"Look, Sir. Droids!": No, this photo isn't of customized "Desert Storm"-troopers. It's an ensemble of various automata which populate the Star Wars Galaxy.

Left-most is an LIN Demolitionmech, formerly a Magic 8-Ball Cereal Premium. Behind him is Rex-4, the Starspeeder 3000 pilot from Disney/MGM's Star Tours ride, fashioned from an FX-7. [Trivia: Rex-4 is voiced by Paul Reubens, better known as Pee-Wee Herman. Huh-huh!]

The green droid left of center is Bollux from the Brian Daley trilogy of Han Solo Novels. Visible in the chest cavity of the former Death Star Droid is Blue Max. The spindly silver robots in the middle foreground as G-2 Goosedroids, also from Star Tours. Like Blue Max, they are assembled from scrap plastic.

At front is a familiar MSE drone, affectionately called a "Mouse Robot." This pre-Micromachines custom uses the foot from a third, middle leg of a Droid Factory R2-D2.

In the rear is a droid visible in the junkpile at Cloud City, made by repainting an IG-88. Considering the year Star Wars: A New Hope was released, I dubbed him "IG-77".

The black humanoid robot is a more correct paint scheme for the Deathstar Droid. That figure's reverse color scheme should actually be called a Sandcrawler droid.

The grey Power Droid is a color-matched to a Mos Eisley unit which can be seen in greater detail in some versions of the Making of Star Wars video.

Behind the Power Droid is a robot I call "THX-1138", who can be seen aboard the Jawa Sandcrawler. He is mostly scrap metal and plastic, but does make use of the base of FX-7, which had been removed to make RX-4 (Rex).

The mind probe in front of the Power Droid is made from the head of a generic Japanese toy robot.

Description: Alex Newborn
Photo: Alex Newborn
Artwork: Alex Newborn
From the collection of Alex Newborn