My Lifesize 1:1 R2-D2 - 1st Attempt

This is very cool...Keep the photos coming!

Thanks brother! By the way, I'll probably be contacting you in the future, going to redo my Fett and I definitely want to get my hands on one of your jetpacks and a set of gauntlets.

Did some work yesterday and this morning. I was happy to be able to finally primer and paint him white! One of the most nerve racking things for me was painting the blue panels on the front. I only had a few very minor tape slip ups, but for the most part I am real happy with how it turned out.

I need to do some detail work on the legs and feet today.

Once I completely finish the body, I'll tackle the head.

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I was able to mostly finish up the feet and legs, save a few details. Painted the front strip silver on the feet.

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Used silver paint for the center strut on the legs, the grooves by the ankles, the inner ring where they attach to the body, and the horseshoe greeblies.

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Just a little bit of touch up left on the feet and legs, once I mount the battery boxes I'll add the power cables to the feet and call these done.

I also painted 5 of the body panels silver metallic. I have some blue inlay to do on these and they should be good.

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Wow! That looks amazing!!! I've always wanted to do a life size R2 unit. I joined the R2 builders group on yahoo a few years ago but never got around to building it. I can't wait to see your final build. It looks awesome. How much do you think you'll have in the final project?

- Warpcell
 
Wow! That looks amazing!!! I've always wanted to do a life size R2 unit. I joined the R2 builders group on yahoo a few years ago but never got around to building it. I can't wait to see your final build. It looks awesome. How much do you think you'll have in the final project?

- Warpcell

I purchased the entire kit for $500.00. Then I spent another $120 on all 3 feet because the ones that came with the kit just weren't going to cut it. Then I bought two audio pucks for $8 each, and about $35.00 in paint. I don't really have anything else to buy, I have some LEDs on hand which only cost a few dollars. So right now I am at about $671.00, and that should most likely do it.
 
Thanks for the comments guys.

Did some more work today. First I painted the blue details on the center bottom piece.

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Then I worked on the vents where the audio pucks will go. I took an old black sock, cut it into two small pieces, and hot glued it to the back of the two center vent ports. After trimming the socks I glued the audio pucks in place. I wired these to two separate switches on the left side top, towards the rear of the unit. The third switch will activate the LEDs in the eye when I start working on the head. I still need to paint the buttons.

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Then I installed a few of the other body detail pieces.

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Here's the video of the audio.

R2-D2 with Sound.MPG - YouTube

I still have several other detail pieces to finish, like the coin slots for the front of the body, the battery boxes, a few other leg greeblies, and then it's time to start on the head.
 
This is such a cool project. I joined the R2 builders site and got put off building a droid because everyone made it look so fiddly and complicated so I ended up building a Dalek. Seeing your build here though makes me think that maybe I should dust off those old plans and take another look now my skills have improved. If I could build one half as good as this I'd be well pleased.
 
Slow progress this week.......I debated even posting updates, considering I am not really "making" anything. I guess this thread is kind of useless because all I am doing is assembling / painting pieces I didn't create. But a few people, myself included, enjoy seeing build threads so I guess I'll keep with it.

I worked on the ankle cylinders, I used some schedule 40 pipe and cut it to length. I was also able to start on some of the detail pieces. The flash makes the texture look a little screwy, but the silver flake paint I am using it not too bad.

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I also painted some of the blue into the vents. I decided not to cover the rivets either, I cut a piece of styrene but didn't like how bulky it looked. I guess this gives R2 a bit of an industrial look.

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Got some more work done yesterday and today, I'll start on the head in a few days. I am so close to finishing!

I worked on the power cables for the feet, and keeping with my desire to save money regardless of accuracy, I bought these little plastic plugs. I primed and painted them silver.

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I also bought some refrigerator water line and cut it into 4 lengths of 12" each. I glued the ends into the plugs.

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To keep them from popping off, I epoxied some machine screws into each end, drilled a hole in the feet, and fastened them with a nut.

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Needs some minor paint touch-up, but here are the finished feet.

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Did a quick test fit of everything.

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Then disassembled and moved him to his final place. I am slowly running out of room!

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WOW! This looks fantastic. Great job with the audio and you're moving along WAY FASTER than I would expect someone to on an R2 Keep up the great work. Just a suggestion: You might want to add the ability of a rotating head. Make manually rotatable for now, with the option of adding a servo later. Just a suggestion. Looks GREAT!!
 
WOW! This looks fantastic. Great job with the audio and you're moving along WAY FASTER than I would expect someone to on an R2 Keep up the great work. Just a suggestion: You might want to add the ability of a rotating head. Make manually rotatable for now, with the option of adding a servo later. Just a suggestion. Looks GREAT!!

Thanks, I am looking into making the head rotate. I found a real cheap lazy susan that may work, still thinking about it though.
 
Don't stop with the posts / updates I really enjoy them. It gives some of us out here with limited skills the confidence to try .That alone makes it worth it. Plus I gotta say this is soooooo cool!
 
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