www.jimsdaleksite.com
© James Parker 2006-2009
www.jimsdaleksite.com
© James Parker 2006-2009
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.
I've been tweaking my Dirac class cruiser model, reworking the lower shuttlebay and adding more detail. Here are the results.
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.
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.
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.
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.
This is a revised and (hopefully) improved version of an earlier wallpaper.
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.
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.
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.
New wallpaper. A renegade Special Weapons Dalek storms a Dalek control room.
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.
Many thanks to Alex Gigg for suggesting this scene.
New wallpaper. A Dalek shuttlecraft flies over a rather foggy city.
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...
New wallpaper. Once again the Enterprise comes to blows with the Daleks.
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.
New wallpaper. When the Daleks invade, the only sensible thing to do is jump onboard the nearest spaceship and run away.
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.
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...
