BB-8 want-to-build thread (apparently I'm calling him BB-8)

[kresty]

Hmm, I don't even know what to call her.  LG-8? 

Can anyone guess what we want to build?

[Toby]

Are you going to build an Lego BB-8?

[savagecreature]

I have to admit I think building a lego BB 8 is crazy talk, but I'll be happy to lend whatever knowledge, skill, or tools I've got to help you realize this craziness.

[kresty]

Hmm, how annoying.  The "door panels ports" (round orange things, whatever they are, doors, whatever), are kinda oriented with the 4 orange tick marks pointing toward between the adjacent ports... except the top & bottom (in the exhibition hall droid anyway), where the 4 orange tick marks point toward the doors.

I'm imagining these things being screw-on type doors that apparently sometimes end up in slightly different positions.  They make me think of the round hatches on a boat.

[kresty]

Hmm, looking at where to post pix makes me think of the social media stuff, and I guess she's going to need a name...  What do you call a non-standard material BB-8?  I ran out of Punny names.

[kresty]

She still needs a name, but I wanted to mention that the above isn't really a structurally sound or detailed thing and it's already @ 6000 bricks.  But that still is less than L3-G0.  Maybe 10-12K?

[savagecreature]

I'm not entirely sure I understood what you said, but I'll comment anyway:

The chevrons in the orange rings align with the panel seams on the ball in some  and are offset by 45 degrees in others. I mapped out which ones are which and comparing them to the photos you took at celebration they seem to match.

[kresty]

I'm not entirely sure I understood what you said, but I'll comment anyway:

The chevrons in the orange rings align with the panel seams on the ball in some  and are offset by 45 degrees in others. I mapped out which ones are which and comparing them to the photos you took at celebration they seem to match.

I figured you'd already discovered that   In thought only two (on opposite sides) seem to align with the seam.  Maybe I missed one.  Glad the exhibition pix are consistent.

[kresty]

Still need a name.  I've decided to start with a nominal 50cm diameter sphere.  I'd been working along those lines because I thought it was close to my measurements and a nice round metric # and the builders are from the UK and not used to inches.  However I was a little worried it might be bigger, some photos seemed to maybe look like 21" or even 22".  But cyborg on Astromech posted several pix with good side-by-side shots.  The first I measured at exactly 0.5m, the others slightly bigger, but I was able to convince myself that the perspective was a little off, and so he's probably smaller than my bigger guesses.  They were all in the ballpark though.

This is the "best" of the pix:

[kresty]

An attempt at orange hatch #3 (had the most dead-on view)...  Not sure if I'm going to be able to get much more detail that this with this method.  The notch marks and recessed lines are difficult.  The slightly whiter/clearer spot above the bottom chevron thingy is for the white LED.



I know how to do the buttons on the white access plates, but I'm not going to be able to model them.  I have an idea for the edge lines, but the ticks that some access plates have are hard.  And I'm not sure about the "door" outlines on the access plates.

This model is also really flimsy, something's going to need to be done about that.  Static model for this would be no problem, moving will be trickier.

Also realized that they demo'd BB-8 on carpet.  Hmm.

Still don't know what to call her.