I thought long and hard about how I could pull off the BatToa Droid, but the immediately obvious points were that I couldn’t use a TOA torso or feet, since they don’t come in tan, none of the KANOHI would look right if used for the head, and tan parts are not very easy to come by. This particular model uses parts from four Pit Droid sets, a Battle Droid, POHATU, and the new Extreme Power Bike, just to get the necessary tan pieces. The droid itself is actually a bit taller than I’d like, as it’s not really in scale with any of the other BioniWars TOA characters. Then again, it is done in a rather comical style, with the giant feet and everything.

The little black nubs on the head are supposed to be the eyes, and I used light-grey #3 plus-rods on the back of the head to help the eyes stand out a bit more. I considered doing the double antennae, but every mounting that I came up with looked too big, so I had to settle with just one, but the backpack is still recognizable as such. Unfortunately, it doesn’t fold up at all, but certain sacrifices did have to be made when working in this scale.

I’ve also got ideas for the other three designs from SW:TPM (command, security, & pilot), but I’m seriously short on certain key tan parts (especially those pesky hip-joints), so they’ll have to wait for now. As for the reddish SW:AOTC versions…well, I suppose if I got really industrious, I could melt down a bunch of the BD minifigs from the Geonosian Fighter set…or maybe not.

The blaster originally started off a lot larger to get more of the unique detail, but it was way out of scale with the BatToa Droid, and it looked ridiculous next to the other guns in this series, so I had to completely scrap the first design and start over almost from scratch.