3P0 variant

So, after toying around with one of skaught's IG-88 castings, I decided to tackle a droid of a different sort - a C3P0 (or variant). To me, if you are doing a C-3P0, you have to vacumetalize it in gold or it just won't look right. I kinda wanted to avoid all that so I settled on just doing a "generic" 3P0, along the lines of the white protocol droid we see in the Rebel Command Center in EMPIRE.

I found a fiberglass casting here in the junkyard for what seemed a reasonable price. (I guess I should say that I have 0 experience/expertise when it comes to 3P0's - so if someone says that I've bought a recast or a knock-off (and someone has), I'll just apologize if I've offended anyone.) I kinda liked the idea of fiberglass since it will allow me to do a lot of work on the head without flexing it. (I'm not going to be wearing it.)

I have no idea of the origins of this particular casting -


The front/back pieces were pretty good. But the eyes and ears - not so much -

I may not be an expert on how 3P0 was made, but I do know that the eyes are key to pulling this off. I knew they would have to be re-done from the start.

I kinda wanted to make this an interactive piece. Wanted the eyes to light up, make the brain plug thingee on the back of the head removable to see the CPU (yeah, I know I'm crossing my STAR WARS and TERMINATOR streams here......), and see some details in the neck. Not going to go full PHANTOM MENACE, but wanted something to tinker with with my godsons who are old enough to start doing science projects in school and learning the various functions of the parts.

For the neck, which will also be a base, I got a 4" diameter styrene pipe couplers from the hardware store (OSH here in Ca. carries them). I cut the bottom at an angle with a Dremel and used the scrap piece on the other side to fill in a gap and add some level of detail.




The holes in the neck line up with the bolts in the ear pieces. This way, I can bolt the head together, and to the neck, at the same time. When it's all together, it sits at an angle - not vertical:




On a recent raiding trip to Norton Sale or Apex or C&H (I forget which.....), I came across a cool looking stainless ring that just happens to (with a slight styrene shim) fit inside the neck -


There's a lot more shiny bits of metal that go inside this thing, as you will see as this thing progresses along.

Enjoy.

Gene

Clever with the neck as the base. Can't wait to see more.

Too Much Garlic said:

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Clever with the neck as the base. Can't wait to see more.

There's a bit more to the base, but yeah, the neck is going to be the main support. And with that hunk of stainless in there, it should balance it out.

The next part were the ears. The castings were only vaguely round, but I liked the idea of a bolt going through the ears, through both front and rear faceplates and into the neck.

Luckily, I had some round metal parts I picked up @ C&H a while ago -


I know they don't match, but they are the right size. And since I'm not doing that gold guy, I claim artistic license.

Here's the result -






With some white auto primer, it should all balance out.

I also had some cool parts to use on the CPU plug thingee on the back -

Cool thing was, the inner diameter was just the right size for the plug.

The flat plate, which has a 3" diameter was cut from 1/8" Sintra -


I borrowed a 3" hole saw and basically bored a huge hole in the back of its head -


Made a hell of a mess, but was done in 60 seconds -


- and yielded a clean hole for the new plate -




Gene

Droid trepanning

GKvfx said:

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I borrowed a 3" hole saw and basically bored a huge hole in the back of its head -

OOoohhhh! I like new droid builds!

Oooohhhhhh, can I call D-4po?

Looking great!

Funny, I've been thinking of doing the Red R-3po, but keep thinking if I do one protocol droid it has to be plated...

Nice to see a new build.

Ghost Host said:

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Funny, I've been thinking of doing the Red R-3po, but keep thinking if I do one protocol droid it has to be plated...

When we first see C-3PO with coverings in ATTACK OF THE CLONES, he is not plated at all, rather a dirty grey metal finish, though the plated look does complete him.

A very cool build.

Very cool work so far.......

Cheers

Jez

Ghost Host said:

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Funny, I've been thinking of doing the Red R-3po, but keep thinking if I do one protocol droid it has to be plated...

Nice to see a new build.

i did one a while back

Star Wars Helmets said:

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Very cool work so far.......

Thanks Jez. Not that it matters at this point, but can anyone tell me the lineage of this piece? Is it a recast?

zorg said:

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i did one a while back

Love the weathering Zorg. Anything I do is going to have to be really subtle since it will (likely) have a white finish. I would love to do a plated one - I think you can get some astounding finishes by combining the shiny of the plating with the flat, dull colors of the weathering. Maybe the next go-around......

Again, the stash from good 'ole C&H Sales turned up something that was just perfect for the antenna. I have no idea what this was - an axle of some kind -


I trimmed it down and rounded out on side so it would fit with the contour of his head -


I found a washer that was the correct diameter. I'll pick up a couple more and add them to it -


Here's a sneak preview of the eye grills -

My first attempt was an epic fail, but I think this will work. I'll document the steps later........

Gene

GKvfx said:

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Thanks Jez. Not that it matters at this point, but can anyone tell me the lineage of this piece? Is it a recast?


ITS A RECAST OF ONE OF MY KITS, DONE BY MLC AKA MARDON AND HIS PARTNER IN CRIME TK409.



Love the weathering Zorg. Anything I do is going to have to be really subtle since it will (likely) have a white finish.

I DID A WHITE ONE TOO, SEE ATTACHED PIC


I would love to do a plated one - I think you can get some astounding finishes by combining the shiny of the plating with the flat, dull colors of the weathering. Maybe the next go-around......

I'VE DONE THAT TOO AND IN FACT I'M JUST FINISHING ONE UP.

................

just found a pic of a shiny gold one i did (not plated i know but hey) with matt varnish , brown , black for the weathering,

if it was chromed i think the effect would be a little better.

-z

Well..... crap, Zorg.... I feel kinda bad for getting suckered at your expense. Especially since I seem to keep bugging you about doing another 2-1-B......

Gene

lol hey i'm not bothered, as far as i'm aware they are no longer making them......after they got busted.

hope i'm not derailing your thread by posting up pics?

i do like your neck portion you made, i might have to steal your idea

zorg said:

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just found a pic of a shiny gold one i did (not plated i know but hey) with matt varnish , brown , black for the weathering,

if it was chromed i think the effect would be a little better.

-z

If it was a "pristine" version, I'd agree. As a weathered version I think it's spot on.

If I may ask, what did you use for the gold basecoat?

there are some details in this thread

http://www.therpf.com/f9/c3po-head-chrome-paint-11614/

Thanks! It's a shame that paint isn't available in the U.S., but it's also not surprising.

zorg said:

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lol hey i'm not bothered, as far as i'm aware they are no longer making them......after they got busted.

hope i'm not derailing your thread by posting up pics?

i do like your neck portion you made, i might have to steal your idea

Go ahead and keep posting, Zorg..... Great stuff..... I have to admit, I got the idea for the neck from the Prequels "Chronicles" book - and it went from there.

On to the eyes.

So, it was pretty obvious I had to ditch the (re-)cast pieces. Just ouch. I hunted around my scrap bin for some thin-walled tubing that I could use for the eyes. I happened to stumble across a couple of wheel hubs from an RC car that had bought years ago for something else. The outer diameter was close and I figured a Dremel would make quick work of the interior spokes -


I ran a bolt through the hub so I could chuck it in a drill press -

- I just used sandpaper and a block to reduce the outer diameter so it would fit in the socket.

Once that was done, I used a Forstner bit to grind away most of the spoke and open up the I.D. a bit -

- finished it up with a Dremel and wound up hand sanding the interior to get it smooth.......

I'll get back to the slats in a bit, since I've only got the one made and need to finish the other. But the discs were relatively easy. I got some light grid material (I know it isn't accurate, but I had some and this IS a variant.....), taped it to a wood block and used a hole saw to cut out the discs -






The disc that comes out is just slightly oversized. It had to get chucked in the drill press and sanded down to fit.






The back pieces were done in the same fashion.

I picked out some grain of wheat bulbs and glued them to the back plate -


And the brass tube serves as an alignment lug for the whole unit -


Looking at the thing lit, I realize I need to reposition the lights and get them out a bit more (they look too close to the center), but that is relatively easy -




Kinda looks spooky in that last one, just with the one eye lit.........

More later.....

Gene

Fantastic!

I'm loving this build and your work on the eye is inspiring. I can't wait to see it with both eyes lit up.

That's pretty cool work. Looking forward to see more.

OK, here's my take on the eye grills.

From everything that I can see, it looks like 3P0 has 8 slats. The ones on the far ends sometimes leave a gap between the eye tube, but sometimes that gap is filled. Looking at the eyes, it is just a repeating pattern of thin slats with wider spacers. The thing that makes this tricky is the circle part and making sure they get centered L-R in a ~ 1.5" diameter tube.

Looking at the styrene that I have on hand, I chose .040" x .156" for the slats, and .156"x.156" for the spacers between the slats -

8 slats x .040 = 0.32" wide
7 spacers x .156 = 1.09" wide
Total = 1.41" wide

That should leave just a little bit of a gap on either side of the end slats in a ~1.5" diameter tube. I'm sure I'm off from what the real prop dimensions were, but I was trying to mimic the look, that's all.

First step was to chop up some styrene, making all the pieces longer than the diameter of the eye (~1.5") -


Next, I placed some paper tape sticky side up on a flat surface and start stacking the slats and spacers, getting them as tight to each other as possible and making sure they stay stuck to the tape -




Once all 15 pieces were in place, I wrapped it with another piece of tape. This way I could cut, grind, and sand the piece as if it were one unit. I re-measured the ID of the eye tube (each one is different since I was Dremeling and sanding the opening by hand), marked the centerpoint of the eye and traced out a scribe line with my Olfa circle cutter -

(The blue line is just for me to see and make it easier to photograph.)

Using the Dremel, I cut away the excess plastic......... -

........and sanded down to the scribe line..... -

......so that it would fit inside the eye tube -


OK. Yay! They fit. But what I have here is essentially a disc, not slats. If I try to glue them in place, I'll get glue on the slats AND the spacers, and then I'm sunk.

This is were it gets kinda weird.

I removed the tape from one side of the disc -


....and then, without removing the slats from the sticky tape, I removed the spacers and replaced them with spacers of the same width, but of a shorter length -




This way, the slats stay in the same position as they were, but there is enough room to glue the slats without having to worry about also gluing the spacers -


Once the glue was set, I doused the tape with some alcohol to loosen up the glue. (The last thing I needed was to remove one of the spacers and have the slats rip out at the same time.) I picked the spacers one by one and removed them from the tape -




Until - Viola! - 3P0 eye grills -


First one took the better part of a day and an evening to figure out (after the first idea failed miserably). The second one went down very quickly - a few hours over the course of a day and an evening.

Finally, it's starting to have that Protocol Droid look (though I'm going to have to deal with some pretty hideous gaps between the eye socket and the eye tube) -





Later,

Gene

Those gaps can be filled in with apoxie sculpt and then just scribe a thin circumference line about an hour after applying to get it to look like a sharp grooved line instead of soft.

As apoxie sculpt doesn't stick to food plastic wrap you can put that around the eye piece to ensure that the eye piece is still removable. You just take the eye piece out afterwards, peel the plastic wrap off and sand the inside surface of the eye socket.

Just an idea.

Where did you get the plastic lens !