Dalek Construction Pictures

• Back to Dalek

	I cut out the basic shape of the skirt and shoulders from cereal boxes, and held it all together with selotape.
	I then added the gun box which fastened to the front support.
	I added the shoulder panels by holding a piece of paper around the shoulders, and drawing the shape they should be, I then used these as a template for the cardboard.
	I added the neck and neck rings. I was hoping the use a single piece of cardboard for the cylindrical part of the neck, but since the top of the cylinder is narrower than the bottom, this usually resulted in warped shapes, so I used lots of small strips of cardboard instead. After paper macheeing it doesn't look too bad, especially since it's meant to be a mesh on the real Dalek.
	I paper macheed everything on the outside except the neck rings. The Dalek is now very sturdy. I also added a 1cm deep base, which can be seen better in the larger photo. The gun was made from a length of straw with copper wire pushed into slits cut at one end, and the hole at the other.
	I gave the Dalek it's first layer of paint, more to just hide the newspaper than to actually look finished, since it was the wrong shade of grey anyway. I made the dome from a salt dough model with PVA and newspaper layered on. However, the first dome has too large a radius and doesn't look right. I made the 'plunger' from a 'popper' toy (the picture isn't great) painted black.
	New dome, much more shallow and accurate, and I painted the 'mesh' inside the neck. I also added, paper macheed and painted the lower collars.
	I cut a slot in the dome, and added the eyepiece, which is made out of a straw several layers of cardboard discs (the dome end) and a compressed paper ball with one side sliced off. Also my new gun added.
	I cut up 27 compressed paper balls, and glued them to the skirt, a fiddley job. I covered the balls in a couple of layers of PVA to make them stronger, and stop any paint being soaked up by them.
	I painted the entire skirt black, PVAed it and then painted the bits which aren't meant to be black grey and PVAed them. Also added the upper collars, which aren't paper macheed.
	23 cardboard and painted slats glued on, again no paper machee here, just paint.
	I added three eye rings to the eye stalk, painted that (no pupil yet though), PVAed the neck rings, but not the mesh and the shoulders gun and plunger arm. I also chopped the end of the plunger arm off, and created a new thiner arm which can slide in and out of the first arm!
	Eyepiece finished and glossed, and the plunger attached to it's new telescopic arm. Dome made to swivel with use of an old bearing I found, and the arms made to stay in any position they're pointed by being 'clamped' between the gun box holes and a new layer of cardboard with a hole in it. Slightly like this: |0|---(
All that I have left to do is buy some white LEDs to use as the dome lights and fix my baby monitor, or buy a new one - it was pretty old, to give the Dalek it's voice back.