The Master
- edmundbarnettward
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
Sculpting the Anthony Ainley Master — A Study in Villainy, Vanity & Very Specific Reference
Most of the modern era of Doctor Who, or Nu-Who as fandom sometimes styles it, provides characters where the sculpts fall naturally into place — a wealth of reference material, fresh digital scans, crisp modern photography, costumes in controlled lighting, dozens of stills available from every angle. And then there are heritage characters from the classic era of Doctor Who — those beautiful, slippery figures who exist mostly in grainy, pre-digital, pre-HD archives and internet caches of publicity stills, or whatever fragments haven’t yet been pixelated beyond recognition.
The Anthony Ainley Master was very much the latter.
When Character Options asked for a definitive Ainley — that razor-smile, the aristocratic features, that effortless blend of charm and menace — it was clear from the outset that reference gathering would be half the battle. Ainley’s face is expressive, elastic, constantly shifting between mischief and malice, and the quality of surviving imagery varies wildly across his run. To get him right, I needed to time-travel — digitally, at least.
I pulled everything I could from classic stories: The Keeper of Traken, Logopolis, and of course The Five Doctors — the story that, for many fans, cemented Ainley as the Master of the 1980s. High-resolution screen captures became my lifeline, allowing me to isolate micro-expressions frame by frame. Eyebrow tension. Crease depth. The peculiar geometry of his smile — never quite friendly, always a little delighted with himself.
But the breakthrough didn’t come from Doctor Who at all.
One of the most valuable sources of visual reference turned out to be Ainley’s earlier work in Upstairs, Downstairs. No beard. No shadowing tricks. No theatrical villain framing. Just Anthony Ainley — relaxed, unmasked, bone structure clearly visible. Without the Master’s trademark facial hair, I could properly map the jawline, the cheek contour, the angle of the brow. It was like being handed the blueprint beneath the performance.
Only then could I rebuild the man who would become the villain.
This is the part of sculpting I love — the archaeology of it. The forensic hunt for a likeness that lives half-hidden in history. Ainley’s Master isn’t just a face — he’s a legacy. A voice that curls like smoke. A figure who, even when still, looks like he’s moments from revealing a plan that’s three steps ahead of yours.
Capturing that isn’t just about technique — it’s about devotion to a legacy.
He wears the perfect costume for an arch-villain: the velvet tailcoat with theatrical puffed shoulders, a smoothly whispering fabric that feels made for an aristocratic assassin, richly embellished with metallic embroidered details.
The figure is completed with the Master’s signature weapon, the Tissue Compression Eliminator — a dastardly device that compresses a human being by a factor of ten, killing them in the process. I sculpted the device in both ‘activated’ and ‘inactive’ states.
The figure, as released, reflects the history of Character Options Doctor Who figures as completely as we hoped it would capture the Master. After our initial sculpt with an expression best described as the plotting sneer, Character commissioned the brilliant Andrew Teal of Designworks Windsor to create a malevolent smile and add additional detailing to the hip section (which was originally going to be repurposed from the Roger Delgado Nehru-suited figure, as the legs were). In addition, the set was completed with a re-issue of the Master’s TARDIS disguised as a Doric column, and two new props — a Time Lord funeral casket and a Matrix Internment Orb.
This figure has been at the top of a lot of collectors’ wishlists for a very long time. Judging by the reaction so far, I think we succeeded in creating a figure that captures the essence of one of the cornerstones of 1980s Doctor Who — and frankly, Anthony Ainley’s Master deserves nothing less.
To see more renders click here. If you want to own your own Ainley Master, you can purchase the set here. If you’ve got a character that needs to be sculpted with a meticulous eye for detail, we’d love to help.
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