One of the best things about creating the Asylum Project was the freedom to create any Dalek colour scheme I wanted and see it made real in figure form. Sometimes colour schemes didn’t work out the way I intended, or sometimes they took a few tries before I found the exact shade that made a particular colour combination work. However, most of the time a Dalek colour scheme would emerge fully formed and would just work on the first try – and many of the Daleks in this showcase are examples of that. Most of these Daleks don’t conform to lore, or if they do it is a tenuous link at best, but the most important thing about creating art is to allow only the limit of your own creativity to prevent you from creating a piece, not dogma or pre-established rules and expectations.
When collecting Daleks, particularly in the secondhand market, eventually one becomes over-encumbered with New Series Daleks – this is great news for the Asylum Project, but as much as I love making Asylum customs, I don’t want to limit the scope of my Dalek customisation to just Asylum Daleks. I have therefore created several New Series Daleks that, although complete, do not fit in with either my Big Finish or my standard New Series Dalek collections. Some of these Daleks are loosely based on canon designs, but many are simply my own colour schemes or heavily modified versions of existing colour schemes.
Custom Blue Dalek Sec Figure
The idea behind this custom was simple – what if the different members of the Cult of Skaro had different colour schemes? This would certainly have made them easier to identify, although if all three of the previously bronze Daleks had different colours, Dalek Sec would look bland by comparison. As such, I created this ‘alternate’ Dalek Sec custom, involving one simple change, making the skirt of the figure blue instead of black. Although this is a relatively minor change, the effect is striking – not only does it break up the consistent black colour scheme of the original figure, but it also adds menacing emphasis on the central rotating gunnery platform that makes up the Dalek midsection.
Custom Dalek Saucer Pilot Figure
Briefly seen in the 50th Anniversary Special The Day of the Doctor, the New Series Dalek Saucer Pilot is based off the original Dalek Saucer Commander from the 1964 epic The Dalek Invasion of Earth. Creating this custom was somewhat ironic for me, as I spend most of my time customising Saucer Commander Daleks by painting them to resemble other Daleks of the era – this time, however, I was repainting a completely different Dalek to that same design. The panels on the skirt section were certainly the most challenging, but using black Citadel paint I filled in the sections that required painting and then used a setsquare to scrape away the excess paint and leave a clean finish. I also used bronze and gold Citadel paint to add detailing to the neck rings, the eyestalk and the hemispheres. Finally, I replaced the front panel, including the gunstick and plunger, with that of a Dalek Commander figure, in order to break up the colour scheme of the midsection.
Custom Red Dalek Commander Figure
Red and Black is not a colour combination that has been explored very much with the Daleks, possibly because it makes the connections of their origin to certain fascist regimes slightly too overt. Nonetheless, the colour scheme still looks good on a Dalek, and it certainly adds an intimidating touch that is perfect for Dalek Commanders. I considered painting the head red as well, although I was unsure if this would create too much of a dominance of red in the colour scheme – after all, this figure is simply a Dalek Commander with the formerly gold detailing painted over in red, so I felt that sticking to the original design would make this figure consistent with other Dalek Commanders.
Custom Eternity Circle Dalek Figure
Featured in the War Doctor novel Engines of War, the Eternity Circle is a distinct sect of elite Daleks formed by the Dalek Emperor to develop Temporal Weapons for the Time War. In the novel, the five members of the Eternity Circle were been described as dark blue and silver, a colour scheme that was recently depicted in figure form via the new Big Finish Dalek Interrogator Prime figure. However, there are several points in the novel Engines of War in which certain members of the Eternity Circle are described as being dark blue and gold, and although this may be a simple misprint or mistake, I was intrigued to see what that design would look like. As such, I repainted a Dalek Interrogator Prime figure and replaced the silver detailing with gold, and then added a black wash to restore the figure’s original grimy appearance. The colour scheme works very well, particularly since it adds a certain degree of consistency with other Time War-era Daleks.
Sacred Icon 