Monday, 10 June 2024

THIS IS NOT THE DROID YOU WERE EXPECTING

 

In a New Hope several times there was a funny looking white droid (inside the sand crawler, walking around Mos Eisley) with not much mentioned about it. We now know they are CZ communication droids, and can actually communicate offworld to orbiting spacecraft. Now fast forward to Return of the Jedi, and we see a dismantled one in the droid torture room, what you may have missed is the functioning one in the throne room.


As you can see from the shot above, you'd need to be quick to spot it ! LOL for completeness, I decided to make one, I started with a cast of my RA-7 protocol droid, and then added green to the face, chest and back, to bring it inline with the reference pictures.


With the painting once I'd got the white how I wanted it, I went back in with some Nuln oil wash, to add the dirty marks, as I've only seen a couple of these, the one will do, but will need to make the dismantled one when I get around to building the droid torture chamber.


 That's all for this post, so until next time stay safe, and have fun !

Cheers Dave

18 comments:

  1. How did you get the casting on the original so clean?

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    1. Thank you SD, I use a split mould process, that doesn't create a lot of flash, especially on smaller models, plus I have a vacuum chamber to get rid of the air bubbles.

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    2. Ah the vacuum chamber is the secret ingredient. Thanks!

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    3. It makes a great difference, much better than a shaker table in my opinion ! LOL

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  2. Great stuff mate, I was always intrigued by that droid sat in the sand crawler, hadn't really registered his other appearances , but always thought he had an interesting if slightly disturbing face.

    Cheers Roger.

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    1. Thank you Roger, he cropped up quite a few times in the end, although hasn't made a recent appearance in the new series yet ! LOL The face is very creepy, and a bugger to sculpt ! LOL

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  3. You never, never, never cease to surprise me. Excellent research and even better result!

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    1. Thank you Suber, I actually now have most of the models to recreate the first scene, just need some of the background humans ! LOL

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  4. Replies
    1. Thank you Keith, been planning this one for a long time, but kept putting it off, because of the face and all those panel lines ! LOL

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  5. John@justneedsvarnish11 June 2024 at 09:46

    Nice work tracking it down and then coming up with the mini! :-) Looks really good, even in a simple paint scheme!

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    1. Thank you John, sometimes the hardest part is finding the name, once you've got that, it gets a lot easier ! LOL

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  6. I’m
    Not sure which droid I was expecting but it certainly wasn’t that one.
    Great job on its creation 😀

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    1. Thank you Stewart, most people were probably expecting the first two I'd started ! LOL this was a lot quicker than the two scratchbuilds, as I had the basis already.

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  7. Nice work, Dave! I remember seeing that droid as a kid. It was one of the ones that I always wondered about. Surprised it didn't get a toy too, because it was pretty distinctive. Oh well, at least I got Walrus Man! Haha!

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    1. Thank you Brian, that was always the thing with the original Star Wars, they created whole worlds but never spent a lot of time focusing on it, or explaining every last bit. There has been two versions in the toy line, but during the later versions not the original one, as you say at least we had that one ! LOL

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  8. I think you just about nailed it on this one, Dave! I recognized the droid immediately and its exciting to see the character's miniature debut.

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    1. Thank you Jeff, I've had the cast sat on my desk for a couple of years, and kept putting it off, so nice to finally have it done ! LOL

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