Dorka Nieradzik's Doctor Who makeup designs.

Last year, I contacted puppeteer Aurora Adams (whose website can be seen here), the niece of makeup artist Dorka Nieradzik. Adams kindly provided me with these scans of Nieradzik's makeup design drawings she had done for her various gigs on Doctor Who.

Dorka Nieradzik's makeup career was mostly doing 'straight makeups', from assorted BBC period dramas to Clive Owens' makeup on Children of Men and Shoot 'Em Up.

It was Nieradzik's work on Doctor Who however, where she did some of her most elaborate makeup designs, working with prosthetic appliances to create strange aliens and mutants; in short, this was Nieradzik going into 'special makeup effects' territory.

This is not a complete collection of Nieradzik's makeup work, just what I've either been sent by Aurora Adams, or otherwise found online.

Nieradzik's first Doctor Who serial was 'The Leisure Hive', with her main duties being the Argolin aliens who had evolved from plants; her design drawings show clearly that she was thinking how to reflect the 'sentient plant' angle.

Nieradzik's other main job on 'The Leisure Hive' was the old age makeup on Tom Baker, after the Doctor has been prematurely aged by some experimet. One of Nieradzik's aims was to show the Doctor aged, but still come across as a friendly figure like Father Christmas.

The Argolin were realized as, more or less, facepaint and wigs; the wigs were specially made to look like some kind of bush, with the top adorned by a sculpted piece - perhaps the first case of Nieradzik working with prosthetics on Doctor Who.

Dorka Nierdzik provided the makeup for the frog-like Urbankan aliens in 'Four to Doomsday'; early sketches by Nieradzik show that a more elaborate frog-like mask was intended for the Urbankans (an element also in Colin Lavers' costume design drawings for the Urbankans).

However, given a notable actor like Stratford Johns was to play the Urbankan leader, Monarch, then the makeup design couldn't totally obscure his face. Viewers still had to know it was Stratford Johns under there! Nieradzik revised the makeup design.

Nieradzik contributed to several other Doctor Who serials - 'Logopolis', 'Time-Flight', 'Vengeance on Varos', 'Revelation of the Daleks', 'Silver Nemesis' and 'The Happiness Patrol'.

On 'The Happiness Patrol', Nieradzik designed the serial's infamous Kandyman; a psychotic robot designed to look like he was made of sweets, like a monstrous Bertie Bassett.

Her Kandyman design was far beyond the capabilities of either the BBC's Make-Up Department or the BBC's Costume Department, so instead she went to freelance costume & prop maker Robert Allsopp to construct the Kandyman suit.

Again, I have to thank Aurora Adams for sending me all these photos she took of Nieradzik's design drawings and the Argolin wigs! I hope that in future, more polaroids and design drawings of her Doctor Who makeup work is made public!