I realized that up to now that I haven’t really posted any full body photos of where R2 is in the build.
So here you go!
And ready for Halloween with his Jack Sparrow hat.
Now working on his skirt. When I bought the frame from another builder, a skirt made from styrene and some other plastic came with it. I had to take it off, reglue stuff on, fix some things, and now am ready for some bondo work.
Located at the base of every astromech (well, almost every) are some ports shaped like an octagon. One in the front and one in the back. In the Star Wars universe they have some kind of function, but I don’t think anyone knows what.
So I had to get some for my build. Should they be styrene, or wait for the nicely machined metal ones, or go with resin versions?
I decided to go with resin. One- because they are pretty inexpensive, and two, because all I have to do is clean them and paint them which is enough work in and of itself.
Step 1. Primer
Step 2. Silver paint for the metallic look.
Step 3. Mask the inner back area.
The inside of the walls are blue, so I had to mask off where I didn’t want blue and a purple clear coat to go.
Step 4. Paint walls.
R2D2′s blue is more of a bluish purple. So I laid down a metallic blue, followed by an anodized clear purple.
Step 6. Paint the vents.
The inner vents are supposed to be see-through, and on the metal version that is machined in.
On the resin part I could have sanded it from the back to get to that point, but decided painting the vents black with some model paint would be easier and less chance of damaging the parts.
Step 7. Glue in the round things.
In this case I used my trusty silicon glue.
Step 8. Once both ports were done and the silicon cured enough, I used silicon glue to mount them inside R2′s body.
As I’ve been building R2, I realized right now that there may be a number of people who, although are Star Wars fans or geeks or nerds to some degree, they don’t know all the names of the characters or in the case of a droid, what certain parts are called or what they do.
Since I’m building R2D2, I’ll only cover the names of parts as I continue, and what they do on the movie version.
Yesterday I spent some time painting the utility arms. “What are those?” you might ask. Directly below R2′s dome and his large data port are some arms, which typically would be used to hold things as he does welding, or a communicator, or whatever George Lucas comes up with.
So without further ado:
The arms currently primered and ready for paint.
The first blue coat using Rustoleum Cobalt Blue Metallic.
When we built our family room, I had added on a small office space for the design work I had been doing.
The eventually it became a sound studio for my daughter.
And now it’s a build room, more or less.
Uh, yeah.
So now the body was done, I spent some time – mostly nights, some weekends, and so on making parts from scratch styrene vs. buying aluminum or resin cast parts.
Turned out to be a lot of fun and pretty rewarding when all was done.
Prepping the shoulder horseshoes for paint
Masking
Done!
The side vents
Drawing out the side vents
Cutting as R2 watches
Ready for the backing
Done and ready for paint!
The pocket vents
One pocket vent
And painted
Coin returns
Using my LDP to get the right curve
Almost there
Almost...there....
And one of three done!
And there's one.
Two more to go and then paint.
Aren't they pretty?
Amazing what paint can do to cover up a lot of little mistakes.
And the Coin slots – my one only aluminum machined detail part.
Ahh...
So, after spending a lot of time cutting out the pre-scored skins, mounting them, tearing them off, remounting them, and again and again til they fit good enough, I masked off the body where I was going to glue stuff on like vents, and then went to town on painting the body.
Masked and ready to go
The droid rotisserie
Anyone want some nicely done droid?
This may not be completely in the order I’ve done things, and since my last LAST post a lot has been done. So, without further ado- the body, skins and all.
Dome motor mount
Large data port and bearing placement
Skin cutting
Cut skin..
So, one thing I learned – take your time when cutting styrene, make multiple passes, and watch your blade.
Skins mounted and glued
More to come!
