Welcome to my new R2D2 Astromech blog. I’m hoping to document and share the build process of my astromech droid.

My name’s Chris and I live in the San Francisco Bay Area. Some of you may know me as Bothan Jedi on The Replica Prop Forum (RPF) or as TK721 with the 501st Golden Gate Garrison.

Over the last few years I’ve gotten burnt out on costuming and looking for another creative outlet. I’ve mostly been collecting and building Star Wars props, but thought it was time to think about R2 again.

I’ve been lurking on the R2 Builders Group for years, and even had one failed attempt at buying an R2 Kit about 5 years ago. Unfortunately, UPS managed to mangle the parts in shipping. So I put the idea on the back burner till now.

A lot has changed since I first joined the builders group back in 2001. Parts are more readily availability, of higher quality and more accurate. In some ways I wished I’d jumped back in after Celebration III as it seems like that was the sweet spot for availability of some hard to find Aluminum parts.

As of February 2008, I have a fully functional aluminum Artoo with some bells and whistles, including remote control – but I’m hoping to add a lot more features in the coming months.

Hope you enjoy my website, and please take everything I say with a grain of salt. I don’t claim to be an expert in any of this stuff, and I can’t stress enough how important it is to do your own research.

If you’re a fellow builder and live locally in the Bay Area drop me a message. Would love to meet up and share.

So that’s it for now.

oh! and don’t forget to check out the photo gallery.