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Episode II "Unfinished C-3PO" Kitbash
"At least you're still in one piece! Look what happened to me!"--See Threepio, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
A while back, I got a couple of extra figures in a trade, so I began thinking about what a halfway completed C-3PO might look like in Star Wars: Episode II. Originally I had simply swapped some of the limbs, but I really wanted him to have more of a mix-n-match look, so I went back later and chopped him up.
I was pretty clear from the start that I didn't want him looking completely twisted and Borg-like; George Lucas' droids are rather cute for the most part, and I didn't want to destroy C-3PO's charm by making him absolutely hideous. That said, I intentionally made him a bit lopsided, with more finished armor on his right than his left, just to shake up the symmetry a bit.
Parts Used:
An Episode I C-3PO and a POTF2 Flashback Photo ("Shopworn") C-3PO.
X-Acto knife, super glue, and a design concept to work from.
Construction:
The first thing I did was make a drawing of what I wanted C-3PO
to look like in his unfinished state. I already had a fairly good idea
of where I wanted to go with him, but the drawing eliminated a lot of unecessary
improvising. (I've also included it here because you can't make out
much detail in the scan of the finished kitbash.)
To disassemble both droids, all I had to do to crack open Shopworn C-3PO was to twist his waist enough to separate his upper body halves. Episode I Threepio required a bit more effort; I had to chisel into the sides of his body with a screwdriver to get him apart.
For the arms, I basically chopped them up at the wrist and elbow joints and then mixed around the parts. Just for fun, I posed him a bit differently than your usual C-3PO figure, with slightly outstretched arms. (He kinda looks like he's telling Ewok stories, actually.) I did the same thing with the legs and feet, but kept them in pretty much the same pose so he could stand up. I also carved grooves out of his legs and glued the leg circuitry in the groove to make it look like he was missing a couple of his leg panels.
I ended up using the body and pelvis of Episode I C-3PO (I intentionally put the pelvis on backwards just to give him a slightly different appearance). Then, I started hacking away at the body of the Shopworn C-3PO, carving out the inside of his shell until the chest panel and torso plating were thin enough to glue to his body as though it were real metal plating. I suppose in the case of the breast panel it might have been easier to just apply some putty or something to his chest, but I wanted him to look as authentic as possible. I did the same thing with the backpack on the Shopworn C-3PO. I also managed to retain the removable arm feature by chopping off the shoulder from the Shopworn C-3PO and gluing it to the Episode I C-3PO's body.
The head was the trickest part, since I decided to use the original
C-3PO head as a base and carve out the parts where the armor panels would
be exposed. Of course, the neck was too thick, so I had to chop it
up quite a bit to get it to fit inside the new body. I also driled
a hole through the right eye socket so I could glue the Episode I
version's eye in place.
Estimated Man-Hours Spent: I worked on him over a period of three days, off and on. Maybe twelve hours total.
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This Page Created 8/3/2000
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