"These astro-droids are getting
quite out of hand."--See Threepio, Star Wars: A New Hope
"These astro-droids are getting
quite out of hand."--See Threepio, Star Wars: A New Hope
This is my collection of astromech droids painted up to resemble the complement on Queen Amidala's Royal Starship in Episode I. While it's true that several of these have been released as official Hasbro figures, they a) did not exist when I began this project, and b) in a couple of cases are inferior to the "official" ones.
I really liked the sound effects that R2-D2's CommTech chip
made, but it's pointless for a tripodal droid to have a figure stand, especially
when he can't stand on it properly. The first modification I made to
him, then, was to remove the voice chip from the figure stand, which I had
realized was just small enough to fit inside the bottom of Artoo's foot.
After whittling away at the inside of his foot to make room for the
chip, I fitted the chip in place, painted it white, and glued the wheels
from the bottom of his foot back on.
I also got rid of the silly rocket thrusters, since he didn't
use them in the movie and they severely limited his head's range of motion.
All I had to do was cut a notch off inside his body that was preventing
his head from turning 360º. To cover up the slots where the thrusters
used to pop out of, I took a piece of sheet plastic, painted it white, and
glued it to the inside of his body. At the same time, clearing
out some of his innards gave his middle leg the room to retract almost all
the way. I just had to cut off the details on either side of the leg
to get it to fit. While I was at it, I cut around the outline of the
middle foot, severing it, then reattached it with a piece of a paper clip
to give it some articulation.
Of course, no Artoo Detoo figure is completed until he's got
the proper cords on his ankles (which no Hasbro figure has ever gotten
correct) and the third sensor on the back of his head, so I dug up some elastic
cords and bored holes in the front of his feet to glue them on, and painted
them gold. I borrowed a head sensor from a Flashback Photo R2-D2 and
glued it to the back of his head. Artoo's head is backwards in this
shot so you can see the head sensor, and to demonstrate that his rocket thrusters
are gone.
I didn't make these same modifications to the other astromech droids, because I wanted to focus on repainting them. Besides, Artoo Detoo is really the only one who deserves the special attention.
R2-A6
This R2 unit was the easiest to modify. After mixing up a nice batch of green paint, I used a fine paintbrush (one I chopped most of the bristles off of--the brush is something like 2 mm now) and covered the blue details on the toy's legs and body. For the head panels, I used a sewing pin that I dipped in paint to spread the glob of paint around over each head panel until the blue parts were completely covered. It's highly exacting work, but it turns out very nicely in the end. (I suppose gluing panels to his head would work too.) Hasbro released a 6" version a while back, but there is currently no official 3 3/4" scale R2-A6 toy.
R2-L7
R2-L7 was much more difficult, since I had to paint his entire body, not just the head panels. With R2-L7, I painted all the blue detailing white before I painted the body. That was a mistake, since it's much more difficult to paint around details than it is to paint over them. I also painted behind his rocket thrusters. I used the same sewing pin technique on his head panels that I did for R2-A6. The Episode I Royal Starship playset came out shortly after I finished this repaint, which is superior in many respects--its middle leg retracts, it features the third head sensor, and the light on its face glows red when held to a light source. It's also a slightly lighter shade of red than mine, which means I'll probably end up redoing this one later.
R2-B1
R2-B1 (who has the best color scheme of the lot, in my opinion) was essentially the same as R2-L7, except this time I painted the body first, then the details. The only problem I encountered was that my yellow paint was a little gooey, which made it hard to work with. A friend of mine found the official Hasbro R2-B1 while I was in the middle of painting this one, and provided scans. The poor thing was retooled for some reason, and has no ankle articulation or middle leg. Why they would take the time to remove existing features is beyond me, but I think I like my version better.
R5-A7
This little agromech droid required extensive retooling because, as an R5 unit, his head has a radically different shape than an R2 unit. I traded one of my extra Artoo Detoo figures for an old R5-D4, whose head I chopped off for use on the R2-D2 body. R5-D4's head is significantly taller than the photo I had of R5-A7, so I had to chop off D4's neck, whittle down the length of the head, and glue the neck back on. The trick here was to sand down the new parts so they were exactly even before I reassembled him. I also sliced his three eyes off with a sharp blade and reattached them higher up on his head. Once I glued everything back together, I painted the head white, glued some painted sheet plastic on to make the head panels, and replaced the antenna. He retains the rocket thruster feature, for whatever that's worth.
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