Droids Customs: What's next??

by Bill Cable
on 2022-10-05, 09:21:12

For my next Droids Custom, I'll be doing one of two figures...

More than likely it'll be 2-1B next. I only need 2 or 3 more figures to complete the run of 20. I'd like to do TIE Pilot, but to do that I'd need to find a TIE Pilot army builder collector who'd sell me a dozen figures at a reasonable cost. As a bonus, that army builder collector would get a TIE Pilot for free. If you know anybody like that, feel free to put me in contact with them.

But what's happening beyond those two? Well, I talked to my bubble guy yesterday, and he said he's willing and able to do more for me. He also complimented my Emperor *BIG SMILE*. He said it'd be best to pick a multiple of 5 based on the layout of his vacuform table. So it looks like I'll be doing 10.

Back in April I listed the 21 viable figures that remain from the original run. So what the hell... right here, right now let's go ahead and pick the 10 to do.

Let's start with the obvious yes ones: 8D8, Dengar, FX-7, Klaatu Skiff, Nein Nunb, Weequay. That's 6. Now let's go through the rest and think about them...

• AT-AT Commander. Not a fan of the helmet or chest sculpt. 5%
• AT-ST Driver. Slightly better sculpt that AT-AT Commander. Got some ideas for a fun design. 15%.
• B-Wing Pilot. Woah - prices are all over the board on that one. Don't like it enough to go through the trouble. 5%
• Bespin Guard (either). Don't want the hassle of tracking down 20 of these with decent gold piping, and they'd probably be too expensive. 0%
• Death Squad Commander. Seems easy enough to build the army, but ugh that helmet. 10%
• Death Star Droid. This one could be interesting. Impossible to track down loose, mint ones... but very easy to track down loose crappy ones I could strip and paint black. 80%.
• General Madine. I mean, the beard has a following... 20%
• Hoth Rebel Soldier. Wouldn't do both Hoth Rebels in the same series. 10%
• Hoth Rebel Commander. Now that's more interesting... doing a Ratzenberger custom would be fun. 30%
• Imperial Commander. Feel like that's one to save for later. 10%
• Lobot. see Imperial Commander 10%
• Nikto. This is one I'd like to do a lot, but the staff can be prohibitively expensive. Also, could be save for the next wave. 10%
• Rancor Keeper. Really just not a fan of the figure. 5%
• Ugnaught. Tracking down 20 with non-degraded blue smocks seems like a long-term project. But it could be the end of the run. 15%

So the top 4 gives us DSD, Rebel Commander, Madine and a tie between Ugnaught and AT-ST Driver... BUT WAIT! We have a NEW CONTESTANT!

• Max Rebo. If I can figure out a way to mask the eyes, I could paint a bunch of faded-limbs Rebos a uniform blue color. Plus, the Max Rebo Band was actually in the Droids cartoon! 100%!!!

That gives us a final lineup of 8D8, Dengar, FX-7, Klaatu Skiff, Nein Nunb, Weequay, Death Star Droid, Rebel Commander, General Madine, and Max Rebo. And if I continue at my typical pace of 3 per year that takes me to the end of 2026. I also could consider the other Rebo bandmates in the future, though I'd need to swap Droopy's mic for something else... perhaps a chopped down... er... customized force pike or vibroaxe. But that's too long in the future to think about right now.