STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE
R2-D2 (MODEL KIT) PROJECT #205 BUILT/PAINTED: 2002 "You've got a lot of carbon scoring here... it looks like you boys have seen a lot of action." One of the first model kits I ever owned was R2-D2. I built it when I was about six years old (with plenty of help from my dad) and I was extremely fond of it. Unfortunately, it wasn't durable enough to survive the kind of rough play that I tended to dish out, and eventually broke into several pieces. I more or less forgot about it, but years down the road I was waxing nostalgic and decided I wanted to build another one. I went hunting for him on eBay along with C-3PO. The model kit was released by MPC in 1977 but was reissued a couple of times. Artoo has lots of fun little features once you've got him put together. He's got a rotating dome head, as you might expect, and the wheels under his feet make a little squeaking noise that probably wasn't intentional, but is still kind of cool because it's similar to the voice characterization of R2-D2 in the films. He's got a retractable center leg, which actually locks into a retracted position by way of a clever internal assembly. One thing you don't usually see much in official R2 merchandise is that the legs on either side are connected to an axle, so they always move in tandem with each other. His ankles are articulated, but the joints are a little too loose for him to stand freely on two legs. Also, the center leg doesn't lock into its extended position, so posing him can be tricky. By far the coolest feature, though, is the tiny little panel on the left side of his body that opens up to reveal a shiny chrome datalink arm. Not only does the arm flip up and telescope out, but it even locks into place by pulling it up a bit so that it can rest in an internal groove. Like the C-3PO model kit, he has a removable back panel that reveals some circuitry and internal components. They're all one pieced, vacuum metalized in silver, but just for fun I tarted it up with a bit more color. R2-D2 is already molded in the correct plastic colors, so all it takes is a few extra paint applications to make him film-accurate. The kit comes with a label sheet, but I found the decals somewhat lacking so I just painted all the necessary details. He came with two lenses that are supposed to go on the ends of his holoprojectors, but I used them as the blinky lights for the front and back of his head. |
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