I wasn’t even really serious about building ArToa-DeToa when I started playing around with the design, but when I figured out how to attach the third leg, I knew I couldn’t resist. The first problem that I had was that the side legs were too skinny with just one support beam, but I didn’t want to use actual ball-joints in the legs because I knew the feet would be impossible to keep correctly positioned. I tried building a 3-wide support for the legs, but it looked way too fat. I ended up cheating the difference and going with 2-wide legs that are somewhat off-center. They’re not perfect, but in such a small scale there’s not really any good way to shift the TECHNIC® construction over 1/2 stud.

Once I’d completed the body design, I was left with having to figure out the head design. I originally was planning to do the right thing and design a somewhat domed shape for the head, but even as I was trying to figure out how to attach it, I looked down at the leftover pile of KOPAKA parts and my eyes fell upon the AKAKU KANOHI. I couldn’t resist. Of course, I knew he’d look wrong with a white head, so I raided my box of spare metallic KANOHI for a silver AKAKU. While it’s not perfect, with the rounded top and all of the viewports, it does a fair enough job of representing Artoo’s domed head, and it’s comical enough to match the goofy look of the TOA feet.

Switching from the 3-legged form to the 2-legged form is fairly easy. The third leg is connected inside of the Toa pelvis with a #1 angle-connector, a #3 plus-rod, and a full bushing. The #3 plus-rod and bushing come out with the “ankle” piece, leaving just the #1 angle-connector inside. By borrowing a page from the TOA NUVA design, I was able to build a locking mechanism on the back fo the torso, but I had to make a few modifications to get both legs to move together. I rotated the neck mount 1/4 turn so the hole lines up with the shoulders. The rear gear system had to be built with a #3 plus-rod, and the legs are mounted to a single #8 plus-rod going all the way through the neck mount. A full bushing replaces the left shoulder gear, so the left leg is tied to the movement of the right leg. Mounting the torso plate on the front got a bit tricky, as on the CloneToaper and other similar characters I just connected the upper mount point to the gear system, but with the neck mount turned sideways, that wasn’t possible. I had to connect the upper mount to the left shoulder where it wouldn’t interfere with the right shoulder gear. Once the third leg is removed, all you have to do is push the locking gear in until it frees the large gear on the back, turn the large gear 15 degrees (3 teeth) clockwise, and pull the locking gear out until it engages the large gear again.