How they built them

[deathproof]

I may have asked this before, but are there any resources regarding how the droids from the OT were built?


There are bits pieces here and there... we know IG-88's head was from a specific jet engine. The eye pieces for WED-15 are from a 70's slide projector.

But how did the droid builders come up with the R2 and R5 heads? Or their bodies? Did they use existing pieces from something or were they built from scratch? What about the Probe Droid or Death Star Droid? Star Wars was on a tighter budget so you'd think they would use as many existing parts as possible to negate the need to custom build anything.

[savagecreature]

Welp, there are many answers because there are many droids (obviously).  I only know some. There are folks much more knowledgeable than myself, but I'll give you a small bit of what I *do* know:

The interrogation droid is actually (at least half of it) an R2 unit. The upper part of it's body is a repurposed R2 dome, as can be seen in the image below (click for larger version)

As indicated by the image, some of other parts have been identified as medical implements, others are assumed to be other found objects from various things that they glued on there.  R2 and the other astromeches were (almost) entirely custom fabricated for the films, as was C-3P0. The background droids were more often assembled from found objects or parts taken from droids they already had. Both the Death Star droid RA-7 and the bounty hunter droid 4-LOM incorporated many parts originally made for C-3P0.

[kresty]

What's unclear to me about the forceps is: Were interrogation droids also used for child delivery?

[kresty]

Rewatching ANH yesterday, it seems that there are a few droids undercatalogued.