A prime example...

I thought I'd share a couple pictures showing many, but not quite all, of the pieces for R2.  I decided to take a little time last weekend to do some priming and filling on the legs and other parts that needed it.  The legs, in particular, needed lots of little spots cleaned up and some filler and prime work done to make them smooth and clean.  Sanding is certainly not my favorite thing, but when it's needed, I find that getting the best finish you can up front saves a great deal of sanding.

I "spot filled" lots of little indentations and then primed them and painted.  The next big project is really the feet, but I had to spend some time researching how I plan to attach the legs to the body.  I want to make sure it will be solid, and that most of the weight is on the feet, and not on the body.

As you can see, I still need to paint and attach one of the octagon ports, and add the blue details to one of the little square pieces in the upper right corner.  It's a lot like building a model kit, except that
I'm building the kit, which I'll then assemble.

Once the feet and all the little attachment pieces and details are done, then I'll work on the shoulder hubs that attach the legs to the body and it will then be time to think about that dome I've been avoiding.    I have several thoughts on how I'll do it, but decided to focus on the rest and save the dome to last.  Why?  Generally I like to deal with the hardest part first, but I already know there are some inexpensive solutions for the dome if necessary. I'd like to take a shot at scratch building it...so it seemed best to focus on all the rest, then return to the dome, knowing I have a backup solution if my own scratch build goes poorly.

Building things like this reminds me of something from when I was pretty young. I watched my brother turn some chunks of wood into Star Trek hand phasers many years ago.  At some point I got my hands on at least one of them...and as kids sometimes do- I hid it somewhere.  I vaguely remember burying it under another kid's porch- but have no recollection of what happened to it.  My brother and another friend (or two?) had staged some Star Trek photos with costumes and home made props.  If he still has those pictures, he's kept them in a secure Al Gore lockbox never to be seen or used as evidence of his past geekery.  I do remember that the idea of making things like that fascinated me.  In those days, the duct tape of  little boys was Testor's glue- a smelly, awful glue that stuck most things together other than the two things you wanted.  Open the lockbox, Haffner....scan those pics for me.