Probot

Modelmaniac,

It's not totally completed yet...  Some little day-glo orange squares are peppered over the thing and it's still missing its antennaes.  And the colour scheme is a touch too dark.  In fact, it's the result of a mistake as I wanted to start off with a darker grey than required, and finish off with lighter tones, but I thinned the paint too much.  However, once airbrushed, and dry, it gave a nice semi-gloss metallic effect which I liked.  I only slightly drybrushed with silver rub'n'buff paste to highlight a bit more.  In reality (pictures of the real prop I used to make the master), the probe is of a much lighter grey, though it's not really visible in the movie.   

i found a shape this weekend as i was cleaning out the fridge, one of the arn and hammer baking soda air fresheners that hangs in the fridge....may be the right, or simliar shape, to begin work with.

Someting to keep in the stash for later on..

Wow. Great work! Is your build "modular" enough that you could sell this as an original mold to an actual manufacturing company?

Man, that's some fine scratchbuilding!  Do you plan to make a diorama from "Empire Strikes Back"?  Something more original for a diorama?  Or display it as-is?

Thanks for sharing your work, regardless!

You can see a 'in the making' photo here:

 http://www.retrokit.net/79.html

You can see the three different elements of the body and 'head'.  All were built from round flat pieces of plastic card and super glue, and sculpted with knife, files and wet'n'dry.  The main problem wit the head and the flat, upper part of the body is that they are actually made up of 'slices', some higher than others, rather than a smooth surface with 'simple' panel lines. The steps were created with thin strips of plastic (white strips on that pic), then the 'higher' areas filled in with Milliput (greyish areas). 

The lower part of the body is built in a similar way but was more complicated because there are many deep triangular (or rather more pyramidal) recesses in the rim.

The 'arms' were the easy part of the project!

.......sound of my jaw slapping thefloor!........

I think one of the 501st Garrisons made a full size one. How did you go about making the round shapes for the upper and lower parts? if I had that.....I could scratch the rest...just have not figured out those shapes yet.

Did you have any in progress pics?

outstanding! you need to mount it and have a chip of the "voice" recording....:)

Wow, and more WOW.....

Terry.

Someone on RPF did a Studio scale kit last year.

Someone is currently doing a run on the Pod it travels in.

Eric...