which was realized as a full prosthetic bodysuit with mechanical segments stuck all over it, which no doubt also helped conceal whatever zippers the suit had! The head had a conical design, with large jaws that could open whenever the performer moved their mouth.

'Love and Monsters' was a satire on fandom, with its most unpleasant elements represented by the Abzorbaloff, a slimy, green ogre-like alien with its victims faces over its body. The Abzorbaloff was the result of a 'design a monster' Blue Peter competition, the winner being a then 11 year old Will Grantham, whose drawing of a giant gelatinous sumo was translated to reality first as a preliminary maquette.

Gorton's team decided the creature would be realized as a fatsuit with several faces of victims all over the body. Of note is how the earlier sculpts show the Abzorbaloff had frilly adges to his body, something that was only on the face in the final design.

The final Abzorbaloff prosthetic bodysuit was worn by Peter Kay, and was sculpted with clawed hands and feet, with an exaggerated 'evil' expression keeping in with the ogre/demon-like influence. The bodysuit had two variations, one with and one without a sculpted likeness of Shirley Henderson's face on his chest. Servo motors were built inside the suit, allowing the faces of his absorbed victims to blink.

The arachnid-like Empress of the Racnoss, the main enemy of 'The Runaway Bride', was perhaps the most complex alien creature to realize yet. The Racnoss was first realized as a preliminary maquette to see how the creature could be realized, and then construction on the spider body prop began. The performer (in this case, Sarah Parish) would more or less be seated in the spider's body, as if it was a harness.

Parish would then have to wear the sculpted torso and arm prosthetics, as well as have the facial makeup applied; the face prosthetics had extra eyes as well as as a bony 'crown' built into the head.

'Smith and Jones' introduced the Judoon, rhino-like aliens in armor that would also make recurring appearances in later seasons. In a manner similar to the Sycorax and Sontarans, all the Judoon were in helmets barring their leader, meaning only one prosthetic had to be made. The Judoon mask yet again contained animatronic mechanisms in order to let the mask blink and move the jaw to show the character talking. When they reappeared almost a decade later in 'Prisoners of the Judoon', the mask was altered to have a mohawk.

The alien Carrionites in 'The Shakespeare Code' manifested on Earth as aged crones, realized as prosthetic makeups; Amanda Lawrence and Linda Clarke's prosthetics as Doomfinger and Bloodtide were much more pronounced, with Christina Cole wearing a slightly more restrained design as Lilith.

The Daleks' pig slaves in 'Daleks in Manhattan' were realized as prosthetic latex masks; most of the alien monsters tended to be 'humanoid in concealing uniform' due to budget restraints preventing full body suit monsters being a regular occurrence.

The incomplete pig slave, Laszlo, was realized as more minimalistic pig snout and ear prosthetics applied to actor Ryan Carnes' face.

The human-Dalek hybrid Sec was realized as prosthetic makeup applied to Loren's face and hands, as well as a large animatronic 'hat' prosthetic worn on his head for the brain; the animatronic brain would be able to blink and twitch its tentacles.

The alien Chantho in 'Utopia' was portrayed by Chipo Chung in heavy prosthetics; the Chantho prosthetic was designed to be slightly insectoid in design, with a pair of mandibles protruding.

Jimmy Vee once again had to wear alien prosthetics in 'Voyage of the Damned'; this time as the alien Bannakaffalatta, a 'Zocci' alien with spines all over his head.

Similar prosthetic makeups were used for the Vinvocci aliens in the later episode 'The End of Time'; the original design had the performer's own skin colour visible, which was altered to a green colour via digital editing during post-production.

The transformed high priestess in 'The Fires of Pompeii' was achieved via actress Victoria Wicks wearing a prosthetic makeup designed to resemble stone.

As per the name, the Sontarans were reintroduced in 'The Sontaran Stratagem'. Millennium FX's Sontaran prosthetics built on John Friedlander's original latex mask design for 'The Time Warrior', taking advantages of prosthetic makeup advances since then. These new Sontaran makeups kept the basic design as Friedlander's original mask, but were fixed more to the performers face, allowing them to emote better. Different makeups were made for Christopher Ryan and Dan Starkey in 'The Sontaran Strategem'; Starkey would later wear refined versions of the prosthetics as Strax in later seasons, and Anthony O'Donnell had a set of prosthetics made for his appearances in The Sarah Jane Adventures.

Also briefly appearing in 'The Sontaran Stratagem' was a half-formed clone, realized as a performer in concealing prosthetics over their head and torso.

The Hath of 'The Doctor's Daughter' were fish-like aliens that could only survive on land with a respirator; they were latex masks with animatronic mechanisms inside them to make them blink, as well as a mechanism for the bubbling liquid inside the respirator prop.

'The Stolen Earth' marked the return of Davros, this time portrayed by Julian Bleach; like the updated Sontarans, Millennium FX adhered closely to John Friedlander's original mask for Michael Wisher in 'Genesis of the Daleks', as well as some design cues from Richard Gregory's updated mask for Terry Molloy in 'Resurrection of the Daleks'.

The Tritovores in 'Planet of the Dead' were bug-like aliens reminiscent of the original 1950s version of The Fly; they were realized as a rubber mask and gloves, with the masks fitted with animatronic mechanisms in order for the mandibles to move to show the character speaking.