Despite sincerely believing that I was satisfied with them before, I keep redoing the bases on the blasted Lego Daleks. Trying to decide which color I want is bad enough, but the base thing is really downright maddening. I mean, the one design (which is identical to the previous one from an outside perspective, but has been partially redone to increase sturdiness) is a bit blocky, which isn't ideal but is completely in keeping with the blockiness of the Lego Dalek body itself.

And then there's the all-new, sleeker base, which is appropriately less blocky but also leans towards the narrow side and largely fails to match the blockier aesthetic of the rest of the Lego Dalek. It's also roughly 50 cents cheaper -- at least before the addition of the extras -- which is a big plus in my book. Granted, the extras push it up another 80 cents, but since the other one can't support them it would be more economical to go with this one if I decided I could make due.

And here you see the extras: little levitation pads on the bottom of the Lego Dalek! See, the blocky design is made up of a comparatively narrow base with pieces stuck onto the sides to make it wider -- hence the blockier look. The sleeker version, on the other hand, is basically wide but has pieces that taper towards narrower ends.

Now, both versions have gaps in the center owing to the design. However, whereas the blocky version is unable to support attachments because of its narrowness, the sleek and technically wider version can -- which leaves room for fancy attachments like the levitation pads. Granted, they don't add a whole lot to the toy in terms of the aesthetic appearance, but they are kind of cool and mostly cover the gap on the bottom.

So yeah, that's my incredibly vexing Lego Dalek dilemma. I think I'll probably go with the sleek design with the levitation pads, but then again I could end up redoing the base about a dozen more times before finally settling on one. In fact, even in the middle of this post, I made another version that was twice as high -- sort of like a Dalek on platforms. Naturally, I wasn't quite satisfied with it. 😛