R2-R9: Part The First

Being the nerd that I am, I've always wanted to have an R2 of some variety.  Seeing as I now have a shop, and it needed a suitably ridiculous trashcan, the plan was set.

Started things with wood scraps left over from building my workbenches.  I had been collecting reference for r2 unit dimensions for a while; mine is pretty close to actual size.  Ended up being the correct diameter, but an inch'n a half too tall (or will be, once the dome is complete).  As always, I'm much more interested in something having the right vibe than being super-accurate.  Split the body into 2 sections just to make sure I had a lot of material built up to attach the legs to.

 Loosely skinned the base with fairly thick plastic sheet to give the foam something to adhere to over the entire surface, then skinned the cylinder with foam. Drew out my reference marks & started super-glueing cut styrene sheet in the appropriate spots.  Used a couple different thicknesses; all from plastic signage bought at Lowe's(cheaper than buying sheet styrene).  Used a double-layer of foam on the leg connectors, wrapped around short sections of super-sturdy cardboard tube, which was then all glued in.  Cut the holes for leg connections, each is a short piece of plumbing pipe with a flange at either end.  Flanges to be screwed into the interior of the cylinder and into the inside of each leg.

Glued more scraps together for the legs, cut the top curve on the bandsaw, and proceeded to skin 'em in foam  Left 'em long, wasn't sure of the final length needed since I didn't know what angle the legs would be placed at.  More foam, more bits added.

   Above pic on the right: can see the yellow plastic I used to cover up the ridiculous gouges I put in the foam while attempting a different type of cylinder attachment.  Looked super-dodgy before paint, but evened out really well overall.  Also, in the bottom right of that shot you can see the base woodblock+pvc pipe structure that goes on the inside of each foot.  I chose to forgo the cables linking that part of the feet to the legs.  Coated all the foam in multiple layers of watered-down pva glue, with lots of fine sanding in-between coats, followed by a thorough layer of plasti-dip.  Also set the angle of the legs & permanently attached feet.

 On to paint!  Covered the whole thing with 2 cans of a darkish red plastic-friendly spray paint.  Followed that with detail painting...other colors are silver and white, which created their own set of problems.

  The other colors were all hand-painted...and they all needed multiple coats.  I think it was 5 coats for the white, followed by 2 layers of black undercoat for the metal bits, then FINALLY the metals.  Which also took several coats.  I was anxious to get the base colors done, because then I got to make a huge mess distressing it all.  Discovered that given the color scheme, my distressing options were a bit limited, had to stick to much darker hues overall.  But I did manage to get some battery-acid-style leaks in a couple spots, and the panel lines popped out better than I was expecting.

So there we go.  My 1st attempt at the dome was a complete failure, attempt #2 was much better but still a little wonky.  I may just go ahead and finish the dome as it is.  We'll see.  I don't think I'll really be able to do better and still make it out of foam (which was part of the point of this exercise; to push what I know how to do with this material).  Dome/lid mechanism will be part of the second installment.