Hopefully, These are the Droids I'm Looking For...

    A dozen droids from various manufacturers, including a few scratch-built from scatter terrain

As I gear up for running Star Wars themed skirmish games, there was one thing I was certainly lacking: droids. Not war bots and military stuff like that -- I had painted up a good number of those already. I'm talking about the civilian type ones like C3PO or R2D2. They didn't have to be copies of those two. Any unarmed, robot or droid-like figures would work. Remember the scene inside the Jawas vehicle when those two were captured during the first Star Wars movie? There were LOTS of different sizes and shapes, so I felt I had a relatively free hand.

    Remember the 'Walking Trash Can' droid from Star Wars? Here's my version of 'Gonk'

One source was the Retro Raygun line from Hydra Miniatures. On our trip up to the Michigan Toy Soldier & Figure Company, I snatched up three types there. I also picked up some from RRB. Minis & More from the venerable Reviresco 28mm line. And finally, while painting up some of my 3-D printed scatter from Diabolical Terrain, I noticed some of the cylindrical pieces looked very droid-like. They would needed treads or something to give them mobility to be attached underneath, though. Rich Brown of RRB came to my rescue and pointed out stuff in his catalog that would work. 

So, once assembled, I had a very large batch of miniatures to paint at once. I prefer to work on about a half dozen or so at a time, but this was twice that size -- 12 figures. I started out with putting them together. My friend Jason had told me a trick to use with superglue -- have a light dusting of baking soda on one of the halves to be joined together. According to him, it would cause the glue to cure superfast. Since I am so untalented with superglue, I figured superfast superglue might be easier to use. I tried it out when assembling the various arms, heads, etc., together. I did seem to work much faster and hold strong. Thanks for another modeling or painting tip, Jason!

    I took pieces of scatter terrain that looked vaguely like R2D2 and gave them treads

I began with the Diabolical Terrain scatter pieces. I chose the smallest size of three different types of cylinders I'd purchased back at DayCon 2024 in April. I used my hobby saw to separate the bottom quarter or so from the rest of the piece. Only one cut went awry or uneven, but I hoped I could hide it with the RRB treads I would be gluing to the bottom of them. I cleaned up the treads and they were perfect size. They came from three of their Sci-Fi vehicles -- two tank-like ones and one "Jungle Bot." The hardest part was setting them upright for the cylinder to rest upon. Afterwards, I thought "Duh!" I should have glued the treads to the base first! I didn't use superglue for this, I used modeling cement that I have been using for assembling multipart plastic figures. They came out pretty good -- one or two has a gap if you look closely, but all in all, I was happy with how they came together. 

    Good view of the treads which I scavenged from Reviresco bots I bought from RBB Minis & More

I primed them with white artist's Gesso (another Jason tip), because I wanted the main color for most of the droids to be white. It seemed to be a predominant color in the Jawas collection in the movie, at least. Once drying overnight, I gave it a coat of white. I chose to do one accent color on each droid, doing red, blue, and green ones. I also painted the little rectangular panels black and gave them glowing buttons like I did my scatter pieces. I went back and forth whether to give these a wash to dull them up (they were really bright white), and finally decided to go with a dusty brown. After they dried, I gave them a spray clear coat. Upon examining them, I felt they were too dirty, and did a very light white dry brush over the darker parts to brighten them up, again. I know the droids were probably sitting there thinking, "Make up your mind...!"

    Two 'Simon 6' robots from Hydra Miniatures' 'Retro Raygun' line that I liked

Next up were the Retro Raygun robots, Blocko the Squarebot and Simon 6. While assembling these miniatures, I had noticed that the torso and legs of Block looked quite a bit like Gonk, aka the "Walking Trash Can" droid from Star Wars. So, I decided to not glue on the arms or head and have him be my take on Gonk. The others were put together correctly and primed with gesson and given a white base coat. I did the two Simons first, giving one of the red trim on a white body. The next, I left the trim white and repainted the body blue. This reversing of colors has a nice effect, I thought. I gave them a glowing green power indicator in their chest and red eyes. Otherwise, they're painted to be similar in theme to the scatter droids I did first.

    'Blocko the Squarebot' as envisioned by Retro Raygun and then re-imagined as a Star Wars 'Gonk'

Blocko I wasn't sure how to paint. I decided to go with a dull yellow as his basecoat. I painted the arms and legs a pale blue. I guess I decided to depart from the white and trim color theme here because I wanted it to look different than the two Simon robots. I gave him some dark blue metallic trim that I think sets him off a bit. He got the usual lighted yellow, green, blue, red, and white lighted buttons and dials, too. As I was painting him, I felt he looked so retro as to be almost cartoonish. However, once he was done, I was more pleased. After all, C3PO has theose shocked eyes and mouth, too.

    One of the easiest droids to paint up, two of Retro Raygun's 'Hoverbots'

Finally, it was on to the little ones. From Retro Raygun, I picked up a pack of five Hoverbots. Since this batch was so big already, I decided to paint just two of the five. To pick up trash on the ground, I bought a pack of three Reviresco Monowheel Scavengers from RRB Minis. These are pretty cool looking figures, being built around a single wheel, with metallic cover and body. Attached are two robot arms. What really sets them off is their wide open jaw with metal teeth at the front of the robot. I figured these guys buzz around the streets picking up trash and depositing in their mechanical mouths.

    3 'Monowheels' from Reviresco -- I imagine them as rolling garbage collectors scooping up trash

I wasn't sure how to paint them, so did a little bit each time. I began with a gesso and then white base coast. Next, I did the wheel a dark gray rubber. I made the metallic cover for the wheel Iron Wind Steel. I finally decided to use a color for the various trim pieces like I did with Simon 6. I decided the trim would be in normal flat acrylics, but the wheel color would be in a matching metallic color. From being unenthused about them initially, I'm pretty happy with how they came out. Strangely, though, I managed to have one of the blue one's arms come off and have yet to find it! So, I painted over the socket and I have one Mark I version and two Mark II's...ha, ha!

All of the droids and robots got my new Sci-Fi flocking. Rather than putting on Blended Gray fine ballast and then giving it a dark wash, I decided recently to buy a fine black ballast from the local model train supply store. I then dry brush this gray, cutting out a couple steps and using less of my black wash. Add in some brownish tufts and an occasional large patch of stones, and they're done. 

    Another looks at the back of 'Blocko the Squarebot' and my modification of it for 'Gonk'

This batch of 12 took a long time to paint up. I did it in stages, as I mentioned. I'm happy with how they look, though. Will a dozen civilian droids be enough for my games? Wellll, I do have two more Reviresco models I bought, and there are three more Hoverbots. Oh, and I have three more of those Diabolical scatter pieces I turned into droids. We'll see. I'm hoping, as the title of this entry suggests, that these are the droids I've been looking for, though!

What's up next? I am finished with two batches of Acheson scatter pieces. They are barricades made of stacks of tires and oil drums and also tall concrete barricades. As soon as I finish the flocking and take pictures of them, I will put them up here. As far as miniatures go, I'm thinking that the next minis I paint may well be the 'Criminal' faction for my Star Wars skirmishes. Stay tuned to find out!

Miniature Painting & Purchasing Tally for 2024

• Miniatures acquired in 2024: 226
  
• Miniatures painted in 2024: 208