Animated Cross-section Dalek (Patreon)

This one took a while!!

It's a 20 second cross section sequence showing the internals of a Dalek for the project I'm working on. I've always liked seeing this kind of thing in anime - for instance Madox-01 and Bubblegum Crisis:

My Dalek design is of course my own interpretation, but takes inspiration from a few cross-section images published over the years. Notably this one from The Dalek Book (1964):https://i.redd.it/ugh0w5gs5bl21.jpg

↑ Look at this poor squashed guy! I guess they didn't quite have a handle on drawing Daleks properly in the early 60s!

And the Doctor Who technical Manual (1983)https://i.redd.it/ix95uisa1w7a1.jpg

According to both of these (official) classic sources, the Daleks basically roll around on a big ball bearing! The problem with that is, even as early as 1960s Dalek stories like the Dalek Invasion of Earth (1964) and The Chase (1965), you can clearly see Daleks moving over very uneven terrain that would require some kind of levitating or "repulsorlift" tech, so I gave mine a Graviton inversion engine.

↑ No way is this guy emerging from the FILTHY and litter-strewn Thames river using a big rolling ball!

↑ In The Chase, a Dalek gets buried in a sandstorm and just levitates his way out.

↑ And how did the third one get up those wooden stairs on the Marie Celeste? Though we don't see them do it in 1960s Doctor Who, Daleks are clearly hovering off-screen. It's the only explanation.

Anyway, cross sections! To do a really nice job on something like this, you'd have to be an absolute god-tier master of perspective and technical drawing! I'm not quite at that level, so I took my Dalek model I made for the animation project, made it transparent, and crudely modelled the internals for use as reference (and to make sure everything I wanted could physically fit inside the thing):

Then it was a case of drawing over the individual parts, adding loads more detail by hand and giving it the good old hand-shaded treatment. The Photoshop file ended up having tons of layers all labelled into groups and came out at about 2GB in size! My PC was struggling!

Anyway, here's some of the details so you can peruse at your leisure.

I've always been fascinated by cross section images! The skill it must take to envision and draw them without 3D assistance must be immense, and I was always super impressed by some of the Star Wars ones back in the good old days:

Just look at some of this goodness! - https://ia902902.us.archive.org/16/items/02.starwarsincrediblecrosssectionstheultimateguidetostarwarsvehiclesspacecraftdavidwestreynolds1998/02.%20Star%20Wars%20Incredible%20Cross-Sections%20-%20The%20Ultimate%20Guide%20to%20Star%20Wars%20Vehicles%20&%20Spacecraft%20%20%5BDavid%20West%20Reynolds%5D%20%5B1998%5D.pdf

Well, that's all for now! Back to work for me~

-Paul