This droid was made for the scene where Kylo Ren is sitting having the wound on his face and neck tended to. The brief was to create spidery fingered droid such that it could be "flown in" next to Kylo's face (via a handheld lance). The key piece of art direction from Creature Effects Creative Supervisor - Neal Scanlan, was that the fingers should be jittery and rapid moving, like an insect. And that they should come to a point as if it's manipulating stitches in Kylo's face. The stunning original artwork from Concept Artist & Sculptor - Luke Fisher, gave me absolute clarity on what it needed to look like, and I was able to build the CAD models seen here accurately to Luke's concepts.
The 3 axis articulated fingers being CAD modeled.
Internal rotating mech chassis being printed. The chassis carried seven servos plus a tiny radio receiver.
Tiny CNC arms - The aesthetic detail of the arms meant they needed detail on both sides, so I machined them in several parts each.
Assembly of components to end up with 4 assembled arms ready to go, plus spare parts.
Test rig making sure it would come together well.
Each arm had two servos operating it meaning I could program in a compound move resulting in each needle point finding it's end mark in just the right place every time.
Full test assembly before paint.
As well as the articulation of the arms, the whole centre of the droid was to rotate rapidly back and forth as the arms did their work. And it needed to have practical lighting installed to light the area being operated on as well as providing the signature blue and red LED lighting synonymous with Imperial fleet equipment.
Final scene in the film, the droid was "flown" in via a green pole arm which was later removed in post production. The arms and rotation of the droid in the air being puppeteered by radio control.
Puppeteers in this scene : Neal Scanlan . Me . Plus one other whom I've totally forgotten as I was hyper focused on the work at hand, if it was you, apologies but do let me know and I'll correct.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.png)