IG-88 fluid ounces

I'm just about finished assembling IG-88, which should be the hardest build for my Empire Uncut scene, particularly since I'm viewing it as "an opportunity to make an IG-88! Plus some other stuff." Those are two 2-liter bottles forming his head. Not sure about the eyes — I'll have to see how much he looks like Beaker after a coat of metallic paint. Tomorrow will be spray-painting-in-the-back-yard day.

 

The pink circles on his forehead aren't acne — they're paint shields. After I'm done spraying, I'll peel them off, and hopefully the plastic beneath will still be clear. Then I can stick an LED inside his head and make them glow, just like the real IG-88 (seen here waving from big IG-88's shoulder).

If you look closely, you'll see a white rod running up through his head. That's a puppeteer's control rod:

Well, okay, actually it's a curtain rod. But it'll allow the puppeteer to reach inside IG-88's back and rotate his head 45°, which is all IG-88 needs to do.

I've taken a lot of liberties with IG-88's appearance, but I'm not too concerned about details. Like, at all. I'm not going to run out and find exactly the right Derwent flame tube for the head. I've got 25 days left, and IG-88 appears in only two of my six shots — I have Vader and Boba Fett and a Star Destroyer and asteroids and lasers and the Millennium Falcon and the Falcon's cockpit to worry about. Slapdash construction is all in the spirit of Empire Uncut, anyway. It's all fun and shoestrings and chewing gum. That's a feature, not a bug — part of what makes this exhilarating is being forced to turn off my inner perfectionist. There's simply no time. In the spirit of Roger Corman and Ed Wood Jr., it doesn't have to be good, it has to be done. That's good for me.

I also picked up some green posterboard for use as a green screen (!). I spent some time last night playing around with iMovie's green screen function, and found it blessedly easy to use. I know I'll use it for the starfield outside the Falcon's cockpit; I'm not yet sure about the two EXT: SPACE shots.

This continues to be wildly euphoric.