Star Wars droid Factory

[motorcyclemodeler]

After working with the minions and because of a cross subject between them and Star Wars, I decided to start a new thread regarding the built of astromech droids from Star Wars.



Forum Admins, I am not sure if it is OK to post this thread under this category, so if it is not adequate, please, feel free to move it to where it belongs.

I will built this droids on a size that will allow me to display them aside action figures or as collectors refers to them, 3.5 inches scale.
Obviously I will star with the most famous astromech, the one that have been a constant on the previous six movies, and seems also in the seventh one coming on Dec.
I mean R2D2, for those who haven’t noticed or have not seen movies of this franchise.
I decided to look around for paper models that I can use as base and scale down to a workable version.
I found that two of them were really nice, and decided to build one of each to see which one adapts better.
Here is a picture of the mock ups


And another one standing along TO one of the aforementioned figures.

I settled on using the version from the site of Shunichi Makino SF Papercraft Gallery
BUT since this is an Astromech droid factory, I decided to also start the R5-D2 unit since all this little puckers are built almost the same. This unit is the red one they show on the first movie were Luke is buying the droids from the original Minions.. err… jawas and it blew up while starting to move.
BTW have you noticed these little fellows speak a language that sounds just like minions.. If you don't believe it go here and listen to them.
I reduced to 50% and distributed all the parts for the two droids in one single sheet ,and even ended with some blank space… talk about saving resources.

I want to improve the figures by adding some metallic look, so I cut out some printed parts and glued a different paper from the back in order to make it look like some kind of metallic inlay.

It does not show too well on this picture but believe me, it look nice in person. I will try to get better pictures in the future, to show this effect.
Well that’s all for today, tomorrow I will post some advances on the head of one of the droids.

[kingjason14]

I like it!

[piginapoke]

Good luck with BB-8

[JohnM]

I'm no Star Wars fan, but I do like the look of this. I hope it doesn't mean the good folks in the Minion thread are gonna have to wait for me to get better before they are treated to this in paper though. ...



I was rather countin' on you getting it done first Edgardo.

[motorcyclemodeler]

KingJason:
I'm happy you like it.. wait for more!!

Piginapoke..:
Already got the paper figure for BB-8 but I still doubt if I will manage to do it on the same scale!! Since it is such a tiny little fellow.

Johnny:
Who knows if I take advantage of the modular building technique and do both at the same time... after all, all I need is an extra Minion Head with googles and can use the body of R2D2 without the dome on...

[Sakrison]

I went to SF Papercraft Gallery but can't figure out how to download the kit.

[kingjason14]

Those figures are one of the reasons I build in 1:18, so I am really liking what you're doing.

[motorcyclemodeler]

Originally Posted by Sakrison

I went to SF Papercraft Gallery but can't figure out how to download the kit.

Sakrison, you are right, it does not show the download files anymore.
You can try here, in the WayBack machine!!

Enjoy!

[motorcyclemodeler]

Today I will show you the steps I am following in making the dome for the R2 unit.
The plans have two pieces for it.. but since I like to complicate things I was planning in making a dome in silver paper and then , somehow, glue the other pieces , like the blue panels and light, out of other kind of papers to give it more color.
Here are the three pieces I am using, one is for reference, the silver one and one in black & white to use as pattern for the other color pieces



First I started with the silver part, trying to make it as spherical as possible, I used a cardboard circle just a litte bit smaller than the piece in order to align parts in the process and give the part more structure since the silver paper I am using is very thin, its kind is called something like tin paper in my country, but it is a regular white paper with one side on silver, not so different that the one they use on the chocolate bars.
Here is a series of pictures I took as I was going from down up on this part



After I finished the dome I did a little mockup with the parts I have made so far.



I started gluing the blue panels out of the same metallic cardboard I used for the blue panels on the body. These were cut just by eyeballing the reference part and this caused them to be a little uneven.
Here is how it looks at the end.



After finishing this and because of the thinness of the silver paper, the dome is really fragile and have not received well all my handling.
Because of this, and because of future robots I decided to make patterns to print on the back of any kind of paper to make whatever mix-up of colors and designs and re-do this dome.
I already have the ones for R2 units (domes) the R5 units (buckets) but still need to do some others like domes with triangle lenses and hexagons bisected with circles (kind of weird shapes)
Ok, that’s all for today.
Until next time…..

[motorcyclemodeler]

Hello again.
After I got me a 3.5" figure of the new StormTroopers, I decided to also make an Imperial R2 unit
Here it is along the figure:


And here are some shots of all the bodies at different angles.







I am applying gold metallic paper on the golden panels for the body, head and legs.
It is taking me longer than usual to build/design the pieces since I am still recovering from some laser Photocoagulation sessions in the eyes, that I received some weeks ago.
I m taking it slow until my doctor say it is ok to work with small pieces.

I think I will tackle the legs on my next build since they are 9, 3 per droid , and after all this is a droid factory...
Best regards..