Daleks, the TARDIS
and Other Stuff.

Here is the latest type of Dalek to be revealed in the new series. In fact only the second ever Dalek to be shown with design modifications other than a slight variation of the usual features (the first being the Special Weapons Dalek in Remembrance of the Daleks). The supreme, with its booming voice akin to the Emperor, was sadly leaked in the tabloids a few days before he was shown in The Stolen Earth in June 2008. This image ties in rather nicely because next we have the other interestingly-coloured version of The Supreme Dalek when he appeared in Planet of the Daleks...

In 2007 I continued to play around with lighting in a few different ways, resulting in a couple of new images which I'm rather pleased with. The first shown here above right is a Dalek Production Line inspired on the one hand by The Power of the Daleks where Lesterson spies the evil aliens reproducing in their capsule, and also by Planet of the Daleks in which they amass a huge army on the planet of Spiridon and then hide it within an Icecano. Quite why they freeze them, I'm not sure. Perhaps Daleks get very bored if you leave them alone too long. It's funny actually when you think about it, because in the story I just mentioned, The Power of the Daleks, this is another example of a story in which the Daleks simply remain dormant, and then do so without the need for the extreme cold. It's as strange as The Tomb of the Cybermen. Why do they freeze themselves? Particularly when you consider that Davros sat for God-knows how long after Genesis in amongst the cobwebs without even a marmalade sandwich to keep him going until he was awoken in Destiny of the Daleks. Altough judging by the stuff he was coming out with, and the sound of his voice, clearly his brain had been damaged by the long sleep. And his mouth come to that.

Those eagle-eyed amongst you will notice that the image above centre is essentially the same set (although I did this render first) and shows the Supreme Dalek coming to check how things are going with their manufacture of the virus thingy which does absolutely nothing at the end of Planet of the Daleks.

You may also be interested to know who the silver and red fella is, also featured above right. Well, he's one of my favourites, and he's a bit of a Dalek enigma. The 'all silver Dalek with the red dome' Dalek has had an interesting life in the Dalek world. It appeared on screen in the second film, Daleks Invasion Earth 2150 AD (different bits belong to different coloured Daleks in that - the prop history is never that simple!) before ending up in the hands of Terry Nation. It also appears on those Weetabix cards. It is photographed at Nation's home in 1973 along with its sister prop which was the gold and black Supreme Dalek. These photos can be seen in the 1973 Radio Times Anniversary Special, which will also instruct you how to build your very own, very bad Dalek. The top half and probably the rest of this silver and red prop is now owned by collector Mick Hall.

These renders have been created using luminosity of surfaces rather than actual light sources, and with radiosity this adds a warmer and more real-world feel to the images without the unrealistic sharp shadows which you only normally see in life when the sun is streaming through your window without a cloud in the sky.

I've always liked the film Daleks. Not for any serious reason, they were just so unashamedly "sixties" compared to their TV counterparts. The colours, the sets and everything was just so dated. Lava lamps in the control room! Brilliant! I had been meaning to do some film Daleks for ages ago and I finally got around to it. I haven't the patience to properly model rooms, so unfortunately there's only a half-hearted attempt at the control room.

The shot above shows how they might have been had they been able to get away with the flame throwers. Bloody health and safety, eh? The film Daleks have a lot in common with the new series Daleks, with their enlarged fenders and large "ear" lights. They also have pincer claws in the films which only the new series Daleks have had the forsight to invent, although there have been various Daleks down the years with interesting attachments, just nothing helpful they could actually hang onto things with. Above left is the Dalek control room complete with Black Dalek leader, and second in command red Dalek. I wanted to go one better than the film with its eight hero props, so there are actually eleven in my shot, although one is hard to spot and one is just a claw!

During 2006 my work on the season 2 DVDs forced me to stop being so lazy and get around to correcting my new series Dalek model which had been inaccurate for too long. I made loads of corrections which you can read about on the new series Dalek page but once it was done I decided to have some fun with it. I've always liked the black and white colour scheme from Death to the Daleks. Although I apprecaite why people like the more professional and tank-like appearance of the grey Day of the Daleks appearaance, I like how the black and white colours really accentuated the Daleks features, particularly their skirt domes, and generally made them more interesting to look at. I never took a shine to the bronze colour scheme of the new series Daleks. Too strong an association with the gold Dalek for me, and it made each of the drones in the new series seem special. Anyway, I wanted to see what the New Series Daleks looked like after a lick of paint, so this is what transpired. The above picture above right and below left, are homages to Death to the Daleks. Above they are seen above in their control room inside their ship on the way to land, having a sneaky peek at the Exxilon city. The image left shows them emerging from their ship. I didn't want to improve on the design of their ship too much as you can see!

As part of the work for the series 2 box set it required me to explore the innards of the Daleks and recreate some of the many internal workings that had never fully been seen. Obviously when the Dalek opened itself up in the season 1 episode, and also when one was blown up in the TARDIS it did reveal a little of the seating area of the blob and from underneath we can see that the anti-gravity generators are in the same configuration as the good old TV 21 comic artwork, but otherwise it was a mystery. I looked a little to the Terry Nation's Dalek special cut-away but otherwise just my imagination. So, picture above is a new series version of the infamous glass Dalek.

As of July 05 I started using Cinema 4D to render, instead of MAX. The real bonus with C4D is that it supports a lighting method called HDRI which stands for High Dynamic Range Image. The upshot of this is to create a more realistically lit environment and create soft lighting using secondary light reflected off surfaces and utilising a photographic lighting texture. The scene shown above right is a re-creation from Planet of the Daleks in which of one of the Supreme Council from Skaro arrives with his entourage to take command of operations on Spiridon. It is in a league of its own compared to my previous renders done in MAX, which are shown further down the page.

The image above shows the Dalek from The Five Doctors. This was the first appearance of a Dalek in the Peter Davison era, however in this story it was the Doctor's first incarnation who came across the old foe in The Death Zone's odd all of mirrors. I spent a lot of time making this Dalek as accurate as possible, which is to say, making it look rubbish. Unfortunately my nice shiny picture doesn't do justice to the wreck which was wheeled out on set. This Dalek is seemingly cobbled together out of deteriorating props, exhibition items and whatever else was lying around. It has large and very striking red lights, an ill-fitting, misaligned neck-section and a set of badly mounted solar panels which are also fewer in number than usual Daleks an mounted on odd white mesh. I worked hard on creating a surface texture which looked realistic. The challenge was the reflectivity which needed to show the environment but not with much detail, and the surface needed to look like painted wood. I'm happy enough with the result to feel it justifies two pictures of this particular scene!

Shown on the right is my last render done in MAX. It depicts two classic-style Daleks (from their debut story commonly referred to as 'The Dead Planet') looking admiringly at a drone who has been the subject of certain modifications designed to take them outside the city. Having been defeated so easily during The Dalek Invasion of Earth (presumably due to the way their energy was distributed) the Daleks then look to a solar-panelled mid-section to provide the energy they need when they can't draw power from the floor.

Having modelled the two main TV styles which cover all stories between 1963 and 1967 (with the exception of the Dalek Invasion of Earth) the next obvious model was Day of the Daleks which saw the Daleks return after a 5-year absense in a grey/black livery, plus that oddly coloured beige-gold leader.

This shot (left) shows one of the first scene with the Daleks from episode one of 'Day of the Daleks'.

One of the least-satisfying aspects of the Dalek's return in Day of the Daleks was not just their under-use but the lack of budget typical of Doctor Who when it came to something such as realising a large battle. At the climax of Day of the Daleks a 'massive' army totalling three Daleks storm the house of Sir Reginald Styles. In my version, although lacking their Ogron troops, the Dalek presence is more substantial and UNIT's firepower looks a bit more effective against the advancing army.

The image left is inspired by The Dalek Invasion of Earth. It is a render but uses a photographic texture in order to create Battersea Power station, with the additional sphere and a couple of out-houses rendered in front to help blend the elements together. The scene captures the moment from the end of episode one where the Dalek emerges from the Thames, Terry Nation's idea being that the Daleks can't detect when they move between different media of air and water, due to be encased in their Dalek armour.

This image right is representative of one of my favourite Dalek stories, Death to the Daleks. Perhaps its because its one of the earliest Dalek stories I ever saw, but I feel its always been harshly-criticised. I have a lot of affection for both the colour scheme, Michael Wisher's voices and the unusual weaponry. My image shows three Daleks all with their bullet-firing guns, wandering around the Exxilon planet which did look very like a quarry.

Below are a couple of classic Doctor Who Dalek photographs into which I have dropped my models, plus my enhanced versions.

These were some of the first images put together using my Dalek model. At this early stage of work I was using photographic backgrounds as my intention was see if people noticed the Daleks were models and not the real McCoy. It generally worked. Left is a famous shot from 'Power of the Daleks' with two Daleks outside their capsule. Matching my model to the orignial photo was something of a nightmare. These two Daleks seem to have the oddest proportions of any photo I've come across. Whether its lighting or perspective is a mysery to me.

In this photo from 'The Chase' I have replaced all the Daleks. At some point I eventually intent to get round to modelling a TARDIS and putting together a wholly realistic version of this image but not sure when I'll get around to it. As currently the nearly photo-realistic results I'm producing with Cinema 4D are getting me very excited and taking up time.