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RetroSF 1/72 Probe Droid


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Ok, the Flurry is done, so time for build number 3.

This time I'll be building the RetroSF resin kit of the Imperial Probe Droid from the beginning of Empire Strikes Back (The best SW movie)

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So far the only thing I've done is wash the parts. The kit also comes with a small display stand, but I don't plan on using it. I'm going to try and make my own stand with a snow covered Hoth style base.

-Dave

Edited by 2qwik4u
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  • 2 months later...

Yay for progress!

I finally got back to working on this yesterday. All of the little parts have been freed from the resin pour stubs:

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One of the arms has a broken "claw" at the end of it, so I'll have to scratch something to replace it. (Bottom most arm in the pic)

I also glued the two lower body pieces together:

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Now the kit comes with a rather plane stand for the droid. Boooooring. :709-457:

So I decided to make my own base for it. I started with a thick walled cardboard tube I had laying around:

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Traced an irregular line around the tube and cut off a small portion with a Blade of Xact Zero:

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Tonight I traced the inner diameter onto a piece of lite ply and cut it out on my scroll saw to make a bottom for the base. I'm also adding a 2 oz lead weight to give the base a little heft:

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After the bottom plate and weights were glued in, I added a few packing peanuts to take up the space:

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Once the glue has dried, I will trim the packing peanuts back a little and cover everything with Sculpt-a-mold in a somewhat rock shaped pattern.

That's all for now, hopefully it won't be two months until the next update...

-Dave

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  • 2 weeks later...

Sebastijan,

Yep, this one will be Hoth. However, on the SW modeling forum I post to, it was suggested that a few vignettes on differing planets would be cool too, so I placed an order for another one... I'm thinking maybe a jungle setting with some ancient ruins would be cool, but that is way in the future. Certainly not for this GB.

So after all of the glue dried, I trimmed up the packing peanuts a little:

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And then I mixed up a small batch of Sculptamold. If you're not familiar, it reminds me of dryer lint mixed with plaster. The bag I have is probably at least 15 years old, and it still works great. You just add a little water, mix it up and slop it on. I went back with a plastic pallet knife and tried to give it a somewhat rocky shape.

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After that dried, I added a layer of watered down Elmer's Wood Filler to the outside of the cardboard tube to help smooth out the exterior.

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Now we are in the sand, prime, fill, repeat phase of the project to try and get the outside of the base smoothed out. I also did a little work on the droid itself. The main body was drilled for a small wire stand, and then the arms were added. I also drilled out the "head" for the two antennae. There are made from .009" music wire. They will be glued in place later. I couldn't help drilling out the mounting hole in the base and then mocking the whole thing up.

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Next up is painting the droid, and I still need to do more filling and sanding work on the base. After that I'll paint the groundwork and start adding snow.

-Dave

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Got some more work done on this.

First the droid was painted with Model Master Euro 1 Gray:

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After that had dried, I applied some washes of white, gray, and black:

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I will go back with some acrylic thinner and clean up the wash edges next.

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For the base, the next thing I did was paint the outside gloss black. After that had dried, it was masked off, and then the groundwork was painted with Model Master Dark Gull Gray. I was only going for mostly covered, and I primarily sprayed from the top down. This helped develop some shadows in some of the recessed areas.

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Once that was dry, I applied washes of sepia and black to the entire surface. I tried to concentrate the black washes on the more vertical faces and crevices to further enhance the shadows.

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After the washes had dried, I dry brushed the entire surface with a light stone color.

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And now for the snow. First I applied a thin coat of Woodland Scenics Flex Paste to everywhere I wanted snow. I was working pretty quickly at this point and I forgot to get a picture of it. The Flex Paste kind of looks like marshmallow cream. After the thin coat was applied, I went back and started to really goop the stuff on there to build up the drifts. This was done by getting a glob of it on an old paint brush and then rolling it off onto the surface. If you do a YouTube search for Woodland Scenics, they've got a pretty good video which I tried to emulate.

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Once I had built up the drifts to my liking, I used a small plastic spatula to smooth things out a little and then I placed the base in a plastic container so I could apply the snow. For this I used Woodland Scenics Snow, which comes in a shaker container, and is applied much like their grass, or flocking for carpeting in a model car.

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For my first snow dio, I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. There is another product out there that I recently discovered call Precision Snow and Ice that I think I'm going to try for my next one. From the videos I've seen of it, it looks even better.

With that, the base is pretty much done. Now I just need to finish up the droid!

Thanks for following along.

-Dave

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Final update.

First I cleaned up the washes a bit with some thinner and a soft brush, after which I went back with some lighter gray and dry brushed the highlights.

After that, the head was glued to the rest of the body and then the whole thing was detail painted. Final details were adding the two antennae made from .009 music wire with .020 styrene rod glued to the ends. The ends were painted the same color as the body, and that was all she wrote.

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It's a really nice little model, and I'm really happy with how it turned out. Thanks for following along!

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  • 1 month later...

This time I'll be building the RetroSF resin kit of the Imperial Probe Droid from the beginning of Empire Strikes Back (The best SW movie)

-Dave

There were more SW movies other than the most awesome ESB!!!!!???? Haha It's my absolute favorite SW movie too!

Brilliant diorama by the way and a fantastic build!

-Mark

Edited by taggor
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