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 The Dalek Suit
As featured
in the Channel 5 documentary "The Truth About Britain's
Favourite Toys"
Lots of Dr
Who fans build their own Daleks from BBC blueprints, or get professional
Dalek-building companies to build them for them, or even buy
authentic props from internet auction sites.
However, some
of us don't have well-paid jobs, or we've got kids to feed, or
we're allergic to fibre-glass or something. So, we improvise.
I bet that,
as kids, we all wanted a Dalek suit. If you were young in the
sixties and your folks were rich, maybe you did have one. Here's
some pictures of one I made for my son, Dave Jnr.
The dome of
the head is made from a plastic Tesco's dessert thingy, fastened
under the chin with a piece of garment-elastic. The eye-stalk
is a cardboard tube with a yoghurt carton on the end and a cardboard
disc with an iris printed out from the computer and stuck to
it. You could always paint it on.
The arm is another
tube with the top of a plastic pop bottle at the end and held
to the body by a fromage frais carton. |
The gun is also a tube, with drinking straws, as you can see,
and is held in place by an inverted fromage frais carton pushed
through a hole in the body. |
The "sensor"
discs, as the Dalek annuals called them, are (you guessed it!)
fromage frais cartons, pushed through holes from the inside of
the costume. |
As you can see from the
above, the body is in two halves, held together by twist-ties,
and held onto the wearer's body by his/her arms through strategically
placed arm-holes! I would've loved something like this when I
was a youngster!
Of course, with more
time and effort you could make a better go of it; ie. painting
the eyeball and sensor-discs black, or adding lights (more fromage
frais cartons?) to the head, perhaps! Heck, when I have the time,
I can always get around to slapping more paint on this one, and
adding bits and pieces here and there - then it'll really look
like a BBC Dalek!
The Dave
Ross Dalek Suit (patent pending), as featured on the Channel 5
documentary The Truth About Britain's Favourite Toys
(December 2004) and also on The Dalek Builders Guild website as an example of a 'Woklek', or "badly
made Dalek". Apparently, it is possible to exterminate one's
sense of humour!
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DALEKS are © Terry
Nation and light years ahead of anything on flippin' Star
Trek!
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