BD-1

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The very first time I played Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, I fell head over heels for this droid (here’s another BD droid in The Book of Boba Fett) and decided I must have one. But unless you’re looking for a Lego droid or can print it yourself, there really isn’t any way to get him. I wanted to have one to ride on my back for our birthday trip to Disneyland and later at Comic-Con, so I found a small kit from Oakwood Props in the UK that would be easier to manage than a full-size BD. 

I’ve made a lot of models in my life, but this was my first 3D build. BD was going to be a test subject for a lot of painting and hardware experiments, poor thing. I joined every online forum I could find related to droids—and, more specifically, BD-1 and Fallen Order cosplay—and learned from others as I went.

Star Wars is known for its used-universe aesthetic, which is why wherever possible, I used parts I had around the house. I’ve taken apart a few dead computers over the years and have amassed enough miscellaneous hardware and other bits to end up with quite a lot to choose from.

Thanks to Dan at Oakwood Props for the parts and generous tech support, and to Angela at our local hardware store, who brainstormed droid joints with me for hours.

This model came unassembled and unpainted, and was designed to be glued together to sit on a desk. I wanted the end product to have a weathered paint job, articulated joints and sound. Here’s how I customized him. (Click on any image for a larger version.)

APPEARANCE

At first, I painted all of BD in enamel but kept tweaking the color and it was getting expensive, so I switched to acrylic for the base color and kept the details in enamel. Where I needed really sharp edges, I used my Cricut to cut vinyl for details on the sides of his head.

SHOULDER MOUNT

One of the most adorable things about BD-1 is his ability to crouch on Cal’s back. My BD is not so nimble. Not only do I need him to stay put, I also need him to withstand being jostled in crowds and enduring whatever he’d encounter at cons and at Galaxy’s Edge.

I experimented with harness and platform ideas on my backpack and vest, but eventually chose a light, flexible metal frame from somewhere inside an old computer, covered in leather and with straps to tuck his feet into. An elastic harness loops around his shoulder joints and is secured with industrial Velcro underneath. The elastic is hard to see once he’s tied down, so it really does look like he’s just perching up there. The part of the assembly that rests against my back is a mess, but nobody’s going to see that. It’s also bendable to conform to whatever he’s perched on.

The whole assembly then can sit on my back or shoulder, mounted to my backpack with a spare shoulder strap. I took the contraption apart a couple of times while fiddling with its design, which meant that bits of contact cement and leather were irretrievably and unattractively stuck to the harness here and there. But given the messy style of everything else in Star Wars (for the good guys, anyway), I left the mistakes in.

LED PANEL

The back of the original BD’s head is a panel of randomly blinking LEDs. The part that came with mine was a printed version that I could paint in bright colors, but I really wanted it to blink. It just so happened that a programmable LED ID badge fit perfectly in the space. I glued a panel behind it for support and then attached a strong magnet to make it easy to remove for charging.

Eyes

BD sees with his right eye, a large lens that can zoom in and out. I decided against attempting the zoom movement but did want to use something that wasn’t opaque plastic for that eye. I found a glass lens that fit perfectly under the outer ring, and glued aluminum foil to the back so it would refract light in a more realistic way. 

His left eye is a projector and light source. I could have used the plastic piece that came with him, but I found a tiny flashlight that fit perfectly in the space - and it was easy to twist on and off. 

Ears

His ears, which let his antennae move up and down, are very mobile and expressive. I didn’t want them to be static, so I connected them with a narrow dowel inside his head, securing with screws. 

The antennae that came with him were plastic, of course, and while they looked great, one of them snapped almost immediately. I found a pair of small radio antennas that would suit perfectly, if I could figure out how to keep them from falling out despite my best efforts and pretty good glue. I eventually drilled straight through the outside ring of each ear and looped the hole at the base of each antenna piece through a metal ring that braced itself securely inside the ear. I then slathered Bondo over the whole thing and tried to make it as smooth and natural as possible. I’m pretty happy with it.

FACEPIECE

BD’s face is removable. It’s supposed to be glued in place, but I wanted to be able to remove it in case I needed to adjust anything inside. I used a piece of an old computer to brace the faceplate (left photo) and hold strong neodymium magnets, which connected to a piece of metal that I cemented into the facepiece (right photo). It connects securely with a satisfying snap. The epoxy, Bondo and paint inside the face parts look awful, but then so do the inside of our own face parts.

SCOMP LINK

Early in the game, BD-1 encounters an animal that busts his scomp link (computer interface). Cal repairs it with parts he finds on a workbench, and BD ends up with a black box, wires and a heat sink on his head. I found the right size heat sink online, but had to make the box out of Sculpey. The wires were recycled from old devices.

Torso

One of BD’s most endearing features is his voice. He’s as cute as BB-8 and as opinionated as R2-D2, and his speech is quite possibly cuter than Grogu’s. I wasn’t optimistic about finding a way to make him talk, but then found a tiny Bluetooth speaker that would fit snugly inside his abdomen.

The real BD has two panels on his torso, housing a disk drive and tiny thrusters to let him fly around. I decided against replicating either of those, but hollowed out the thruster and disk drive holes to let sound escape.

I couldn’t find sound files for him anywhere until I discovered that someone had extracted every single sound made by everything in Fallen Order, from a light step to long monologues to musical cues. There were about 30,000 of those sounds (maybe 25,000 of which were stormtroopers going “Oof!”), so I readjusted my expectations that I could just go in and scoop up all of BD’s noises. The files were randomly named and aside from the file size, nothing made one stand out from another. I spent an embarrassingly long time combing through a fraction of the pile and pulled out about fifty sounds, which I copied to an old phone and paired with the speaker. Setting the playlist to shuffle, I could set it and forget it, letting BD chatter away to himself.

Joints/LEGS

BD’s ankles are delicate. This model wasn’t designed to have nimble, strong joints. I drilled holes in each joint to allow for bolts, but I quickly discovered that if you overextend a foot, it’ll snap. I reinforced the footpiece with epoxy and aluminum foil to hold the pieces together (no reprinting a busted piece when it comes from half a planet away!) and then secured the joint with a Chicago screw, which I also used on the knees. As the screws like to loosen up over time, I used some threadlock on them.

The shoulders (or hips?) went through the most experimentation. As I wasn’t gluing them into one position, they needed to support the weight of the body and hold different poses without being floppy. I experimented with long bolts (which wouldn’t stay tight), ratcheted joint pieces (which wouldn’t stay put), rubber bands (the less said about that, the better) and other ideas before deciding that a strong spring hooked to each leg (center photo) would be best.

He wasn’t designed to accommodate that, though, so I drilled holes inside the leg joints parallel to the long axis of the leg, and threaded in a couple of strong steel pins from my bins of old parts. The spring hooked neatly to them, and the friction supports whatever pose I want him in. The most useful thing about this method is that the legs aren’t limited to front-and-back movement; I can stretch them to the sides as the real BD often does. I can tell I’ll need to replace the spring periodically, as it’ll loosen up over time and the joints are a bit wobbly anyway.

The last picture is the inside of his lower leg, which had been printed in wonderful detail. The screws I added fit the look of the design, and I used scrap wires to reproduce BD’s sketchy wiring job.

After all that, I ended up not taking him out at Disneyland. He’d get trashed in minutes, and he does get heavy after a while. I did mount him on my backpack for Comic-Con, which was lots of fun.