Disaster and a new beginning
I have not updated this page in a while.
There are some reasons for it.
Firstly, there is this thing called energy, or stamina. Given the situation we’re in with my daughter slowly fading away due to a particularly nasty kind of brain tumour, of which there is no known cure or relapse, but also, right before Christmas, my R2-D2, the very thing I build that started this blog, was stolen.
I had my R2 at my temporary work shop for some TLC, and the week before Christmas I was planning to move it to a better location, but in my life, plans can change more often than the weather, and I spent the entire week before Christmas with Emma in the hospital instead.
It was during that period that the workshop was burgled, and my R2 along with a few other things got stolen.
https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/wEBB71/nagon-stal-cancersjuka-emmas-favoritrobot–strax-fore-jul
Needless to say, it was a blow, it really did not improve my mood and situation. However, given the situation we were in, we could have had a much worse Christmas. After all, it is only a material item.
Sure, an item I loved and spent 2000+ hours on, but still, just an item.
As if things were not bad enough, Emma broke her leg on New Year’s eve, and it made her pretty much immobile for a while, which sent me spiralling to a place where I started to have panic attacks on where things were going.
So, I had to pick up myself and get back to building. One of the things I’ve been pouring a lot of time and creativity in is this Voight Kampff Machine replica.
It is based on a resin kit from Chaucer44, a great kit, but as always, I always find some things I want to improve on, so I rebuilt the entire arm and eye from scratch to something I think is even more screen accurate, not to mention very light weight and incorporates room for some very specific servos to make it animated.
But, in addition to this, and some small scale models that I’ve been working on, I have started to put my focus back into rebuilding. A new R2-D2.
I loved my old R2, and I know I made a lot of difference taking him to the hospital to meet kids, even more so now that I am spending a lot of time there myself with Emma. I want to be able to bring him to the cancer ward and cheer up the kids laying in there. They really, REALLY need it.
Second: Emma has expressively said several times that she misses R2-D2. If making a new one can bring a smile to her face, that alone is worth going back into a big project like that again.
Third: I have found that building things is my main outlet to cope with this situation. It is oddly therapeutic sitting sanding a thing for two hours without anything else to do. Especially when your mind has tons of things it needs to process.
So, here is where I am at. This is some of the parts I have….
… and this is what I’ve done so far…
I’m looking forward to documenting this second build, in materials I am not used to working, and I hope to really make this as good as I possibly can, with a vast improvement on more panels opening and more versatility!
Stay tuned!
//Micke
