new legs in the works…

Well, now that my artoo has been doing events for almost a year now parts do ware out. Nothing has really worn out yet but because my artoo’s legs are my own scratch built design I’ve seen spots for improvement. So, the older legs will be installed on my new artoo R2-A1 because there are working fine as there are. However, my newer legs, which we can call legs 2.0, will follow the same basic building technique except for I will be including a compartment for booster rockets that pop out whien the booster covers slide down. Anyone who has scratch built these things knows its not easy and require a lot of thought because once you’ve begun gluing and covering it’s too late to go back and change. Anyway, here are a few pictures to give you an idea of how I’m going about it. And yes, I have already scratch built the booster rockets. Those pictures and how-to I will post a little later

 

Busy event schedule this time of the year…

This was my second major event this Fall. This time it was a Childs Convention (Underbara barn) in Stockholm. It was a pretty good event and I even got to meet some Swedish celebrities. These celebrities never usually come to SciFi events so it was extra cool. Everyone, kids and adults love my artoo. And with my new dome it made artoo look and feel even more “real” to the spectators and attendees. The funny thing was that no one considered that I even built him. They assumed that its the artoo from the movies

The building of my R2-A1 is progressing nicely…

Yes, I haven’t stopped working on my R2-A1. I just didn’t want to re-post every step by step of this build. If anyone wants to know more about building the frame like I did just ask or look into the previous posts. Okay, saying that what new with this build besides it being black. Well, for starters I have used 2 different kinds of paint. The main frame is painted with “car-bumper” black. Its not totally a flat black but very close to it with a kind of “stealthy” finish. All of the parts like the vents, arms and such are painted with a semi-glossy black. The coin returns are silver but i actuality the front coin return should have been black as the other parts. this was a choice that I made so that everyone who see’s my artoo will know that this one is mine, as I have already seem 2 builders of this R2. As for those copper coloured panels I have no idea why but yes they are supposed to be that way. It looks cool anyway. Anyway here are a few pictures and by the way, yes my first artoo has finally the new aluminum dome installed as you can see in one of the pictures.  I have give it a semi-polished surface to give it a real and used look feel about it and when the periscope comes up and own you get a metallic clinging sound to it, that is just priceless

the mystery 3rd panel on artoo

And here’s the mystery third panel on my R2-A1: