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Jim's DALEK Site

6 December 2009

I have remodelled the tail end of the Dirac's warp engines to make them a little more like those of the Enterprise, and I have also added phasers and photon torpdoes to the model (which, by the way, I'm now calling a light cruiser). I put the photon torpedo launcher below the main deflector, which seems sensible even if there is no precedent for a ship having a launcher there in any of the TV series or movies.

I think the actual photon torpedoes themselves need a bit more work. I was going for a ‘ball of plasma’ look, but maybe that wasn't the best option.

I've also rendered side views of both the Dirac and the Enterprise to exactly the same scale, so you can get an idea of their relative sizes.

Dirac 4d Dirac 4i Dirac Orbiting 4b Enterprise orbiting 4b

22 November 2009

I've been tweaking my Dirac class cruiser model, reworking the lower shuttlebay and adding more detail. Here are the results.

Dirac 4c Dirac 4d Dirac 4g Dirac 4i Dirac 4h

8 November 2009

No new wallpaper, but here is the latest version of my hybrid Dalek combining classic and new series features. I've improved the base and added rims around the skirt bumps.

Hybrid Dalek

1 November 2009

I decided to start adding design elements from the new series to my Dalek model. So far I've only done the base and the neck bin (that's the dark area behind the grill, between the dome and the shoulders), but I hope to add more features as time passes. In the meantime here is a picture of a hybrid Dalek with both classic and new series features.

March of the Hybrid Daleks

18 October 2009

This is a new version of a wallpaper I first did about a year ago, showing a group of Daleks in a vaguely tardis-like time capsule. I've replaced the Daleks with movie versions, used a more dramatic the camera angle, and modified the time capsule itself to include features I've recently added to the Dalek shuttle model that it was originally based on.

Dalek Time Capsule 2

11 October 2009

This is a view of my Dalek shuttle with the roof removed. This ship wasn't designed to look particularly cool: it's main requirements were that it be big enough to get several Daleks in it and still be able to position the camera far enough away from them to get a decent picture, and that it have lots of windows so you can see the Daleks from the outside. Once I'd achieved that I stuck engines and weapon pods on it and tried to make it look like a spaceship.

Dalek Shuttle From Above

4 October 2009

This is a revised and (hopefully) improved version of an earlier wallpaper.

Enterprise firing

27 September 2009

I had an old laptop with a broken hard drive, so in an adventurous mood I replaced the drive, installed Ubuntu on it and then installed the Linux version of POV-Ray (up until now I've been using the Windows version). Well obviously I had to give it a try, didn't I? I didn't have any new scenes to render, so I modified an old one to use a different type of Dalek. As you can see it all worked fine.

Three Movie Daleks

Another good piece of news: the company I work for decided not to make me redundant after all. In fact it looks like they're going to be keeping me quite busy over the next few months, but I'll try to find time to render the occasional picture.

20 September 2009

I haven't had a chance to do any new wallpapers, but I did produce these designs showing how the Special Weapons Dalek might have looked had it appeared in the 1965 and 1966 movies.

movie special weapons daleks

6 September 2009

New wallpaper. A renegade Special Weapons Dalek storms a Dalek control room.

Dalek Civil War

23 August 2009

New wallpapers. Daleks try to cut their way through the Defiant's hull, while keeping a wary eye on the Enterprise nearby.

Please note: I posted a corrected version of the wallpaper on the left at about 19:30 GMT today, because the tip of the firing Dalek's gun hadn't rendered correctly in the original version. Thanks go to eagle-eyed Steve Lowe for quickly spotting the error and bringing it to my attention.

Daleks on the hull Daleks on the hull

Many thanks to Alex Gigg for suggesting this scene.

9 August 2009

New wallpaper. A Dalek shuttlecraft flies over a rather foggy city.

Scouting a foggy city 1440x900

I have removed all of the 1280x1024 wallpaper, and from now on I will only do widescreen images (usually 1440x900). This means I now have lots of room for new stuff. Which means I have to think of new stuff to do...

2 August 2009

New wallpaper. Once again the Enterprise comes to blows with the Daleks.

View from a Dalek shuttle 1440x900

This website is now just about at its size limit so I'm going to have to do some pruning. I was going to remove the orthographic Dalek wallpaper (i.e. the side, top, front and back views) but now I think I'll get rid of all the old 1280x1024 wallpaper instead. I've only been rendering new wallpaper in widescreen format for a while now and no one has complained, so it seems to be the way to go.

26 July 2009

New wallpaper. When the Daleks invade, the only sensible thing to do is jump onboard the nearest spaceship and run away.

Escape from the Daleks 1440x900

This is my first post in a while. This is partly because I've been on holiday (New York, New York, so good they named it twice...), partly because I've been catching up on my backlog of unwatched DVDs (only 58 to go), partly because I've been quite busy at work recently (at my age you can only do so much before everything goes all blurry), and partly because I've been distracted by the news that I may be made redundant in September due to lack of work. One can only assume the work that's lacking is somehow different to the work that's keeping me so busy.

31 May 2009

New wallpaper, showing the Enterprise orbiting an M class planet. This is my best attempt at building a planet so far without resorting to surface maps created from photographs of real planets and moons (which always feels like cheating). Now I just have to figure out how to do decent clouds...

Enterprise orbiting 3 1440x900