Star Wars Genosian Battle Droid 1:1 w.i.p.

[Matt8888]

After looking around for week´s, i have decided to build my own Genosian Battle Droid, because al the figurines on the Marked ( from Sideshow and HotToys ) are far to small for my taste, so i started a week ago, and this is what i´ve got so far... i used Polyurethan Foam an Wood and some Aluminium tubes.
I struggled a little with the joint connection between the Head and the Neck, cause i have no idea what is between those round Ear thingys, if anybody know what´s going on in that area i would be very glad if you could tell me For the size reference i put a Red Bull can in of of those pictures, i really don´t know if this is even Life Size, but how tall is a Genosian Battle Droid really ? ...and are they any Resin Kit´s of Battle Droid´s ?

 

[Sluis Van Shipyards]

I don't know if you tried searching, but I could swear that someone had printed a life size Battledroid in the last year. I'm not 100% sure, but maybe they could help with the details/sizing.

 

[Matt8888]

I don't know if you tried searching, but I could swear that someone had printed a life size Battledroid in the last year. I'm not 100% sure, but maybe they could help with the details/sizing.

Thank you for that information, indeed i did not search for any "3d prints " , only for the Battle Droid itself, but i wil made him entirely out from scratch without any printed parts, maybe i will find the creator of that print and he knows about those joint connections.

 

[Aku]

Here are some Prop Store pics. Hopefully they'll answer most of your questions, especially about size

STAR WARS: THE PHANTOM MENACE (1999) - Battle Droid Head and Arm

A Battle droid head and arm from George Lucas Star Wars The Phantom Menace. Battle droids were used by the Trade Federation to invade the planet of Naboo, attacking the Jedi Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson) and Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) on the Trade Federation control ship, and later the Gungans...

propstore.com

STAR WARS: THE PHANTOM MENACE (1999) - Hero Battle Droid Left and Right Arm Components

Hero Battle Droid Left and Right Arm Components used in George Lucas 1999 sci-fi prequel, Star Wars - Episode I The Phantom Menace. In the film, Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson) and his apprentice Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) must protect a young queen when the planet of Naboo is taken...

propstore.com

STAR WARS: THE PHANTOM MENACE (1999) - 296 - Live Auction -Battle Droid Head

A battle droid head from George Lucas sci-fi prequel Star Wars The Phantom Menace.This piece was used in battle sequences to represent destroyed remains of the TradeFederations war droids.pMade of self-skinning biscuit foam, the head features detailing across the top surfaceand on the underside...

propstore.com

It looks very good, though the back "dreadlock" look a little too thick.

You dont say much on your construction technique. Do you mean you sprayed foam over the wood then carved it back to shape??

 

[Matt8888]

Here are some Prop Store pics. Hopefully they'll answer most of your questions, especially about size

STAR WARS: THE PHANTOM MENACE (1999) - Battle Droid Head and Arm

A Battle droid head and arm from George Lucas Star Wars The Phantom Menace. Battle droids were used by the Trade Federation to invade the planet of Naboo, attacking the Jedi Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson) and Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) on the Trade Federation control ship, and later the Gungans...

propstore.com

STAR WARS: THE PHANTOM MENACE (1999) - Hero Battle Droid Left and Right Arm Components

Hero Battle Droid Left and Right Arm Components used in George Lucas 1999 sci-fi prequel, Star Wars - Episode I The Phantom Menace. In the film, Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson) and his apprentice Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) must protect a young queen when the planet of Naboo is taken...

propstore.com

STAR WARS: THE PHANTOM MENACE (1999) - 296 - Live Auction -Battle Droid Head

A battle droid head from George Lucas sci-fi prequel Star Wars The Phantom Menace.This piece was used in battle sequences to represent destroyed remains of the TradeFederations war droids.pMade of self-skinning biscuit foam, the head features detailing across the top surfaceand on the underside...

propstore.com

View attachment 1711311

It looks very good, though the back "dreadlock" look a little too thick.

You dont say much on your construction technique. Do you mean you sprayed foam over the wood then carved it back to shape??

Thank you very much for those reference links, there are so many different " versions " of those battle droids out there which makes it really hard to find the original " Real " one.
Well for my scratch technique, i just go to the next Home Depot like store and buy a big block of Polyurethean Insulation, and carve out the basic shape, here are some photos of earlier projects that show some of the steps, that PU Foam is very light and easy to cut and sand in shape, you don´t have to harden it or use chemicals to make it stable, and you can go very big without losing any structual stability, thats maybe why i use it always for my projects.
Yes, about the back section " Dreadlock " thingys, they are for sure to thick, and the " Ears " are also not in the finishing shape right now, the good thing about the PU foam is, til now they are hold in place just with some toothpicks or small wood sticks, they are not even glued by now, the foam is so dense that it stays in place without glue, so you can change and replace every single part very easily.
I did make a Blog like tutorial once, here are some of those pages...
Seems to be that the chronical order is messed up, sorry about that...

 

[Aku]

Thank you for that, though it does sound above me.

The technique reminds me about the apocryphal anecdote about an unnamed artist when asked about sculpting an elephant out of marble replied: "It's easy, just chip away everything that doesn’t look like an elephant." It sounds easy, but looks hard

BTW if you are your figures in the blog, very nice

 

[Mottrex]

I love the fact your making it out of Foam. I used to carve with it quite a bit and love how it's so easy to shape and smooth with blades and your hands.
I once constructed a life size pterodactyl then couldn't fit it in the car so strapped it to the roof rack!

 

[Matt8888]

I love the fact your making it out of Foam. I used to carve with it quite a bit and love how it's so easy to shape and smooth with blades and your hands.
I once constructed a life size pterodactyl then couldn't fit it in the car so strapped it to the roof rack!

Thanks, yes, you are right, when it comes to really big sculptures and figures PU Foam is the way to go, ...but they are kind of fragile, i never was a big fan of Resin casting, and making mold´s for it, 3d printing is kind of cheating, so i never purchased a 3 d printer
I remember building a Plastic Model Kit of a Pterodactyl once, it was bright orange...was it from ertl, amt ? can´t remember...i wonder where are the limit´s, i mean size wise ? ...how big was your Pterodactyl, really life size ?, must be bigger then a School Bus, perhaps you could seperate the wings ?

 

[Vagabond Elf]

Thanks, yes, you are right, when it comes to really big sculptures and figures PU Foam is the way to go, ...but they are kind of fragile, i never was a big fan of Resin casting, and making mold´s for it, 3d printing is kind of cheating, so i never purchased a 3 d printer
I remember building a Plastic Model Kit of a Pterodactyl once, it was bright orange...was it from ertl, amt ? can´t remember...i wonder where are the limit´s, i mean size wise ? ...how big was your Pterodactyl, really life size ?, must be bigger then a School Bus, perhaps you could seperate the wings ?

Pterodactyl is a catch-all term for several species, much like "bird" is, so in theory it could be as small as a 20 inch wingspan and still be "life size." I'd guess they meant a pteranodon, though, which had a 20-25 foot wingspan. Which is pretty dang big, to be sure - but a lot shorter than a typical (North American) school bus, which is 40 feet long.

Which is the kind of irrelevant trivia I normally wouldn't bother posting, but "3d printing is cheating" is a pretty elitist, gatekeeping thing to say, since it's a huge put-down to all of us who choose to use 3d printers to be creative. So I decided to indulge in some pedantry to make myself feel better.

 

[Matt8888]

Pterodactyl is a catch-all term for several species, much like "bird" is, so in theory it could be as small as a 20 inch wingspan and still be "life size." I'd guess they meant a pteranodon, though, which had a 20-25 foot wingspan. Which is pretty dang big, to be sure - but a lot shorter than a typical (North American) school bus, which is 40 feet long.

Which is the kind of irrelevant trivia I normally wouldn't bother posting, but "3d printing is cheating" is a pretty elitist, gatekeeping thing to say, since it's a huge put-down to all of us who choose to use 3d printers to be creative. So I decided to indulge in some pedantry to make myself feel better.

I like Dinosaurs, but i really do not know anything specific about them at all, ...so i assumed that that one must be a pretty big one
Well,if it comes to 3d printing, that is a difficult topic for me because 10 years ago i bought one from an Austrian company named DREMEL, yes the microtool´s from them are awesome, but their 3d Printer at that time was a piece of garbage : ) ...of course i did not intend to offend any 3d printer fan´s and users at all, in fact 3d printing is just another approach to get to a specific result, ...i said " cheating " because i think it is easier to get a result rather as sculpting something from scratch, and yes, i have to admit that i ´am just kind of jealous for all 3d printer users who can get amazing sculptures at a push of a button, which i can not, so, no offense ok ? : )

 

[Vagabond Elf]

3d printers make it simpler for someone else to do all the sculpting work and then share it around... but building the model in CAD in the first place is hardly simple. And even if you use someone else's print files (which I admit, I do a lot), you still have a *lot* of finishing work. So at the end of the day, it's just like any other piece of technology - it lets people do a given task for less time and effort, resulting in more getting done, but it's no more "cheating" than choosing to ride your bike to work instead of walking is "cheating."

I didn't figure you were trying to be offensive - it's just that I think we all have to be careful with our words and watch out that we're not accidentally saying "your way of being creative isn't good enough." We're all just trying to have fun making things, right?

(And yes, from all reports, Dremel's 3d printer was awful on so many levels - but the tech has moved on a lot since those days.)

 

[Matt8888]

3d printers make it simpler for someone else to do all the sculpting work and then share it around... but building the model in CAD in the first place is hardly simple. And even if you use someone else's print files (which I admit, I do a lot), you still have a *lot* of finishing work. So at the end of the day, it's just like any other piece of technology - it lets people do a given task for less time and effort, resulting in more getting done, but it's no more "cheating" than choosing to ride your bike to work instead of walking is "cheating."

I didn't figure you were trying to be offensive - it's just that I think we all have to be careful with our words and watch out that we're not accidentally saying "your way of being creative isn't good enough." We're all just trying to have fun making things, right?

(And yes, from all reports, Dremel's 3d printer was awful on so many levels - but the tech has moved on a lot since those days.)

Yes, you are absolutely right.
My Brother is 1 year older then me and he always blames me to have talent, that he does not have, i never understood that, because i never asked to get some, ...so sometimes i just forget how it is for most people to get to a point with lot of efforts which comes just very easy to me. Of course, it does not matter which technic you use, the end result is important, and that you enjoy what you are doing.
And yes, the Dremel Printer was really awfull : ( ...so, i wait for a 3d printer with speech command, something like " Hey Printer, print me a Life Size Battle Droid "

 

[Matt8888]

So here are the pictures after sanding and priming the surface of the Battle Droid, as you can see the " Ears " and the Dreadlock " section is still not quite right in terms of size and proportion...

The grey surface makes it a loot easier to estimate size and overall shape, and of course there are a lot of uneven sections in the surface, i don´t know if i will fix them right now, cause the effort that it will take me to correct those mishaps is huge...and this is only the Head, so i ´am right at the beginning of this project, and there is a lot more to come, but right now i work on the middle part of the torso, which is quite complex in shape, and easy to underestimate, ...which i did of course : )

Should i correct all the little dents in the surface ? ...or leave them as kind of " Battle Marks " ? ...any suggestions ?

At the beginning i want all movable parts fully functional, ...but during the build of the Head and the Torso i have changed my mind, because of the loss of stability and breaking points, especially around the joints, i could have stabilized them with steel rods, but that would ad just too much weight to it, so i let it be....

...but at least the Head is still movable, the rest will be build as a fixed pose which i have not really decided yet : )

 

[Matt8888]

This Battle Droid build drives me insane...i never stumbled upon so many mechanical issues during a prop build like this one.

...as you can see here i have already begun with the middle section / torso, which created so many problem´s that needed to be solved, for example, how can you work with something that does not have one single straight line, to create a point of reference to work from ? ...not to mention that you can not fix this piece in any position, to sand glue or do anything else with it... so you have to hold it in your hand the whole time.

There is one thing that disturb´s me really, the mechanical parts that holds the Head in place, and the joints that allows him to move the head in the Z and X axis,...they just could not work that way like they do in the Movies, ...cause the Head, if he turns around the Y axis is forced to follow the movement of the space that the mechanics allow him to rotate right or left, but he makes a tilt with his head by around 15 - 20 degree´s around the Y axis, and roll´s his head...but in the Star Wars movie, no Battle Droid ever does that, so there must be an error in my construction itself...

As a reference for his Neck angle i have use some blueprints of a 3 side view,...and after adjusting that thing 2 times, i finally cut the neck off from the torso, cause i was not happy with the result...and glued it back together into a slightly different angle then it was before, ...like i said, when you don´t have a straight angle or line that you can use as a reference point, ...then you have to assume or guess, which can lead into an very unsatisfied domino effect, if there is an error in any measurement before...and that happen a lot during this build

Those 3 point´s in the area where the neck meet´s the torso, are wooden sticks, which i often use to hold the foam part´s together during the water based construction glue cures, ...later on i will use some ultra light filler for a smooth transition between the neck and the torso.
At this stage i have mounted the whole thing on a 4 by 4 timber beam, ...and i sadly realized that it will be a huge challenge to get the finished Droid able to stand on his own feet, without any support beam, maybe i even have have to install some counter weight´s in his body or his legs, i will see later on if all that is necessary or not, hopefully not...

 

[Mottrex]

Thanks, yes, you are right, when it comes to really big sculptures and figures PU Foam is the way to go, ...but they are kind of fragile, i never was a big fan of Resin casting, and making mold´s for it, 3d printing is kind of cheating, so i never purchased a 3 d printer
I remember building a Plastic Model Kit of a Pterodactyl once, it was bright orange...was it from ertl, amt ? can´t remember...i wonder where are the limit´s, i mean size wise ? ...how big was your Pterodactyl, really life size ?, must be bigger then a School Bus, perhaps you could seperate the wings ?

I used to ram in wood dowels or copper pipe for support.
That might really help in this build especially if you are carving all the small ring ligament parts..

 

[Matt8888]

I used to ram in wood dowels or copper pipe for support.
That might really help in this build especially if you are carving all the small ring ligament parts..

Yes you are right, in fact if you look closley at his arms, you will notice two wooden sticks lurking out at the end of it, and there are lot of Aluminium tubes used as well in this build to support the construction, i really wonder if that Droid could really work if it was real, especially the neck construction, even if it is made of steel or carbon fiber, it is just far too fragile

 

[Mottrex]

Yes you are right, in fact if you look closley at his arms, you will notice two wooden sticks lurking out at the end of it, and there are lot of Aluminium tubes used as well in this build to support the construction, i really wonder if that Droid could really work if it was real, especially the neck construction, even if it is made of steel or carbon fiber, it is just far too fragile

I've never looked that closely till I tried to build one (using the Dustbuster head) and convinced the neck post would need to rotate to function, then again maybe Space Metal works differently to ours..

 

[Matt8888]

The Backpack...well,what can i say to that ? ...was surprisingly difficult to shape, since this is my very first " Robot " statue, i ´ am not used to work with high precision, but is that not one of the key elements a Robot stands for ?
It look´s like the Backpack is a little to small, ...not wide enough, and that leads to the interference with those antenna thingy´s...

The area where the Backpack and the body connect, seems still not quite right in shape and detail...

His Black eyes scared the crap out of me...better not give him any weapons : ( ...or legs ...or Energy Safety First, right ?
Since the Backpack is way of the right shape and proportion, it leaves me no choice but to start over and create a new one...