Not Long ago (2009) , in a Galaxy.......real close........

February 2009 brought snow , snow and more snow to most of the UK. With with travel being a 'only if you must' many of us enjoyed a few days at home, enjoying the winter wonderland that was home - in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, UK.
The kids school was shut, and naturally building a snowman was the logical choice for the day. Hence Huggie the Snowman was created.

A few days later, and the freezing conditions were easing up - and Huggie was now becoming a 5 and a half foot phallic symbol in the middle of the garden as the sun began to melt away at him. Strangely enough he held in there for a couple  more days until half of this 'snow chap', came tumbling down. Half left, what could i do with 2 mins of my time to make this 'stump' look a little better?  Of course - Turn him into the roughest ever produced R2D2. Well - I am no sculptor'er, but it did the job, and in the back of my head a very dim bulb tried to light.......

Another couple more days and we are snowed home again. This time I don't want to go out in the cold, but decide to change my son's Laundry bin into a R2 D2. Sprayed the dome silver, added the blue bits, and some lights, and yeah , it ....looks, ......very tacky......but he loves it. So now I am thinking - I bet I could build a full scale R2D2, just like in the films. So away I pop into the land of Google, to look at pics of R2s, and before you know it I find ' the "R2D2 Builders Club', a club stared by a few like minded individuals, and with the agreement of Lucas film themselves, that these guys and girls can be allowed to build their own likeness of R2D2 and other Astromech droids , providing that these builds are for their own private use, and not for resale or profit. The Yahoo mail group itself is free, as are the access to many blue-prints and photos / tutorials. To a new builder....its Aladdin's Cave. But there are also links to sites such as Astromech.net and Droid factory - all of which have more information that you ever could dream of when it comes to building a Droid. A quick search on You-Tube finds the videos of many builders, mostly in the USA, and the majority of which are far superior to those used in the Original Star Wars Movies.