1:7 Scale Star Wars Astromech Series WIP

Are you sure this kit is in 7th scale, 'cause then it would look out of scale with the Kaiyodo protocol droid as that's pretty large and sixth scale.

I have one of those, but lost the head antenna, and have been looking for a good astromech, but the Kaiyodo is impossible to find and I dread and cannot do the mods needed on the MPC kit. Really wish an improved and accurate styrene astromech will be produced soon. The Gentle Giant statue just doesn't speak to me and looks busy... and the Medicom is too small and too expensive.

Love the work you are doing.

Troy Downen said:

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....and R3PO (red droid from... ? Not coming up with the reference right off hand)...

EDIT: Wookiepedia says R3PO was on Hoth with K3PO, but the red bugger was an Imperial spy! I didn't know that...

I think the spy angle is just EU stuff.

But don't forget about the other protocol droid on Bespin (that was rude to C3PO), and there is a third droid on Hoth (not including C3PO), in the Hangar, who is a dirty silver. You can see both R3P0 and the silver one on the attached pic.

But back on topic...lovin' how these are coming out. looking forward to seeing more progress.

NAZGÛL said:

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I love this project! Do you plan to sell upgrade kits?

Good question. I have toyed with the idea, but I'm not sure that I'm comfortable placing the burden of my modeling shortcomings on others. Even if I provided resin replacement / upgrade parts, there would still be considerable work for the modeler to complete. For example, I still haven't crafted eye stalks or antennae for R5 (I will, but I'm not sure that I'll cast resin copies. I'll probably just hack out 3 sets for this project).

I don't know... I'll keep considering it.

Too Much Garlic said:

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Are you sure this kit is in 7th scale, 'cause then it would look out of scale with the Kaiyodo protocol droid as that's pretty large and sixth scale.

You bring up a good point. My measurements indicate that the MPC R2D2 kit is 1:7 scale. I have not yet measured my Kaiyodo C3PO kit nor assembled it to the point that I can pose them together (the vinyl pour stubs need to be trimmed). Now that you've raised the point, maybe I need to trim the Kaiyodo kit and see how they look together!

Too Much Garlic said:

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... Really wish an improved and accurate styrene astromech will be produced soon. The Gentle Giant statue just doesn't speak to me and looks busy... and the Medicom is too small and too expensive.

You and the rest of the world, buddy! Here's rooting for Fine Molds !!

seven said:

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I think the spy angle is just EU stuff.

But don't forget about the other protocol droid on Bespin (that was rude to C3PO), and there is a third droid on Hoth (not including C3PO), in the Hangar, who is a dirty silver. You can see both R3P0 and the silver one on the attached pic.

That's a great screen capture! So that's not C3PO in the foreground? Hmmm... dirty silver you think? I really like that picture. R3PO to one side, gonk droid in front of the unidentified protocol droid, an R4 in the background and what appears to be two R3 units in the far background. I LOVE it !! (Guess I need to break out the Blu-Ray ESB this weekend and look for that scene)

Troy Downen said:

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You bring up a good point. My measurements indicate that the MPC R2D2 kit is 1:7 scale. I have not yet measured my Kaiyodo C3PO kit nor assembled it to the point that I can pose them together (the vinyl pour stubs need to be trimmed). Now that you've raised the point, maybe I need to trim the Kaiyodo kit and see how they look together!

Kaiyodo's C-3PO and R2-D2 vinyl kits are supposed to be 1/6 scale. Of course, MPC's R2-D2 kit was believed to be 1/6 scale as well, and you see how well that worked out.

To be honest, I think your idea is best--put 'em together and see how they look side-by-side regardless of their alleged scales.

C-3PO COMPARISON

I made mention that I planned to display at least two of my astromechs with protocol droids from Kaiyodo. But if the Kaiyodo C-3PO is 1:6 scale and this astromech is 1:7 scale, how will they look together? In reality, the difference between 1:6 and 1:7 won’t be too bad. But let’s check it out.

The Kaiyodo kit is hollow cast in vinyl, and as a result has pour stubs on the end of each component. In this photo you can see the stub on the knee, and in the background you can see the torso. These stubs are hollow and simply need to be trimmed off the part. Sometimes it helps to heat the vinyl with a hair dryer (not too much!) but this vinyl happened to be very workable so I skipped heating the parts.



Although easy to trim with a sharp knife, vinyl does not sand well. However, I wanted to thin the walls of the upper torso so that I could slide it down over the waist. I used the Dremel to hack away at the vinyl inside the torso and managed to get enough gouged out that I could come back with a knife blade and trim it up afterwards.



Here you can see the torso fitted over the waist; this arrangement will permit me to pose the protocol droid a bit. I can lean him forward or back just enough to do what I’ll need for each diorama.



Okay, I taped the protocol droid together and posed him and an astromech together with their Hasbro 12” collection equivalents.

First, the protocol droids. Look at the difference in height! The Hasbro TC-14 on the left measures at exactly 12 inches in height. The Kaiyodo kit measures at 10.75 inches. If that Hasbro kit is 1:6 scale then Anthony Daniels comes in at a whopping 6 foot tall! Hmmm… I don’t believe that he’s quite that tall. If the Kaiyodo kit is 1:6 then he’d be 5 foot 4.5 inches. That’s a bit closer, I would think. Maybe a bit too short? If the Kaiyodo kit is 1:6.5 then he’d be 5 foot 10 inches. Perhaps.



The upshot is that the protocol droid kit is somewhere around 1:6 or slightly smaller. Not too far off from the 1:7 astromech. The scene I intend to recreate with these models is the photo below.



So in looking at the comparison below you can see that R2 is a bit undersized in comparison to the Kaiyodo kit, but it’s not so bad that it looks odd. I have a bit more work to do on R2’s ankles which will make him just a bit shorter, and I need to work on the body intersection with the dome (which will make him a bit taller), but overall it should still work.



But boy, look at those two R2 units together! The Hasbro figure is on the right. Since these are essentially the same height, it makes the Hasbro R2 even further out of scale with their protocol droid than the Kaiyodo kit.

IMDB has Anthony Daniels Height listed as:

5' 9" (1.75 m)

So the Hasbro kit might be close.

Thanks for looking that up. So the Kaiyodo is about 1:6-1/2 scale.

actually, 5'9" turned to sixth scale is 11.48"

Since the body of the Kaiyodo kit isn't supposed to go down over the mid section, but should be glued on top as I believe he was referenced from the RotJ look, it would make him a bit taller... but still wouldn't make him reach the 11.48" I guess. Didn't realize he was that tall in reality... but the Hasbro is definitely too tall... but perhaps closer to the actual sixth scale size. The Kaiyodo Vader is perfectly scaled, while their Stormtrooper and Fett is underscaled.

In comparison with the MPC astromech and the Kaiyodo protocol droid it looks like a similar scaling as the Medicom where the astromech is just a fraction too small when paired. This means the Hasbro protocol is too small for sixth scale too... bummer, as I was thinking of getting one until a better product became available... guess he'll fit with the Gentle Giant 3PO?

All the custom work looks superb.

I think you all might be overlooking one thing. Assuming the measurement on IMDB is accurate, Anthony Daniels is 5'9" tall. But the C-3PO costume he's worn in the films could easily add another 3" if you take the head and foot coverings into consideration. In other words, to get an exact sense of scale you would need the height of the C-3PO costume while Daniels is wearing it. Someone on this forum might have that exact measurement but, until someone can verify it, I don't think it's unreasonable to assume C-3PO is an even 6' tall based on Daniels' 5'9" height.

BUMP


How did the rest of this project turn out?

Thanks for the post! Well... it's still at the same point that you see a few posts up above here. I got distracted with other projects (as I so often do), then recently the weather cooled off (slightly) here in Georgia, USA so I've been out in the garage for the past few weekends working on my 1:1 scale R5 droid:



But, coincidentally I was sitting at my hobby desk upstairs last weekend (taking a break from R5) and thinking "you know, a few passes with sand paper and I'd be ready to cast copies of this body and start making a few of these little guys..." So I'm sure that I'll be back at this sub-scale build in short order. And you'll see it here first!

Too many hobbies... not enough time!

Nice. That 1:1 R5 unit looks pretty good can't wait to see all your Astromechs.

If you offer castings, I'd be really interested in an R5 head that I could use on an MPC kit (if it fits!)