This was one of those projects I approached with a certain amount of fear and respect. The droid it self is menacing enough, but building the model seemed impossible.

This is an ambitious model, so if you are new to scratchbuilding – please start with something easier! For me (living near the Finse location in Norway) it was something I just had to do.

I used Star Wars Chronicles and The Lucasfilm Archives as reference sources. The blueprints were made from enlarged photocopies of some of the images in these books. I just found an image showing the droid straight from the side and worked from there.

Construction started with the droids head. The main shape was prefabricated in 3 parts before it was assembled: the upper and lower halves and the "hat".

Making round shapes can be quite a challenge if you do not have access to expensive machinery. Round shapes can either be carved or turned from blocks of wood or foam, or they can be constructed or sculpted. For this model I chose the last alternative (basically because my lathe is far too small for the task).

I first made the basic form of the head by pre-cutting lots of styrene ribs in the desired shape. The ribs were then mounted on pre-cut styrene circles and the space between them were filled with plastic scrap and epoxy putty.

The model would be quite heavy if it were to be massive. I therefore made the head hollow to reduce weight. The layer of putty and plastic is about 8 millimeters thick. I then sanded and polished the putty to get a smooth surface.

All the eyes around the heads equator were then turned from PVC on a lathe and mounted on the head. There is a pretty good reference picture in Star Wars Chronicles showing the position of the eyes. There were some gaps between the eyes and the curved shape of the head. I filled the gaps with epoxy putty.

The next thing I did was vacuum-form a styrene shell on top of the head. I simply placed the entire head on the vac-unit and sucked the styrene around it (see the Vacuum-forming article for more on that).

From this shell I cut all the curved plates that are part of the detailing. The last details were then applied. I basically used parts from battleship kits for the head.

The upper half of the body was made the same way as the head, using ribs and putty. I also vacuum-formed a shell on top of this part for the plating.

The lower half was made by laminating and plating styrene sheets (quite a challenge). I had to construct a hollow cylinder in the center of the body. The rest of the construction was done with this as a base. The hardest part was to make the "cavities" around the body. I used .5mm styrene sheets and a lot of time.

As for the arms and grippers I turned all the joints from PVC (they are all fully posable) and the rest were made from styrene. The hydraulic rods on the grippers were made from telescopic brass tubes. The trick here is to get the joints tight, but not too tight.

I base coated the model in a neutral gray. The model was then airbrushed with Tamyia gunmetal and washed with thinner and oil colors. The eyes were painted separately and added last.

For the base I scratched an imperial emblem from thick styrene. The model is mounted on an acrylic rod centered in the emblem.