Silver Nemesis

Moving swiftly on from 'Planet of Fire', I chose pretty much at random to have a go at 'Silver Nemesis'. Lots of pictures, I thought, but surprisingly hard to find a decent 'hero' image of the Cybermen. Ideally I wanted a face on shot from a low angle looking up, but the best I could find was the one used on the official cover or that which I finally used, both of which were at an angle. However, this month's DWM kindly printed a large photo of Sylvester in his cream jacket (not from 'Silver Nemesis' but from a photoshoot around that time, I think) that was a perfect fit, great quality and, with him facing to the right, balanced the Cyberleader facing left.

The initial idea was to have the Cyberman and Doctor positioned in a central column, then Lady Peinforte and De Flores in the left and right thirds. In the event, the shots I chose to use, particularly of De Flores, weren't full-length enough to reach the bottom of the cover so I used a cross shape to allow me to cut them off higher. Even then I had to paint in some of De Flores' belt and jacket. For Peinforte, I added her holding the arrow (from a screengrab from episode one) to balance De Flores holding the bow.

For background images, using the mausoleum tower was an obvious choice to set Peinforte against. The striking derelict warehouse suited De Flores but I couldn't find a clear enough photo so had to use another screengrab, which just about works at this size and with colour overlaid. Originally I just had a space background behind the Cyberleader and Doctor, then thought to include the Earth so I could squeeze in the Nemesis asteroid above it (and complete the representation of the three parts of the Nemesis statue). So finally I continued its shape in the two side panels.

The final cover has a definite Alister Pearson feel to me - not deliberate but I'd be flattered if someone else had pointed it out to me!

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