STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE
C-3PO (MODEL KIT) PROJECT #204 BUILT/PAINTED: 2002 "I've got such a bad case of dust contamination, I can barely move." The model kit of C-3PO that I owned when I was six years old was one of my most cherished possessions. After my dad helped me to build it, I remember being so eager to get my hands on it that I didn't even want to paint it. I carried it everywhere, but the poor thing just wasn't designed to be played with like a toy, and eventually broke and got thrown away. I still have immensely fond memories of it, though. Years later, as an adult, I decided to seek out the model kit again, and managed to find an unused one on eBay along with R2-D2. According to MPC, the kits are meant for a hobbyist of moderate experience; C-3PO is significantly easier to build than R2-D2 (who has many more parts). When fully assembled, C-3PO stands at about 10" tall, and he's designed at the correct scale with respect to the R2-D2 kit. Building him mostly consists of gluing together the back and front half of his arms and torso parts, and attaching the legs. The manufacturers suggest spraying him with clear gloss (the molded plastic is already gold in color) but I think he looks better with a coat of metallic gold paint. The real genius of this model kit is the way the arms and head are assembled. The end of each appendage has a hook for a rubber band, which will hold the head and both arms in place. This gives him a wide range of articulation that is superior to any existing Hasbro or Kenner toy. The instructions say to glue the shoulders in place, but leaving them unglued can provide an even greater range of movement for the arms. The legs, however, are completely immobile. The model kit also has a detachable panel in his back, revealing some circuitry and components. (You would think this feature was based on the scene from The Empire Strikes Back when C-3PO is being repaired by Chewbacca, but in fact this model kit was released years before that movie came out.) |
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