Custom 1:12 Star Wars High Republic 8-T Gardening Droid

This was a fun one to make. Here is my 8-T Gardening Droid from Into The Dark (High Republic). They are described as “similar appearance to that of an astromech droid dome, with magnetic treads and pincer claws that the droids used for pruning plants.” I actually suspect the bottom tread portion should be smaller but I had this so went with it.

Full 8-T Gardening Droid photo gallery

Finished droid

I’m actually very surprised at the articulation I got out of it. The head swivels and all the joints on the arms except for the middle joint work. The total cost was less than two dollars.
Recipe:

  • base is a dollar tree tank
  • head is a cast from a Toffifay (the candy) container
  • head greeblies are random stuff – a headphone speaker is the biggest, the small silver cylinder is the ink head from a cheap pen
  • arms (from base up) are made from lego base, lego swivel piece, plastic qtip rods, bead joint, lego ends

Steps:

  1. Removed the turret from the tank, painted it copper color.
  2. cast a head using PerfectCast in a Toffifay container
  3. Painted cast head the same copper color as the tank.
  4. Put a hole in the bottom of the head and glued a plastic qtip rod in. Then set that on the tank through the hole.
  5. glued greeblies to the head – red eye was done with a drop of red nail polish
  6. Made arms with lego parts. Sprayed silver
  7. Snipped off a single lego joint and glued it on the tank in three places then just slid the arms on after i painted it

if I can find or make better pruning arms, i may swap those out for something more “deadly”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *