Knightjar
Sr Member
In the Doctor Who episode 'Asylum of the Daleks', a Nanocloud resurrects the long-dead crew of the crashed spacecraft 'The Alaska', turning them into zombies with the familiar Dalek eyestalk emerging from their foreheads. We decided that Dalek Zombies would be ideal Hallowe'en costumes for me and my son.
Since I needed a 'one size fits all' mask, I started with a generic foam head rather than a lifecast and built up a fairly thick layer of clay to allow room for differing head shapes and sizes. Working in WED clay, I sculpted the head to match the clearest screen captures I could manage. Unfortunately they don't have very much screen time and are mostly fairily heavily in shadow. I used reference shots of real mummified bodies to fill in details That weren't visible in the screenshots, as it's highly likely that the FX artists for the show would have used similar photos. I tried to exaggerate the texture as I knew some of the sharpness would be lost during the casting process.
I built a clay dividing wall separating the front and back halves of the sculpt. The whole front and wall was sealed with acrylic lacquer and then given three coats of mould release.
The entire front was carefully painted with two coats of gelcoat.
As soon as the second gelcoat layer became firm, I started applying fibreglass. Once the front half was set I stripped off the clay wall, sealed the rear half with acrylic and applied several coats of mould release.
I then built the rear half using two coats of gelcoat and two coats of fibreglass laminate. Once it had hardened, I drilled holes through the walls for M6 nuts and bolts which would later be used to fix the halves together.
Next I trimmed off the excess fibreglass from around the edges of the mould and pried the two halves apart - something that is much easier said than done! I cleaned the clay from the mould, bolted it together and left it to dry for a while.
For each mask, I applied multiple coats of pigmented liquid latex. The first few coats were done with the front and back halves of the mould separate so that I could be sure I worked it into all the difficult bits. I then bolted it together and added more coats, resisting the urge to remove the mask until I was certain the rubber was thick enough and fully dry.
Eventually, the raw masks were pulled from the mould and eye and ventilation holes were cut.
Next they were painted with pax paints mixed from acrylic paint, prosthetic adhesive and airbrush acrylic medium. had decided that I wanted the two masks to look as different as possible despite coming from the same mould, so I had used a dark latex pigment for one and a lighter tint for the other. My plan was to apply highlights to the dark one and darker washes to the light one, hopefully ending up with very different feels to the two paintjobs.
I machined the front of the Dalek eye from Delrin and threaded it to fit a hollow piece from a light fitting.
I cut the fins from styrene sheet and glued them to the back part of the eye, as nothing seems to stick properly to Delrin. I made up a threaded connector to join the eyeball onto a length of tube that plugged into the forehead hole.
I wired a blue LED to the guts of a Pound Shop torch and passed the cable right through the mask and into the eyestalk assembly. The threaded construction of the eyestalk meant that I'd be able to take it apart if anything went wrong with the electrics.
In the episode, the corpses are wearing white parkas. I believe that the hoods were cleverly made oversized in order to disguise the oversized skull that results from its being outside instead of inside the owner's head. We didn't like the idea of either the expense or the heat of real parkas, and instead opted for customising over-sized boiler suits. My partner made larger-than-usual hoods from a cotton fabric that matched the boiler suits, lined them with faux-sheepskin and sewed them onto the collars of the suits.
The 'Alaska' crew all sport white long-necked knitted sweaters. Again, to avoid the heat of wearing the real thing, as well as the expense, I asked my long-suffering partner to knit just the collars and a small patch of the front of the sweaters, since that was all that would be visible inside the suits. These were then stitched directly onto the necks of the masks.
There are more pictures and details of the construction on my website:
Sculpting and model-making by Mike Strick: Making Doctor Who Asylum of the Daleks zombie masks
Since I needed a 'one size fits all' mask, I started with a generic foam head rather than a lifecast and built up a fairly thick layer of clay to allow room for differing head shapes and sizes. Working in WED clay, I sculpted the head to match the clearest screen captures I could manage. Unfortunately they don't have very much screen time and are mostly fairily heavily in shadow. I used reference shots of real mummified bodies to fill in details That weren't visible in the screenshots, as it's highly likely that the FX artists for the show would have used similar photos. I tried to exaggerate the texture as I knew some of the sharpness would be lost during the casting process.
I built a clay dividing wall separating the front and back halves of the sculpt. The whole front and wall was sealed with acrylic lacquer and then given three coats of mould release.
The entire front was carefully painted with two coats of gelcoat.
As soon as the second gelcoat layer became firm, I started applying fibreglass. Once the front half was set I stripped off the clay wall, sealed the rear half with acrylic and applied several coats of mould release.
I then built the rear half using two coats of gelcoat and two coats of fibreglass laminate. Once it had hardened, I drilled holes through the walls for M6 nuts and bolts which would later be used to fix the halves together.
Next I trimmed off the excess fibreglass from around the edges of the mould and pried the two halves apart - something that is much easier said than done! I cleaned the clay from the mould, bolted it together and left it to dry for a while.
For each mask, I applied multiple coats of pigmented liquid latex. The first few coats were done with the front and back halves of the mould separate so that I could be sure I worked it into all the difficult bits. I then bolted it together and added more coats, resisting the urge to remove the mask until I was certain the rubber was thick enough and fully dry.
Eventually, the raw masks were pulled from the mould and eye and ventilation holes were cut.
Next they were painted with pax paints mixed from acrylic paint, prosthetic adhesive and airbrush acrylic medium. had decided that I wanted the two masks to look as different as possible despite coming from the same mould, so I had used a dark latex pigment for one and a lighter tint for the other. My plan was to apply highlights to the dark one and darker washes to the light one, hopefully ending up with very different feels to the two paintjobs.
I machined the front of the Dalek eye from Delrin and threaded it to fit a hollow piece from a light fitting.
I cut the fins from styrene sheet and glued them to the back part of the eye, as nothing seems to stick properly to Delrin. I made up a threaded connector to join the eyeball onto a length of tube that plugged into the forehead hole.
I wired a blue LED to the guts of a Pound Shop torch and passed the cable right through the mask and into the eyestalk assembly. The threaded construction of the eyestalk meant that I'd be able to take it apart if anything went wrong with the electrics.
In the episode, the corpses are wearing white parkas. I believe that the hoods were cleverly made oversized in order to disguise the oversized skull that results from its being outside instead of inside the owner's head. We didn't like the idea of either the expense or the heat of real parkas, and instead opted for customising over-sized boiler suits. My partner made larger-than-usual hoods from a cotton fabric that matched the boiler suits, lined them with faux-sheepskin and sewed them onto the collars of the suits.
The 'Alaska' crew all sport white long-necked knitted sweaters. Again, to avoid the heat of wearing the real thing, as well as the expense, I asked my long-suffering partner to knit just the collars and a small patch of the front of the sweaters, since that was all that would be visible inside the suits. These were then stitched directly onto the necks of the masks.
There are more pictures and details of the construction on my website:
Sculpting and model-making by Mike Strick: Making Doctor Who Asylum of the Daleks zombie masks
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