“This is the Way.”

If, like me, you are regularly clean-shaven then you will need some kind of device to remove your facial hair. And if, like me, you are somewhat wary of electric razors, you will wet shave with a manual razor.

Now, as the particular brand of razor I use has disposable heads, these come in a transparent plastic tray, which I squirrelled away for potential future use. And this is what the tray looks like;

Now, whilst I haven’t had much hobby time, I did manage to squeeze in episodes of the first season of The Mandalorian during the last couple of months…

Two things struck me from watching this – firstly, it is PROPER Star Wars, so if you’re a fan and you’ve got access to Disney+, watch it. Actually, if you like sci-fi Westerns, watch it. Even if you only sign up for the free period, it’s certainly worth a watch.

Secondly, there are a couple of episodes where vehicles with built-in droids – one a taxi, the other a cargo sled – which do look a little bit like my plastic tray above…

So, based on this (and the fact that during the period of non-lockdown, I finally relented and bought myself a cheap hot glue gun), I’ve decided to see if I can replicate this type of vehicle for my Distant Stars project. I’ve been collecting various bits for this, so it will (hopefully) be just a case of assembling the bits and then giving it a lick of paint. Let us begin!

So, having raided my bits box, I ended up with, for want of a better term, a pile of crap…

So, the tray itself, a couple of ink cartridges, some textured wallpaper, block of foam, cut down pen lid (that looks remarkably like a R2 unit), expired plastic gift card, empty shampoo bottle and some random plastic greeblies.

The cheapass hot glue gun I’d bought proved to be more of a hindrance than a help, so the DIY grab adhesive was duly…erm…grabbed and after much measuring, cutting, dry-fitting, trimming, filing, gluing and generally making a mess – we end up with something like this;

In the realms of Star Wars, this would be a droid-operated cargo skiff. In Distant Stars, this is a cargo drone. Same principal, different Universe.

Emptied ink cartridges as thrusters, textured wallpaper as the metal treadplate in the cargo area. Plastic greebly as operating screen, pen lid as drone ‘driver’ and the rest of the bits to make up the fuselage. A GW cavalry base was glued upside down to the base, to give the impression it’s floating.

And to give an idea of scale, here’s a Dominion Outrider cadging a ride.

Once the rain has stopped lashing down, I’ll be taking this outside to give it an spray paint undercoat. But what should the overall colour scheme be? Similar to Luke’s Landspeeder or, as it’s a cargo drone, more yellowish, like a taxicab? I wil have to give it some thought.