Took a break today from sanding. I did some more test fitting, but I’m really trying to build up the courage to drill some holes in the dome.

Decide instead to review movie footage and reference pictures on what dome color scheme and panel layout I wanted to use. I’ve seen a lot of fan made R2’s which can vary widely both in quality and paint schemes, and there’s a lot of pictures of them out there – but not many of a real R2. The best collection is in the Gallery section on Astromech.net, but for some strange reason the photographers seem to miss his left side. I wish someone had a full set of 360 degree high-res photos . I guess it’s a good job we have the DVDs for reference.

One of my favorite sets of photos of a fan made dome is from Mike Marosy. He’s gone for a very clean look, and has a nice set of 360 degree photos of his dome.

The real R2’s finish is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, and as many people know there’s quite a variety in paint schemes due to different domes used from movie to movie, or even scene to scene. Parts fall off during filming too e.g. toward the beginning of ANH it looks like he’s missing a back left panel when on the Death Star and Tatooine, and in other movies panels can go from blue to unpainted or flip color on the rear PSI frame/center. Another variation is the holoprojector housing being painted or not. The list goes on.

I’ve been making replica props long enough to know that there is no way I can be movie accurate because of all the variations. So, right now I think I’m going to go mostly ANH/ESB without painting the holoprojectors. I’m going to make it so they’re easily removed anyway so I can always paint them later.

Today I also tried to mark out some of the holes and build up the courage to cut them, but during the taking the domes parts countless times I then decided I should do some more sanding/polishing to reduce gaps before I do that.

By that time it was too late into the night and I didn’t want to keep the neighbors awake, so opted to wait till tomorrow.