JediG60racer
Sr Member
My kids love the gonk droid. I'm not sure why they have such a fascination with it, but they do. And for this Halloween, our church is doing a Star Wars themed festival... so I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to throw together a Gonk!
This build is not intended to be screen accurate, but a close enough representation that it's recognizable by Star Wars fans. It's more of a cross between the old Kenner action figure version and the movie version.
It's also designed to be very easily converted from a static prop to a wearable costume, for my 4 year old.
The build was done for less than $100 of parts from Home Depot.
Here's the stuff I used:
16 gallon Rubbermaid storage containers were the most expensive parts. Everything else was pretty cheap, just random stuff I found that I thought would look good as greeblies or parts. I did spend $9- on LED Christmas lights that I'm using for a logic board.
Yes, I know the Gonk doesn't have a logic board. Mine does, okay? I like blinky lights.
Started by painting the tubs and the electrical boxes black.
Then I mocked up where I would glue greeblies together to make detail parts...
I cut holes in the tubs to mount various details, as well as clearance for the legs.
Speaking of legs, I used ABS pipes mounted to those electrical boxes I painted black, then put aluminum dryer hose around them for the legs and feet.
Then I used T-connectors and some more ABS pipe to make mounting brackets for the legs inside the body. Screwed them together using part of the tub that I'd cut out as a spacing bracket to keep them aligned.
Then I put the cover on that tub and put screws through the cover into the T-connectors and ABS pipe to secure it.
Test fitted the top half of the body.
Drilled 60 holes in another leftover piece of plastic sheet to be the base for my logic board, and began gluing LED Christmas lights into it. They randomly blink, so it gives a pretty nice appearance.
And here's the Gonk, about 99% done. Still working on the logic board, will have that installed tomorrow, and do a little final weathering & painting on it. For $100 and an afternoon, I'm pretty happy with it.
This build is not intended to be screen accurate, but a close enough representation that it's recognizable by Star Wars fans. It's more of a cross between the old Kenner action figure version and the movie version.
It's also designed to be very easily converted from a static prop to a wearable costume, for my 4 year old.
The build was done for less than $100 of parts from Home Depot.
Here's the stuff I used:
16 gallon Rubbermaid storage containers were the most expensive parts. Everything else was pretty cheap, just random stuff I found that I thought would look good as greeblies or parts. I did spend $9- on LED Christmas lights that I'm using for a logic board.
Yes, I know the Gonk doesn't have a logic board. Mine does, okay? I like blinky lights.
Started by painting the tubs and the electrical boxes black.
Then I mocked up where I would glue greeblies together to make detail parts...
I cut holes in the tubs to mount various details, as well as clearance for the legs.
Speaking of legs, I used ABS pipes mounted to those electrical boxes I painted black, then put aluminum dryer hose around them for the legs and feet.
Then I used T-connectors and some more ABS pipe to make mounting brackets for the legs inside the body. Screwed them together using part of the tub that I'd cut out as a spacing bracket to keep them aligned.
Then I put the cover on that tub and put screws through the cover into the T-connectors and ABS pipe to secure it.
Test fitted the top half of the body.
Drilled 60 holes in another leftover piece of plastic sheet to be the base for my logic board, and began gluing LED Christmas lights into it. They randomly blink, so it gives a pretty nice appearance.
And here's the Gonk, about 99% done. Still working on the logic board, will have that installed tomorrow, and do a little final weathering & painting on it. For $100 and an afternoon, I'm pretty happy with it.
