"This R2 unit has a bad motivator!"

I had hoped that I would take part in 'Forgotten Heroes' this month, but it would appear that my best laid plans have come a little unstuck at present.  I had an idea ready to go and with the help of Jez, of 'Carrion Crow's Buffet', had even sourced a couple of likely miniatures ready for conversion.  It may well be that I enter something before the end of the month, but just for the time being, I have a couple of other items that are demanding my attention.

The first of those items are a couple of droids that formed part of a care package from the incredibly kind and generous Dave Stone; he of 'Wargames Terrain Workshop'.  Now before I go any further, I need to stress that these miniatures are custom sculpts, produced for Dave's own personal amusement and are not commercially available due to licensing restrictions.  Apparently during an email exchange, I sounded a little down and the next thing I knew an amazing assortment of Star Wars inspired miniatures had hit the doormat of Awdry Towers.  I hope to show more of the denizens of Jabba's palace in a future post, but instantly fell upon the droids to paint first, seeing that they fitted into my current theme.

Sensing an easy win, painting wise, I decided to start with an RA-7 Protocol Droid; Action Figure aficionados might remember this one as the Death Star Droid.  The body was duly given a silver base coat before washes were applied and the various details picked out in black.  A RA-7 can be seen in the Jawas' Sandcrawler during Episode IV and so I decided to give mine some additional weathering and rust to match the hapless droid.

If RA-7 was to be a quick win then R5-D4, the second of my droids, was to prove much more costly, time wise.  As with my R2-D2 the miniature this droid has a lot of small detail and required a bit more concentration and research to finish.   Certainly not blessed with a lot of screen time, R5-D4 was always a favourite of mine and so I couldn't be more thrilled to add him to the collection.  Similarly to RA-7, I wanted to give the droid a weathered feel and so more washes and rust effects were applied, although I stopped short of adding his shorted motivator unit.

So with two more droids added to the collection, a droid hunt across the Tatooine sands is looking like a real possibility as a scenario.  I just need to thank Dave again for his hugely generous gift and can confirm that it most definitely brought a smile to my face.