Quick! Behind the couch!
In fact, there is nothing here at all... and yet, she cannot shake off a terrible burden of fear that sits upon her, as tangible as a huge, shuddering spider. Suddenly, she sees something, something too terrifying to name, too shocking for her to give voice to her horror!
But, as her rational, reasoning mind collapses under the onslaught of this apparition, a primal, basic, screech of anguish escapes her lips, and we see the fiend capable of extracting such emotion! It is-
A pepper-pot with a sink plunger!!
Phew, no wonder we were frightened when we were kids!
And me? I love Daleks. Simply love them.
You might think that Doctor Who is a show about a 2,000 year-old Time Lord with a thing for large, blue wardrobes, but it is actually about Daleks. Well, I think it is. So, you'll have to pardon me if you detect a slight bias in favour of Skaro's finest in these pages.
Never ask me to explain the Daleks' appeal; I've seen pages of articles on the psychology involved, contemplative musings on their design, interviews with writers, actors and directors. None of them can really explain it, so don't expect it of me! But if pushed, I'd hazard a theory that there's something about Daleks that touches a chord in all of us - maybe a universal desire to exterminate the niggling problems of life; the bullies in the schoolyard, the red-tape pedlars, and the guy next door who insists on jack-hammering his driveway at six o'clock on a Sunday morning, and then hide from the consequences in an impregnable armoured shell.
But enough of the amateur analysis - on to the amateur Dalek building!
Building Characterful Daleks
That's a few Daleks...
Let's look at the miniatures I'm using in Dominion of the Daleks. Before we do though, I'd like to point out that you shouldn't assume that there is any 'official' range or scale for Dominion of the Daleks; Consider yourself free to use any Dr Who figures you may find for your games, including the old 25mm ranges by Citadel/FASA and Black Tree Design. Warlord Games also now have an 'official' range of Dr Who 30mm figures. There's a host of larger alternatives listed on John Treadaway's War of the Daleks site, which is a wealth of information for wargaming Dalek fans, and a source of inspiration for my own efforts, too!
But the Daleks? Oh dear… Well, I said I love them, but I guess they wanted proof of my devotion!
Anyone who's ever painted up more than a handful of Daleks knows that it's the hemispheres - those little bumps that cover a Dalek's lower half - that try your patience in an epic manner. One of the things that attracted me to using the Character Building figures is the fact that they are much bigger than 'regular' 25mm wargaming miniatures - a Time War Dalek stands 40mm high. This makes them more of a visual spectacle, and, because the hemispheres are larger, they are easier to paint, to boot!
Still, dear reader, regardless of how 'easy' you think they'll be to paint, remember these words of bitterly-won experience: When your innocent enthusiasm causes the number of Daleks on your painting table to swell to, say, 40, you're condemning yourself to paint 2,240 of those hemispheres…
The Dalek Variations
Question: What do you do when you're a tightly-budgeted BBC serial with a handful of expensive props that need to masquerade as hordes of alien invaders? Repaint them, of course - over and over again! Only a few Dalek props were made for the BBC by Shawcraft Models in 1963. Some of those Daleks continued to soldier on into the 1980's, with rarely more than colour changes to alter their temporal origins, or their allegiance. Thankfully, this means we wargamers can also re-task our Daleks, with little more than a spot of work with the paintbrush.
From the silver and blue originals, to the brightly-coloured 'iDaleks' of the New Paradigm, and the 'army green' Ironsides ('army green'? Well, it's not khaki, nor olive green,) there's few paint schemes that can't be justified on a Dalek. Even pink, as shown in this frame from the Dalek webcomic Second Empire by 'Mechmaster':
The point being, it is very easy to reflect the factionalism that has often been the cause of Dalek conflict, such as the Civil War in 'Evil of the Daleks' (1967) and the Imperial / Renegade schism seen in 'Remembrance of the Daleks' (1988).
Incidentally, if you have not clicked your way through Second Empire yet, then you are a complete and utter Thal, and may not proceed with this article until you have done so. Follow the link below to the most amazing Dalek comic since the days of TV Century 21 magazine…
Click the image to visit Second Empire
After assembling the main components - head, neck, shoulders and skirt - I check for moulding seams, especially around the hemispheres on the skirt, and on the top of the head, as these do look a bit unsightly. A few moments with knife and sandpaper fixes these.
If a Dalek is to have a metallic finish, I usually undercoat it in matt black before applying the topcoat - the black stops the metallic paint from looking 'washed out' as it can over a white or grey undercoat. I prefer to apply the base colours flat and even, spraying with my Iwata airbrush or spraycan whenever possible.
As is usual for me, I shoot on some Mr Hobby Colour UV Cut Gloss spray paint before continuing to the details; in this case, painting hemispheres and shoulder slats in gold, and picking out edges with lighter shades.
The gloss varnish also acts as a 'Get out of Painting Accident Free Card' - if I slip when painting a hemisphere, for example, it is quite easy to clean the acrylic from the waterproof varnish layer, without harming the base colour.
How to Paint Hemispheres without going Around the Bend
Make sure you have good light sources coming from at least two different angles onto your Dalek - you want to eliminate hard shadows, or you won't be able to distinguish the edge where the hemisphere meets the Dalek's 'skirt', and you'll be spending ages tidying those edges.
Mix up a good amount of your hemisphere colour with water. Thin the colour to the ol' 'consistency of milk' standard. Just which sort of milk I'll leave to you and your dietician.
I often add a drop of gloss medium to improve both flow and adherence. Test that the colour is neither too thin, nor too thick, by painting the tops of a couple of hemispheres. The paint should stay where you applied it, without beading and retreating (too thin) or dragging the brush, and leaving a lumpy finish (too thick).
I try to paint all of a Dalek's hemispheres in one go, but avoid trying to tackle a big batch. The hemispheres of just five Daleks can completely consume a painting session, and leave me cross-eyed!
Then, I carefully do the edges, sometimes with a finer brush, so that I'm not building too much paint on one brush, which ruins its accuracy.
In the case of some lighter shades, I first basecoat the hemispheres with a slightly deeper shade - a very light grey for white hemispheres, for example - then highlight with the final shade, applied thinly.
Eyestalks, plunger arms and gunsticks are either left black, and highlighted with a mid-tone grey, or painted silver, and washed with thin black paint, mixed with a touch of gloss medium.
The eyeball and the discs behind it are painted suitably - usually, the eyeball is black, and the discs a contrasting light shade. Referencing colour photos of Daleks provides the details.
One technique I found useful with these figures is to paint everything as sub-assemblies, and, in some places, instead of painting on highlights, scrape the paint back. The Daleks' 'fenders' for example (the base of the Dalek) are sprayed matt black, then, with a sharp hobby blade, I scrape off the paint from the edges and corners, leaving the grey plastic showing through. Bang on some protective varnish, and job's a good 'un!
Speech-indicators (the light-up 'ears' on a Dalek's head) are base-coated again with light grey or orange (depending on the desired final colour) and the colour is built-up from there, either to blue and white, or red and yellow. The only rule here is to avoid using a colour that matches that of the Dalek's casing - red indicators just look wrong on a red Dalek!
Imperial March
Here's some finished shots of the Imperials from earlier. Their Section Leaders (with the blue and red domes) are assembled from a mix of New Paradigm and Time War Daleks, to create a sub-type Travel Machine (the proper name for a Dalek's casing) with a bit more presence. The 'eyeballs' are a mixture of 'blank' and black 'pupil' lenses, to add some variety to the gang.
All these Daleks have lasercut, 2mm acrylic 'fenders' at the bottom of their 'skirts'. These are just a little more accurate for Daleks from this era of Dr Who than the Time War period chamfered fenders they came with. Yes, I actually care about that.
Look carefully and you'll see that the speech indicators on these Daleks have been remodelled to resemble those of the 'real' Imperials from Remembrance of the Daleks (below). I always thought they looked a bit like the bumpers from a pinball machine.
In truth, you don't need quite as many Daleks as I have to play a game of Dominion of the Daleks, but I have grand, Davros-like plans for my proliferation of pepper-pots. Grand plans indeed...
"What plans?", you ask? , Well, that would be giving away the plot before the end of the first episode, wouldn't it?
Suffice to say, I rather like the idea of fighting some battles from the Dalek Civil War that was depicted as culminating in Remembrance. Davros and his shiny Imperials pursuing the old guard, grey Renegades to Earth, questing like screamingly angry Arthurian knights after a false Grail as they race to seize the Hand of Omega...
But stay tuned, and we'll see if I can kid myself into painting yet more hemispheres. (This may require considerable quantities of Leffe...)
Until then, stay safe, and if you don't live upstairs, lock the door, and stay behind the couch!
See you in the next episode of Dominion of the Daleks!
Inspiring!
ReplyDeleteThank you! I do love me some tiny, angry pepperpots.
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