Seeing the recent gallery additions celebrating "Whovian" lore, I thought I'd take a crack at the twisted mastermind behind those "dust-bins" turned terminators, the one, the only, Davros of Skaro! I just read Anton's concerns and laments about some people not being so keen about V3's male morphs. Guess what? Yep, Victoria 3. I doubt I could have created this character with Michael 2. Well maybe I could, but it would have taken me far longer to create the gaunt body and features.Since I didn't have a pleather lab coat, the morphing fantasy dress using the "Dark Side" textures served as a splendid substitute. The cyber-eye? Victoria's own right eye, moved, scaled and retextured. Now to acquire a Dalek model and chop off the top. Add a control board and I'll have his infamous life support chair. Thoughts, opinions, insults? Sincerely, Bill

hahaha, no insults... looks really good. I have to agree with you on V3... its all in how you use the morphs. You can end up with a bad tranny job or a really cool character... all up to you. I think the deal is use the morphs that are not just specific to men too... and use magnets when you're missing a morph that you may want. I'm so glad I know how to use magnets now... they make all the difference. I did a similar thing when I was fooling with Aiko, I started using Stephanie's muscularity morphs on the Aiko guy, he turned out really swell, also. Added some mags on his waist to make it less pinched... and wham... its a pretty cool guy, with some cool muscles, and not so beefcake like Mike.

Ah, yes, the famous Talosians, Roddenberry's spin on "Greys" years before "Greys" became popular. While I tweaked the cranial shape, I thought about them as well. However, you can't achieve their well known butt-crack like cranial cleft with the morphs alone. From the front it would be decent, thought. Speaking of trans-gender characters, did you know the Talosians were all played by middle-aged and elderly women? Roddenberry thought they had the frail features he wanted. Of course, if he had the budget and time to have gone with his initial description, they would have been crab-like creatures, not unlike the Garthem from "The Dark Crystal." Sincerely, Bill

Pretty damn good take on Davros, even if I remember the original version, where the Dalek Cyborgs were developed by Yarveling and Zofian. Oh well, I'm showing my age, so I'll shut up. :) Apart from this comment... If Mike 2 can replicate me (5' 8" and not too muscly) there's no reason why it can't be used for a whole hell of a lot of "non-Mike" type characters.

Eek. That's already getting too close for comfort :( Just existing morphs eh? When I was a lad the only morph we had was "Wince like examining bank balance"...

• stares at image *

• thinks about it a while *

Doesn't he have little hoses or cables and some sort of VR headpiece thingy sprouting out of his skull? I definitely recall a boom microphone.

I haven't seen Davros (or watched any Dr. Who) in over ten years. I'm waiting for the complete run of Tom Baker episodes to become available on DVD.

Oooh! So you saw it during it's initial airings in England, eh? Yeah, November of this year, it'll be the 40th anniversary of its debut. I didn't start seeing until August of '82, starting, as did many American, with tom Baker. So my introduction to the Daleks was with Davros. For me, I saw that as simply part of the continuity. But for a long-time viewer it England, this change in their origin must have been absolutely scandalous. Since Davrose was depicted with two rather different make-up designs, I kinda' mixed and matched what I liked from both Michael Wisher's and Terry Molley's features. Yeah, I know a little bit about the production history. Not much, but a little. ;-) Sincerely, Bill

Hi, LD! You're quite correct! A pair of tightly coiled wires branched away from the cyber-eye and fed to a bio-feedback array crowning his skull. A boom microphone wrapped from the left side to his mouth. Plus, he had a curled I-beam type brace shaped almost like a question mark that steadied his head. The top section of his seat back curled over the front of his shoulders, suggesting another kind of brace. This is definitely a WIP. I will have to model the rest of his appliances. Good memory! Sincerely, Bill

Tom Baker was my favourite of the Doctors. Oh, Pertwee was amusing enough with his cape and Venusian Karate, but after Baker's unprecedented seven-season run, he sort of grew on you. Plus, K-9 was introduced during his reign.

Good work so far, Bill! Yeah, definitely gotta go with Tom Baker. Make sure you keep us updated! Regards- Lemurtek

Yup, Baker was the best. Absolutely barking mad, too - which always helps. :)

SamTherapy observed that Michael can be used equally well for non-Mike characters. So, I thought I'd give it a try. I may have to retract my earlier statement. I like that I could give this Michael Davros forehead wrinkles. I could not find any for V3. The one major thing I could not do with this version was to extend the back of his skull ever so slightly. Oh, I know I can use magnets. I tried. I still need lots of practice. So, which looks more authentic? Sincerely, Bill

"EX-TERMINATE!" Was the Daleks general answer to most problems dealing with other lifeforms

Bill, I found a dalek site that has great pics of that decrepited relec of an insane creator of those killer dustbins. It's www.dalekcity.co.uk/

I don't know if you've got Boris from Capsces, but he HAS a scull that can be retracted, as well as forehead wrinkles. And he's based on Mike. Great work btw :o)

aaah Davros.. very very good work so far! there is a Poser Dalek out there... I think at one point, it was in the freestuff here.. I'll see if I can find where I got it from.. any plans to put this in freestuff later? I can already see a few scenes I'd like to do.. now.. all we need is an Ogron, Cyberman (all types), Sontaran, Rutan, Ice Warrior, Time Lord Robes, Callestans Guard Uniforms, at this point Kai was led off to take his medication and a lie down

AHA! here we go

http://www.fantasy3d.com/pfiles/thumbs.cgi?characters 1 poser dalek. Not one hundred percent accurate but since you only need the base....

oh and to add to the Dalekmania...

I want to thank everyone who provided reference addresses for Dalek models. Truth is, I have several of those models. My initial statement about "stealing" a Dalek actually meant I would load the mesh into a modeler (TrueSpace in my case) and delete the upper sections, leaving the bubble festooned "skirt." Will I release as a freebie? You guys actually want my feeble efforts?! Er, I can save it as a face or pose file, thereby keeping legal in the eyes of DAZ. Which one, the V3, Michael or both? Sincerely, Bill

I'd say both.. then everyone can rule the unive...erm...have some fun...

hehe, good stuff. Yeah, I first watched Doctor Who in the 80's on PBS with Tom Baker. Best stuff ever! Used to come on Saturday nights. My friends would go out... I was like, are you kidding? Doctor Who is on!!! What the hell happened to PBS - had some really great Brits stuff on when I was growing up: The Avengers, The Prisoner, UFO, The Invaders, Fawlty Towers, Benny Hill and DOCTOR WHO!!! Man, I think I have every techo and rock version of the Dr. Who theme song ever made. Including the infamous "Doctoring the Tardis" by the Jam (aka KLF).

Both, though personally I think the Victoria3 version is closer so far :)

Attached Link: http://www.mzzkiti.com/Davros-2.AVI

Thought I'd try Mimic on the ol' psychotic geezer. This clip is using the Michael 2 geometry. I created it in "current display" mode without textures and shadows for a quick render. You can see a bit of the magnet in the background. I think this is Terry Molloy's voice instead of the earlier Michael Wisher. You'll need DivX to view the clip. Sincerely, Bill

Attached Link: http://www.mzzkiti.com/Davros-3.AVI

Here's the V3 version. Same monologue. I forgot to state each clip is just over 500 KB, so even someone on a dial-up shouldn't have to wait terribly long. I goofed the first time and Davros ended up with a neutral expression and open eyes. I spawned a morph, reset the features and then spun the spawned morph before adding the Mimic pose. This time, he retained his scowl. Again, DivX. Hey, it's got a fantastic compression ratio. Sincerely, Bill

Okay, gang, I know I've been flooding this thread with my dumb experiments, but I think this should be the last one (but I won't make promises). Playing with Mimic, I was subjected to that frightening zombie on the start-up screen. I noticed the jaundiced skin tones and the sullen shadows. That wold be perfect for Davros! I doubt I would have bought it otherwise, but I had that 30 dollar voucher from DAZ and this WAS a DAZ original, not a brokered product. So I bought it. I got my 30% deduction (being a PC member). OT, I finally opted to get the "Treasures of Egypt" character pack while I was buying the other. I'm glad I did. Despite the recent confusion about the DAZ PC, I discovered the voucher was applied to that purchase as well! Nothing came out of pocket and I still have over 14 dollars credit! Yay!!! Back to the subject, I applied the zombie texture to the V3 Davros, and, as you can see, viola! NOW, he looks much more like the creator of the Daleks! Of course, a similarly toned texture would enchance the Michael Davros as well. I've been meaning to create his likeness for ages. Later, gang! Sincerely, Bill

Looking pretty good .. though I am loathe to admit I have only seen perhaps 3 half episodes of Dr. Who in all my years .. Just has never been viewable due to weird schedules or jsut not being on the air.

I would hardly call a good effort like this "dumb experiments". The feedback alone was worth the effort. It is always good to see something other than the mainstream norm. I give this three thumbs up...(so what if I'm wierd) Den Tracy

Before anyone "attacks" Den for making statements about "dumb experiments", he was merely quoting a comment I made about myself within an e-mail I sent him. BTW, thank you both Ghost and Enigma for your support! Sincerely, Bill

Looks good, Bill :-) Here's a comparison of the old fossil himself along with a couple of his creations in the best possible condition... dead!

Ah, yes, "Resurrection of the Daleks," the first of several serials with Terry Molloy as the Kaled genius. Slightly different from the Michael Wisher mask, both both had multiple wrinkles above his brow bone and surrounding his cyber-eye. I freely admit my version lacks these features. I can't achieve that with the supplied dials. If I really want to do him justice, I'll have to break down and buy "Extreme Morph 3D" by Konan. Then he'll really become a prune face! Sincerely, Bill

the caption for that photo should be: 'I told you to keep your domes closed in the carwash!'

We could always attempt some custom morphs to help out further... I'd have to examine the V3 mesh but what do we need? Multiple forehead wrinkles? I'll have to try snapping some reference images from Resurrection of the Daleks, see if I can create some custom morphs in Cinema4d or even Poser (a couple of tricks shoudl make doing forehead wrinkles slightly easier). Cheers, Cliff Bowman PS can you supply a wireframe image to help judge whether the mesh is dense enough to do under-third-eye wrinkles using mesh deformations rather than displacement mapping? Oh yeah - in Poser 5 we could displacement map a certain amount of extra detail in...

Actually this character looked so promising that it prompted me to try producing "head wrinkles" for V3 in Poser 4 itself - the attached version was created in something under 5 minutes (I didn't time it, it was just so easy!). Bill, if you could post a wireframe image of the head or bung me a copy of the face pose I'd love to have a go at attempting it more seriously to get a better "Davros" look. To be honest, I was utterly surprised how easy it was to get A basic "very wrinkled" morph out of Victoria3. Naturally I'll attempt Mike2 also if desired (tho I suspect he has wrinkled morphs built-in). I guess I'd better try and find that zombie product... Cheers, Cliff Bowman PS although the basics are covered elsewhere, if anyone in the thread wants me to do a quick "v3 wrinkles" tut as a Renderosity thread I'm game. As per my "Fluffy" tut I'll probably produce a slightly differnet "look" as I'll probably expand on the simple effort produced here.

The V3 horn pack has some morphs that put circular dents in the forehead - the attached is Horn front 1 @ -1 and Horn front 2 @ 1

Please do a tut :o 9I loved your Fluffy tut and it is always great to learn something new :o)

Sure, Cliff, I'll send you what you need. However, it'll have to be this evening as I have just arrived at work. As for the zombie texture, you can find that at DAZ. It's not labeled as a zombie pack as there are other characters included, but the undead brain eater is displayed prominantly for all to lose their lunch. ;-) RHaseltine, that's a clever use of the horn pack, but the lobes of tissue surrounding the cyber-eye are not so symmetrical. Still, it could be enhanced and shaped further with magnets (which I've yet to learn) Sincerely, Bill

OK - well I've tried doing tighter head wrinkles (worked great) and I've tried re-rendering in Poser 5 with smoothing on (worked like a dream - gotta love that smoothing option when it doesn't blow your model up like a balloon!). So ... well, I've fed the kid now so I may as well try and start a tut in a minute or two. It's really REALLY easy to produce new morphs which are better than the quick wrinkles example I gave above, the only problem is the time to document it in a way that's as comprehensive as I can manage. Attached is a P5 render of my second (tighter) test wrinkles, with smoothing turned on (however the tut will be Poser 4 as no Poser 5 features are required). Cheers, Cliff

Bill cool :) With luck I'll have finished my V3 wrinkles tut by than and will do a quick "Davros" addendum. With luck... (I can never tell how the day is going to go in advance). Cheers, Cliff

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=12356&Form.ShowMessage=1322689

Well I started a tutorial over at: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=12356&Form.ShowMessage=1322689 I took a quick break, mostly to sort out my kid and get him a snack, but it suddenly occurred to me - ernyoka1, how have you been getting on with displacement maps? I'm far from the greatest painter in the world, but do you want me to attempt to tack on a quick displacement painting comment or two for a Poser-5 specific set of victoria3 forehead wrinkles if I get time? Or let you paint white wrikle lines fading down to a black base? (that's all that's needed). Cheers, Cliff

'Ah, yes, "Resurrection of the Daleks," the first of several serials with Terry Molloy as the Kaled genius. Slightly different from the Michael Wisher mask, both both had multiple wrinkles above his brow bone and surrounding his cyber-eye. I freely admit my version lacks these features. I can't achieve that with the supplied dials.' actually.. thats the same mask. the Beeb were to cheap to make a new one when Wisher was unable to play Davros again. the extra wrinkles are where the mask was folded.. it was moulded to Wisher you see :( damn you BBC.. bring back the Doc with a decent budget! oh btw.. did you all realise.. it's the 40th birthday this September!

I should have realised - I'm about nine months older than the Doc. I can even, hazily, remember Patrick Troughton first time round (before repeats, that is).

i grew up with the doctor (late pertwee and all of baker : ) i was even in the doctor who fan club at the time..... it'[s great to see somebody doing characters from the show (it has even inspired me to maybe produce a cyberman : ) ps did anybody see top gear last week when they had a race between all the nasty critters in the universe (the klingon won , mind you he cheated and cloaked his little honda r type : ) the poor dalek couldn't even get in the car (so it's not just stairs that confuse them : )...... I had expected vader to place a bit higher by using some dastardly dark force moves on his competitors tho ........ the doctor came a respectable 3rd........

Bill has long since provided me with the Davros settings BTW - the delay in getting forehead/third eye wrinkles done is entirely down to me, my customers, and my immediate family. We're hoping to set aside a couple of hours this weekend for me to actually DO stuff, during which I hope to add what little I can to Bill's sterling work.

Hehe you're using too much time to ponder over the next caption for my likkle contest! THAT'S what you've been doing ;o)

It's actually much easier to think of a bad joke than to maniuplate graphics with a mouse even with a kid climbing all over me. Typing... well, err, he's my excuse for the quality of typing often on display too!

Ernyoka1, talk about great timing! You suggested that Capsces' "Boris" had the features I'd need to create a more convincing Davros. Well, as Fate would have it, "Boris" was placed on a 30% off sale this week! I bought it and tried to see if I could achieve the Dalek creator's essence. Looking at the "snapshot" do you think I succeeded? ;-) If I may say so, I think this is my closest resemblance yet, and it's based upon Michael Wisher's mask to boot! I used the standard Michael texture just so it wouldn't look like a plastic sculpture, but eventually, I'll want to create a texture with tones not unlike that of the DAZ zombie. Thank you, Capsces! I couldn't have done it without ya'! Sincerely, Bill

Well, he's coming together. I imported the lower section of a Dalek that I partially disassembled in TrueSpace. Sorry, I can't remember who created this particular model. This is merely a quick test. I still need to create a control console, a back rest and the head brace with the bio-feedback array and microphone. Sincerely, Bill

Looks great :o) And yes, Boris is a great character, there are so many possibilities that can't be achieved with the normal Mike (or even V3 for that matter) Boris is different :o)

Ohh yea, he's looking good. Various family calamities down the line, wife and child are now out for a couple of hours so I'm gonna attempt V3 head wrinkles... though not sure you still need it with that Mike version! Cheers, Cliff PS one of the problems this week has been my ISP - bah!

I'll admit I'm rather happy with my Michael/Boris version. I completely understand about the domestics concerns. Don't feel obligated to create the wrinkles for me, though I admit to a certain amount of professional and artistic curiosity. I certainly won't refuse them if offered. If you think others will benefit, then by all means, knock yourself out! Glad to hear you're still with us! Sincerely, Bill

Still with you but fighting - I found out that the latest Windows patch (SR4) installed on all my Win2k C's... killed 'em dead. Oh they LOOKED ok, until you try and run Poser of Paint Shop Pro or...urgh. So I've been recovering the PC's and now kid is home. I WANT to get the wrinkles right, if on;y because it's something I've already determined to do... and it'd be nice to do wrinkles that go the right way above and below an eye (and hey, it'd be nice to show how little talent you really neeed to do some of this stuff!). Time is as ever my enemy, but I'm determined . Oh - kid is now 2 years old (birthday yesterday) and my, don't they get the hang of presents REALLY WELL even at this stage? . I'm pleased at how well he says "Dinosaur!" (even if sometimes that really should be "Lion"). Cheers, Cliff

Finally this evening I got some time. I admit that having seen the Mike/Boris (Boris is a set of Mike morphs I'm assuming?) that I'm a bit dispirited with the idea of furthering the V3 version. Plus unravelling the "crease" on the V3 head to re-do as wrinkles has been trickier than expected, but mostly I've been out of time and low on "oomph" (especially after Windows 2K SP4 knackered several PC's here). But how's this going? I've worked on the top two "wrinkles", done almost nothing on the lower two (which need dropping down and bending around the "eye". thoughts, comments? A "with lines" screen capture of the Mike version so I can see what vertices are around the eye and I'll tackle that instead? Cheers, Cliff PS any offers to do stuff are "as when when it happens". A sad comment to include :(