Step 1

The first R3 droid I made had a light and this one's head can actually turn. I used my cutting wheel on my dremel to chop off the top of R2's head so there was just a little chrome lip of plastic that still turned.

Step 2

I then started gluing all kinds of little mechanical pieces and wires for his "brains".

Step 3

I then used a clear gum ball container for the dome. You need your cutting wheel again to get the dome to the right size, use another R2 head for reference. After cutting it down to size I used model glue to attach it to the disc. (Superglue makes clear plastics turn all cloudy) Try to get the Model Cement that comes in a bottle rather than the squeeze tube, it's far superior.

Step 4

I then made his photo-receptor eye with A/B Epoxy. The holo-projector I cut off of R2's head and glued it on the clear dome. You could also cut the eye out of the original R2 head.

Step 5

Now it's time to paint. There are no reference pictures for this R3 unit but you can't miss him following around Obi-Wan in the Death Star. You can see him in two different scenes of ANH. That's how I got the color schemes.

Tip provided by:  Michael's guest section Michael Collins