These aren't the droids you're looking for...

The term "droid" is a registered trademark of Lucasfilm Ltd, and is the Star Wars universe equivalent of the word "robot". Star Wars droids come in a wide variety of forms, but most if not all, seem to be installed with some degree of artificial intelligence and personality.

I personally use the term loosely to refer to all cute, quirky, or comic relief robots from popular media. The majority of the various miniature versions of such robots that I've collected are droids from the Star Wars line of MicroMachines made by Galoob.

The first group of figures include four R-series astromech droids – one standalone, and three others on a single base. The fourth droid on the group base is a mining droid, followed by a gonk power droid (a couple of 1/72 resin kit from RetrokiT and Green Strawberry Models are available, but I don't know how they compare in size to the MicroMachines version). The last two figures are a LE-series repair droid and a ASP-series general-purpose labor droid.

R2-D2, R1-G4, R2-D2, R5-D4, LIN-V8K, GNK, LE-BO2D9, ASP-7

The next image has three 3PO humanoid protocol droids and an assassin droid. The 3PO droids are tiny, and seem to be 1/87 scale. I think the E-3PO droid is a custom repaint or factory error of C-3PO since I don't think that there was an actual MicroMachines version of E-3PO.

C-3PO, C-3PO (god mode), E-3PO, IG-88

The droids that I like the most from the MicroMachines line are the B1 battle droids.

The duplicate poses are from the various playsets, and are distinguished from the standard figures by having a small hole through the middle of the base.

The battle droids are most likely 1/76 scale, so may appear somewhat under height, but overall, they still look fine with 1/72 figures.

Larger scale battle droids were made for the Star Wars Action Fleet line, but they don't have the spindly look of the droids from the films. I think that the S.T.A.P. (Single Trooper Aerial Platform) looks okay with the smaller figure riding it, so I'm fine with calling it 1/72 scale.

I have two other Action Fleet droids from the Pod Racer Hangar Bay set. Both are DUM-series pit droids. The tan colored droid has the pivoting hips of the typical Action Fleet figure, while the brown droid is a fixed pose figure.

At 21mm in height, they are about 1 scale foot taller than they should be, but I'm willing to let that pass.

In metal, Ground Zero Games makes a WorkBot pack (SG15-V13), with three small robots who are expys of R2D2, WALL•E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class), and Dewey (or Louie) from Silent Running.

I misplaced the other miniatures, but had WALL•E on the workbench for quite some time awaiting modifications.

The front and rear of the model are not really close to the Pixar design, but it's not a big deal to me.

I wanted a little better detail on the models, so I added some eyes and upgraded the arms.

Then I carved out some rudimentary hands from plastic sprue and glued them to the arms, but had to widen them with plastic strip because I went overboard with my file.

I glued some plastic scraps littering the workbench into a rough square as a load of waste for my second robot to carry.

Some plastic strip that I marked with a Sharpie was added to the arms, and an unmarked strip was added to the rear.

The figure on the left fell on the floor, and the head ended up tilted, but it actually looks pretty good that way.

Not as good as the 1:1 version created by Mike McMaster, but close enough for me.

Sandcrawler

The similarity between the dwarf minions from Phantasm, and the Jawas from Star Wars was entirely coincidence, but it should be noted that both Don Coscarelli and George Lucas drew inspiration from Frank Herbert's Dune for their respective films.

Coscarelli makes several references to Dune in Phantasm, while early iterations of Star Wars were more noticeably influenced by Dune than the final version.

One of the references to Dune that remained in Star Wars was the Sandcrawler. However, the design by Ralph McQuarrie is completely different from the similarly named vehicle from Dune, and was modeled in part after NASA's Crawler-transporter vehicles.

Kenner made a radio-controlled version of the Sandcrawler to go along with its 3¾" action figures, which sells for a fortune nowadays. A subsequent Hasbro version without the radio-control features was given an exclusive re-release around 2004, and sells for a smaller fortune.

I have one of these later versions, which measures 16" long, and 8" high. It scales out to about 1/100 scale if we go by the commonly given dimensions for the Sandcrawler.

However, the Hasbro Sandcrawler doesn't look far off of 1/72 scale when compared to the appearance of the full-scale model that was used for filming.

One of the projects that I hope to accomplish someday is to build an interior, add an opening front ramp, and install lighting in this model.

Imperial Probe Droid

The Imperial probe droid made it's debut in the film The Empire Strikes Back. Subsequent fluff designated the machine as the Arakyd Viper.

According to rumor, the design was inspired by art that Mœbius created for the short comic The Long Tomorrow.

I think that many people found the looks of the droid to be both sinister and elegant, though functionally it was rather over-sensitive, and likely to self-destruct at the slightest insult.

In any event, I recently picked up the Galoob MicroMachines version of the probe droid. I'm not sure if it originally came with a stand (there is a hole underneath that looks like it is for a flight stand), but it stands okay without one.

I had been hesitant about this particular model in the past because I thought it did not match the 1.6m height specified for the probe droid. Then I saw a picture of the 1:1 scale model used in the film, and decided that the toy probably was fairly close to being 1/72 scale.

Bill Hargreaves and probe droid

A 1/72 resin kit for the probe droid is also made by RetrokiT, but it's roughly triple the cost of the Galoob version, and likely unsuitable for gaming.

Fuzzy sapiens

Fuzzies: Small aboriginal creatures of the planet Zarathustra which first appeared in the novel Little Fuzzy, by H. Beam Piper. They are known as Gashta in their own language, and stand about two feet tall.


Fuzzies made their RPG debut in Ultima III: Exodus. For some reason, I seem to remember that they were in Wizardry as well, but I may be mistaken about that - it's been a long time since I played either game.


Fuzzies armed with their traditional weapons, as well as with blasters were made by Archive miniatures as part of their Star Rovers line. Below are a pair of Fuzzies with their hodda. They stand about 15mm high, so are actually about foot and a half taller than a Fuzzy should be (in 1/72 scale).


Ewoks: Shameless products for merchandising, or symbols of the triumph of resourcefulness over technology? I was neutral about Ewoks when I first saw Jedi, but always thought that the Battle of Endor was rather ridiculous. If they were consistently portrayed as primitive man-eating (why do people keep saying Ewoks are cannibalistic?) savages, they would have worked for me, but unfortunately they were flanderized with respect to their "cute" characteristics, and I've developed somewhat of a bias against them.


Galoob made a number of Ewoks as part of their MicroMachines Star Wars line. The first four poses (starting from the left) come from the Ewoks figure set (66080), while the last two poses are unique to playsets. They stand about 15mm high, and come painted in typical MicroMachines fashion.

So who would win in a fight? Me, I'm partial to the Fuzzies.


To crush your enemies...

...see them driven before you...

...and to hear the lamentation of their women.