#i wanna do 360 views of them all later but for now that's the gist of it

[veshialles]

Send In The Drones

a brief glimpse of Dalek design history, as per my silly little headcanons

Prototype Dalek (Genesis Of The Daleks)

City Dalek (The Daleks)

Spaceflight-Era Dalek (The Dalek Invasion Of Earth)

Frontier-Era/Renegade Dalek (Resurrection of the Daleks)

Imperial-Era Dalek (Remembrance Of The Daleks)

Empire-Era Dalek (The Dalek's Master Plan, Big Finish audios, etc)

Time War/Post-Time War-Era Dalek (Dalek (2005))

New Paradigm-Era Dalek (Victory Of The Daleks)

Ascendant Dalek (Paradigm Shift [my fanfic])

design notes:

Genesis Dalek was inspired by a concept done by Librarian-Bot on DeviantArt, but I tried to blend some elements from the Renegade design as a nice little nod to the fact that the episode just reused the same prop they had been using as "the Prototype Dalek"

On the Spaceflight/Earth Invasion Dalek, I swapped out the City Dalek eyestalk for the ones used on the props in Dalek's Invasion Earth 2150 AD (1966), mostly so they look a little more unique, since the canon model was essentially just City Daleks with a bigger fender and a radio dish hot-glued onto the back.

I don't have much to say about the Frontier/Renegade model, except that I'm really satisfied with how the eyestalk turned out, a nice blend of old and new designs.

I added some more detail to the Imperial Dalek design, because the canon design does not translate well into the Roblox Studio engine and looked rather flat and boring. I added some bolts to the shoulder slats, added a metal outline to the hexagon piece, and also copied the plunger shape and re-aligned it with the eyestalk to give it something a little more distinctive. Plus, in my honest opinion, white and gold are just not great Dalek colours to begin with. Used Glass material instead of Metal material to give it that "too clean" look (and also cause the metal texture doesn't look great in pure off-white). Also made the fender gold, because white on white is just tacky I'm sorry it looked bad, guys. You need to have contrast!

For the Empire Dalek, I was trying to imagine what the Daleks in most of the Big Finish audio dramas should look like, since my visualizations are always a little hazy when I'm listening to those stories. After a deep-dive into the wiki, I finally settled on something that really blended the old with the new, in a way that makes it slightly more clear that these are the Daleks that immediately preceed the Time War variant. So they ended up with the smaller fender, apple-eye, retro ray-gun, and collar sections, with a darker version of the silver-blue paintjob, but the general outline is essentially just the Time-War Dalek with a few changes

For both Time War Daleks, Empire Daleks, and Ascendancy Daleks, I found a font online to make custom ID tags

New Paradigm Dalek is the least altered model. It's perfect no notes. Clunky and sleek at the same time I love it. Actually, one note: I tweaked the colours slightly and swapped out the SmoothPlastic texture for the Metal texture. Now they look like the galaxy's deadliest sports cars and I am here for it

The Ascendancy Dalek is a custom design I whipped up; essentially I just ported pieces from the Paradigm model onto the Time-War frame and re-adjusted them to fit better. (including the funky vent on the back, you can't see it here). Essentially, I really liked the idea that Asylum Of The Daleks put forth; where the New Paradigm became the dominant and ruling caste of their new Empire, but I thought rolling back to the Time War Dalek design was just a lame move, frankly.

Anyway my lore for them: As the New Paradigm began their expansion, reclaiming the territories that their ancestors fallen empire had lost in the wake of the Time War, they encountered many other Dalek hold-outs from ages past that had survived. After many costly and brutal encounters with other factions, the Paradigm realized that their limited resources could not maintain this crusade forever, at least not until they could compile enough research data to begin making their own Progenitor Devices. So instead, as the hunt for more Progenitor Devices to study took priority over their need to conquer all impure Daleks, the New Paradigm began offering a choice to other Dalek hold-outs: be exterminated or submit to the rule of their new empire. Those who surrendered became part of the Ascendant Caste, and were supplanted into new travel machines that were constructed to resemble the New Paradigm's bio-engineered shells, creating an uneasy alliance between the pure New Dalek Paradigm and the conquered factions. How long such an alliance could possibly last, who's to say.