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R5-D4 (with removable third leg)
Who's this character? Tell me what you think See alternate "clean" paint scheme |
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Sometimes, I'm inspired to make a custom figure simply because the existing version is so ridiculously bad that it prompts the "even I could do better than that!" reaction. Kenner's 1996 Power of the Force R5-D4, complete with rubber antenna, rotating laser guns, and a spring-loaded yellow missile, falls squarely into this category. It is to Kenner/Hasbro's credit that almost all of their early blunders (the red card series) have since been corrected with newly resculpted figures, but a new R5-D4 has yet to be released... Usually, I try to use only the same materials that Kenner/Hasbro uses to manufacture their figures, but with the antenna here -- actually a sewing needle -- I went the extra mile because it looks so much better. The "neck" portion, incidentally, uses the chrome neckpiece from the vintage Kenner R5-D4 figure, painted with a white outline. |
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| As you can see, the head is basically the same as the existing R5-D4 release, although I reshaped the base considerably and added a joint that allows the head to turn. The body and legs are from the Episode I R2-D2 figure (with "booster rockets"), which meant that I had to fashion special curved panels out of plastic to cover the compartments where the rockets would've come out of. It's one of the only astromech droid figures released with joints at the feet, allowing the legs to be properly posed whether the central leg is "retracted" or not. | ||||||||||||
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I attached a small peg (actually a truncated toothpick) to the top of the central leg, so that it fits snugly into a hole drilled in the base of the body. This way, the leg can be easily removed, allowing the figure to be posed either with or without it. Since the head of the figure is removable as well, the third leg can be conveniently stored in the central cavity of the body when not in use. Here you can see more of the antenna detail, too.
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| I airbrushed a couple coats of "light sand" and "smoke gray" in the appropriate areas to make the droid look dirty; the original R5-D4 paint job makes him look like he's got chicken pox or something. I was extremely unimpressed with that third-leg block attached to the base of the Kenner figure, too, but that's what you get for designing an astromech droid that launches a big yellow missile! | ||||||||||||