Even homemade Daleks EXTERMINATE!

June 20, 2008 8:37 AM

Project Dalek: Alan has deliberately 'beefed up' the dome. From a child's eye view it looks like half an inch thick battle armour but the dome is really only four millimetres in thickness. This looks more substantial when viewed from underneath - an angle from which children often see Daleks.

Prop history, production stills, handicraft, and virtual models. Very nice little DIY guides available with forum sign-up. (Hatred of life not included.)

via iO9

posted by cowbellemoo (26 comments total)

The internet: Bringing you terrifying glimpses of the insides of strange men's sheds since 1995!
This is an utterly awesome site
posted by Jofus at 8:44 AM on June 20, 2008 [1 favorite]

For those like me who are not Doctor Who connaisseurs, the Dalek wiki will help.
posted by Vindaloo at 8:48 AM on June 20, 2008

Are you not allowed to get creative with your Dalek outside of customizing the color? The showcase pics are all basically the same thing just different colors. What about like a Dalek Version 2.0 with I dunno a swiss army knife arm or something?
posted by spicynuts at 8:49 AM on June 20, 2008

A dalek/R2D2 mashup would be really cool. EXTERMI*BEEP*. The Doctor = Obi Wan (with a sonic saber), Companion Of The Season = Leia/Luke hybrid. Harrison Ford as the voice of TARDIS.
posted by DU at 8:50 AM on June 20, 2008

Well, I know what I'm going to do this weekend.
posted by drezdn at 8:54 AM on June 20, 2008

I still like the Robotic Dalek Pumpkin the best.
posted by Kabanos at 9:00 AM on June 20, 2008 [1 favorite]

(And by "really cool" I mean "did I say that out loud?")
posted by DU at 9:03 AM on June 20, 2008

Are you not allowed to get creative with your Dalek outside of customizing the color? The showcase pics are all basically the same thing just different colors. What about like a Dalek Version 2.0 with I dunno a swiss army knife arm or something?

I think the general route of the obsession goes:

1. Build classic dalek out of wood
2. Build motorized classic dalek out of wood/metal/composite
3. Build actual dalek
4. ...
5. EXTERMINATE!

(And people are less likely to think you're awesome just for creating some obscure artillary dalek variant.)
posted by cowbellemoo at 9:03 AM on June 20, 2008

spicynuts - well, there's this horrible design for a Dalek that folds it's sides down and turns into some kind of spider, from a thankfully aborted US co-production.
posted by Artw at 9:08 AM on June 20, 2008

4. ...

That's where the workout goes.
posted by CynicalKnight at 9:10 AM on June 20, 2008

I think 4 is where either 'masturbate' or 'have sex with your Dalek' goes.
posted by spicynuts at 9:16 AM on June 20, 2008

No thread about daleks is complete without the image that someone here made of a dalek with mathowie peeking out of it. I am unable to find it and link to it, but perhaps the original artist will.
posted by Cranberry at 9:48 AM on June 20, 2008

'have sex with your Dalek'

I’m having trouble finding a link to the Marine Dalek someone did, which is a shame because… well, you’ll see if I find it.
posted by Artw at 9:50 AM on June 20, 2008

I think 4 is where either 'masturbate' or 'have sex with your Dalek' goes.


It's okay to love your Dalek. But it's not okay to love your Dalek.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 9:58 AM on June 20, 2008

But it's not okay to love your Dalek.

I love my dead gay dalek!!
posted by spicynuts at 10:02 AM on June 20, 2008 [4 favorites]

I never understood how the Daleks had a chance against the Cybermen, let alone fighting them to a stalemate.
posted by Class Goat at 10:18 AM on June 20, 2008

Very cool.

I keep meaning to buy one of these so I can run back and forth behind the low walls at work screaming "EXTERMINATE EXTERMINATE" periodically.

And I loved the workout video. Of course, stairs also frequently defeat me too.
posted by Samizdata at 10:29 AM on June 20, 2008 [1 favorite]

Now I know where I can find a decent tailor around these parts. Thanks!
posted by Smart Dalek at 10:55 AM on June 20, 2008 [1 favorite]

I have always wanted to make an RC cybermat, to launch out from under the sofa when the kitties get too vocal during The Wire.
posted by everichon at 10:57 AM on June 20, 2008

Daleks have a sort of edge, because (unlike Cybermen) they're not devoid of emotion, it's just that that emotion is a psychotic hatred of everything that's not a Dalek.

In fact they represent the two main wings of totalitarianism.

The distinction was put forward quite nicely, I thought. The aim of the Cybermen is to upgrade all humans, and make them all the same. Cut out the brain and plop it into a standardised body. They're just common-or-garden fascists, like Mussolini's Italy or Stalin's Soviet Union.

On the other hand, the Daleks are in a colossal state of denial. Refusing to believe that they're mutants of any kind, they've inverted their relationship to non-Dalek humans, and consider them (and other life-forms) to be essentially unclean. Mutation becomes a form of cleansing. Converting human flesh involves (as the Dalek Emperor put it at the end of the first season of the new series) sifting it, filtering out the impurities.

The Daleks, therefore, are the rarified totalitarians - obsessed with purity, convinced of their absolute superiority and completely and totally insane. Like the Nazis, or Inquisition-era Church.

But the insanity is what gives them an edge over the Cybermen and everybody else and makes them virtually indestructible. They're cockroaches who think they're angels.

And of course, we're all awaiting the imminent return of British television's number one paraplegic role-model...

(tri-plegic?)
posted by Grangousier at 11:10 AM on June 20, 2008 [1 favorite]

I thought the NuWho treatment of Cybermen was rather boringly Dalek-like TBH. Not nearly as interesting as their early Classic Who appearances, where there was a kind of tradgedy in their transformation into cyborgs.
posted by Artw at 11:16 AM on June 20, 2008

The Daleks, therefore, are the rarified totalitarians - obsessed with purity, convinced of their absolute superiority and completely and totally insane. Like the Nazis, or Inquisition-era Church.
But the insanity is what gives them an edge over the Cybermen and everybody else and makes them virtually indestructible. They're cockroaches who think they're angels.

Interesting argument Grangousier.

But can they climb stairs?
posted by Kabanos at 11:38 AM on June 20, 2008

They fly these days.

Over the course of the years they’ve gone from only being able to travel on the metal floors of their Dalek hideout, to being free-roaming, to the occasional ominous hover, and now flying about all over the place.
posted by Artw at 11:46 AM on June 20, 2008

Dalek Pest Control Services: We Exterminate For You
posted by ...possums at 12:32 PM on June 20, 2008

White Wee Wee!
posted by A189Nut at 2:59 PM on June 20, 2008 [1 favorite]

I think 4 is where either 'masturbate' or 'have sex with your Dalek' goes.


MASTURBATE! MAS-TUR-BATE!!!
posted by Pallas Athena at 8:59 AM on June 21, 2008 [2 favorites]