Scale: 1/12
This is a "deleted" scene from the Clone Wars S05E11 "A Sunny Day In The Void." The D-Squad consists of 4 Astromechs that have been enhanced for a secret mission - including R2-D2, M5-BZ, QT-KT, and Q9-C4 - plus the pit droid WAC-47, led by the tiny rebel Colonel Meebur Gascon. In this scene WAC decides, for posterity, to take a picture of the droids, who (mostly) decide to show off thier enhancements. M5-BZ has Gascon coming out of his mobile command unit, QT-KT has deployed her drone, and Q9-C4 is showing off his High-Powered Laser arm. R2 was in no mood for the picture and didn't care to show off his rockets.
This was something I've wanted to build ever since I saw the D-Squad episodes, which many people hated but have become some of my favorite episodes. I wasn't going for "screen accuracy" as the cartoon has many details already on the droids that don't match with thier movie counterparts, so I was going for my own interpretation of a "what would this look like in a movie."
R2-D2 was built and detailed as per normal (straight out-of-the box), painted and dirtied. I did not have an R2 kit with the rocket boosters, and didn't want to buy one, so that's why he is the only one without his "mods" deployed.
M5-BZ was built from a Bandai R4-I9 kit. His head was heavily modified with a full scratchbuilt cockpit interior, and since WAC-47 couldn't be in the picture I put him on a decal for the forward viewscreen. Meebur Gascon was the hardest part for me as I'm not very good at figure molding in the first place, let alone at that scale! So I started with a 1/72 hanger crew figure I had and modified it with blobs of modelling putty that I carved and sanded under a magnifier until I was happy.
QT-KT was next from an R2-D2 & R5-D4 kit. The circle in her head was modded to be the drone, and I drilled open her head, painted the interior black, and used a clear curved part to portray the drone flying out. The hardest part about KT was her paint scheme. Masking and painting her berry pink stripes was time consuming, and since the only paint I found that was the right color was a Rustoleum spray can, it made it a bit more difficult to work with.
Q9-C4 was the R5 from the above kit. I painted most of his parts on the sprue with Insignia White, then after assembly hand painted the yellow. I decided not to mask and paint him as, to me, he looks hand-painted in the cartoon. I hand painted the yellow, then used a blade to chip the markings, then dirtied him up. I built the arm with arm parts from in the kit, and various parts from my parts bin.
Over all I'm very happy with how this turned out.
