Meet the Makers #4 - How To Build A Droid 101 -With Wyld_Stallyns_Printing

. to the fourth episode of Meet the Makers, the podcast that explores the world of makers, creators, and DIY enthusiasts. In this episode, we're joined by Wyld_Stallyns_Printing, a talented maker who has built several functional droids inspired by the Star Wars franchise.

During the episode, Matt will share his expertise on building droids from scratch, using 3D printing technology and electronics. He'll walk us through his process, from designing the parts to assembling them and programming the droids to perform various functions.

But Wyld_Stallyns_Printing's passion for Star Wars goes beyond droid building. He's also an experienced costume designer who has created several iconic Star Wars-inspired costumes, which he showcases on his social media channels and content creation platforms.

So if you're a Star Wars fan, a maker, or just curious about how to build a droid, join us for Meet the Makers #4 - How To Build A Droid 101 -With Wyld_Stallyns_Printing.

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Links Mentioned 
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Wyld_Stallyns_Printng TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@wyld_stallyns_printing?lang=en
Wyld_Stallyns_Printng  Limk Tree: https://linktr.ee/wyld_stallyns_printing
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Come be a guest on meet the makers: https://forms.gle/wTqzxqGpsu9hZ39F6

Follow misfit printing on TIktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@misfit_printing
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Chapters
Intro - 0:00 
3D printing for beginners- 4:09 
Content Creation As An Introvert - 7:42 
How to find interesting content topics -15:40 
Reactions to the droids- 16:56 
How much does it cost to build an R2D2 droid? - 24:40 
Building a BB-8 droid : 34:54 
3D printing huge droids - 37:00 
Star wars costuming - 43:08 
How to build droids on a budge - 53:16
Where to buy droid parts - 57:53 
Greeblies and small details - 1:05:16 
Upcoming Projects - 1:09:13 
Outro - 1:12:52 

some links to products may be affiliate links and help support the channel!

Transcript

Hey everyone. Welcome back to the Meat Makers Podcast. If you are a fan of Star Wars and you're on TikTok, then you've probably seen his droids from R two to BV eight and a bunch of other things. I am super excited to have here with me today, Matt, from Wild Stallions Printing. Matt, thanks so much for coming on here today.
And one of the things that I think of every time I see your videos and see the different projects that you're working on, I wonder how you got into doing this. did you just wake up one day and decide that you were going to build an army of droids? How did you get into what you do?
Hey, everybody. no, I didn't, yeah, I guess you could say I just woke up one day and decided this is what I was gonna do. I've always been a really huge, star Wars nerd. I love the movie props and all that stuff. I didn't just do droids. I've done some other stuff, but I've also sold a lot of stuff too, so I don't actually have it anymore.
but. No, I decided,years and years ago, I've actually built two R, two D, two s. and so the one I currently [00:01:00] have is, the one that's got all the benefits of the hindsight. I knew what I didn't like what I did. Like the first one took me four years. This one took me about four months. Wow.
so there's a little bit of a learning curve that got applied. but as far as what got me into the printing side of things, I blame that all squarely on frankly belt. I saw his YouTube channel years and years ago and he's 3D printing the full size Iron Man costumes that he can actually wear.
And I'm. That's what I wanna do, that's what I want to do. So instead of, starting off small like everyone else does and get like an under three and you learn on that. No, I went out and got a CR 10 s and I was like, I'm gonna go big. And I have no idea what infill percentages are or wall count.
I didn't know anything and I would just blindly dove in headfirst and failed miserably for a very long time. but then I, you teach yourself, as time goes on 

you pick things up, you learn things, you learn how to tune your machines, which is, why [00:02:00] I advocate for starting smaller. 
I see a lot of people want to go out and buy these big printers and I'm like, that was me. cuz you do, you want to print big stuff and you wanna print cool stuff and you want to print these big things and that big thing and, they,they're not easy.
They take a lot of time. They take a lot of resources, but,once I started figuring out how everything worked and how everything went,I decided, okay, I think the first big print that I really did, like the first, large scale print, and I don't really consider p B eight big.
he's about the size of a beach ball. but he was the first thing I ever printed in abs and I'm still not happy with it. But, the first big one I did was my HK 47, who just couldn't fit in the small frame here. but that one was really cool because I've never printed something that when it was all said and done, I had to look up at it.
Like I couldn't see eye to eye with it. I couldn't see over the top of it. You're used to picking up these like little tiny things. you [00:03:00] take all those little tiny things and you stick 'em together and you end up building something that's almost six foot tall. There is, there's so much to unpack there.
And you probably don't remember this, but I had first gotten into TikTok and you were actually one of the first people that I ended up like connecting with and following with. And I rememberI was printing things that maybe were like two hour prints at the time and I think I had gone up to maybe something that's like a five hour print.
I was like, oh my God, I'm so nervous. what if it fails? It's such a long print. You were like, if you never try anything big, you're never gonna be able to make something cool. And honestly, great advice 
but, I'm curious going off of. When, so like you jumped in right away, got a cr our time. For anybody who maybe like isn't into 3D printing or doesn't know what that is, it's a 3D printer, but it's like a much bigger 3D printer than what you would typically see. I don't know exactly what the build plate volume is, but typically it's not the machine that most people start out with.

 like right off the bat, day one, you set up your printer, what did you start printing? the very first thing I ever printed was actually a, D 20. [00:04:00] Oh, okay. for, we were, at the time, it was like I started 3D printing, right at the beginning of the lockdowns. 
and so I'm just trying to fill my time and, what a better way to fill time than something I can set and forget, but end up something really cool when I'm done and. Yeah, I didn't bother with any calibration, no bench testing. I just downloaded this file, sliced it and sent it, and it actually printed, that was the miracle of the whole thing was like I got this whole thing printed, and I was like, wow, this is really neat.
this can do a lot of stuff for me. And then of course, you get your first failure and you're like, oh, this is trash now. I know. Yeah. Yeah. I almost feel like that's a good approach though, that it's, as 3D printing is such a rabbit hole that you can go down. And I think, especially as a beginner, you can really get lost in the technicalities of, like you said, laying down bunchies or calibration prints or all that stuff, which isn't super exciting when there's a world full of cool stuff to be printing out there.
So I almost feel like jumping in headfirst and printing something that you're [00:05:00] actually like, excited about and is more of a fun project is a, it's, maybe a better approach for people to start with. It can be, if you're like a tinkerer and you have that, not necessarily like a mechanical inclination, but just that, that curiosity, curious nature.
Yeah. Yeah. and you want to figure. because it will inevitably fail at times. Like bad things will happen. I just had a really catastrophic failure and I've been doing this for years. So no one's immune, to failure. It's just part of the nature of what it is. But there's also a really big community of people.
and I found that on TikTok. Like I found that just totally by accident. I completely fell into it. I never planned it. I had no goals for it. I still don't to this day. Like I just post random chaos and it makes me happy. and I don't care if the videos get five views or 5 million, it doesn't matter because I'm posting to make myself happy.
And it's just more of a video diary. [00:06:00] You can also throw out, advice to people and you can help people sort through their problems. I know I've helped a lot of people and like I've had issues and I've put up their, Hey, why cause this? And people will come back and say, oh, check X, Y, Z, and oh yeah, I 

completely forgot about Z. 
And you feel dumb, but at the same time you're like, I'm not gonna forget that again. but it's been a really supportive community. It's been really great. There's a lot of really awesome people out there. and it's fun. watch what people are doing and see the projects that they've got going on.
And you're like, you might even see something that you're like, Hey, I need to print that. I saw my friend printed a, a Mr. Fusion can Holder. Yeah. And I was like, I gotta have that. And I asked him really nicely and he sent me his files and I printed one off, and now I have one and it sits on my computer and it makes me happy.
Yeah. The, the, I also fell into TikTok accidentally on the 3D printing side. And,it's honestly been like the, one of the greatest communities I've ever found on the internet. Like you said, people are just so helpful and so supportive of each other and everybody's just I, there's no [00:07:00] place really I've ever encountered on the internet where everybody really just like roots for each other and helps each other and brings each other up.
So it's, it's been a really cool opportunity to just, connect with everybody. And I, it's weird, I know all these people all over the country now that, I've never met, but you feel like you Yeah. know them in a way cuz you keep up with kind of just their day-to-day life.
So it's definitely been a really cool platform in that sense. It's nice. I like that because I'm pretty much a homebody. I stay at my house and don't really go out, don't really have much of a life outside my walls, and that's just of my own volition. I'm a private, introverted person,I never thought that I would gain anything from putting random stuff on the internet, but,I'm sure it's that one, one video just all of a sudden takes off and then you're like, Oh crap, there's 5,000 people and you're like, and you think about it, like you put it in perspective of yeah, 30 views isn't a lot, but if 30 people walked into your room and looked at what you were doing, like that would be just terrifying.
So that's the [00:08:00] perspective that I try and maintain with all that stuff is I know some people get really hung up and really down on themselves when, they put a lot of time and effort into something and it doesn't do well and it, that's just the nature of the way that platform is, I think.
But, if something I post does well, great. If it doesn't do well as lo if I made one 

person laugh or I made one person smile for the day, then you know, that's pretty much mission accomplished for me and that's what I like to. And, the community that has grown around all that has been really supportive. 
They're really an uplifting group of people. Like I haven't, there's not a lot of people out there that are just super negative or you need to be doing this, or you need to be doing, it's like you, have you tried this? Have you tried this? This is what I've done in the past. Maybe it'll work for you.
and we stood up a,when it started kicking off, like I found a bunch of the other Droid builder people and the printer people, and we put together a Discord server. And so we, we help each other out in the Discord server, like all the time. [00:09:00] and it's just nice the way that you can be, in your house, isolated by yourself, but still have this entire group of people and like you said, spread out all across the country.
I've got people. That I talked to all around the states. my, my second biggest following weirdly enough is Australia. Oh, weird. I haven't figured out the math on that yet, but, I love all my Aussies. there's some great people, but it's you can get an actual worldwide kind of reach with all this stuff.
and it's just really, it's really cool, to think about all that. Yeah, I, I completely agree with what you're saying on,like you said,if 30 people were in your room watching you, you'd be like, holy shit, what's happening right now? and I think the deeper that you get into TikTok, especially, if you've had like content go viral, or if you've had, if you've been on the platform a while and you've experienced that growth, like you said, you'll have it, it happens to all of us.
You'll have those videos where you're just not getting that many views on it. But even still, like if you get a hundred views, that's. A lot of people seeing [00:10:00] what you're doing. So yeah, I think that's a really good thing to, to keep it in perspective and,just think about what that actually represents.
But yeah, what a. The other interesting things that you, had touched on is, being more of like a homebody, more of an introvert. I know you and I have talked about that before too. We're, I'm also myself, a pretty introverted person and I love, this is like my, happy place right here for people out there who maybe wanna get into putting content out there.
or, just being on the internet, I hear a lot of people say, they're nervous to get in front of the camera or they're nervous to put themselves out there. Was that 

something you had a hard time with at first, or how was that for you? I didn't actually start putting myself on camera for quite a while. 
not like right away. the first video that I ever did that went crazy. It was, and, crazy's relative, right? what one person considers crazy, another person's that did terrible. but for me, I think it was like I posted this video that ended up getting, like 30,000 some odd views and 3000,I was just, I was overwhelmed.
I [00:11:00] was panicking. There was this, yeah, there was a moment where I was like, this isn't for me and I'm gonna just go ahead and delete this silly little app that, you know, because I don't want that. And I sat and I thought about it for a while and I was like,if people are interested in it, I guess I can share that.
and so for me that's just the progression of it was like, my first video that went nuts was like a, it was a seven second video and it was just me walking past like R two D two parks and that was it. I wasn't in it, it was a total mess. Like all these parts are in various pieces of being like built and constructed and all that stuff.
And I'm like, to me this is just the junk in my garage. But people found it interesting and so I gained a lot of people from that one little video, and then it's just gone from there. Like in my mind, I don't think I've ever had anything go proper viral, like crazy.
I think I've only ever had one video get over a hundred thousand. it depends on your definition of what crazy is. Yeah. to [00:12:00] ma to make the transition from being behind the camera and hiding and stuff like that,I still to this day, like I'm usually not in front of my camera very often and I'm not talking in it very often.
that doesn't happen a whole lot. if I am, what's been comforting to me to help has been like, throwing some audio under really low volume, just that way I've got a little bit of extra distraction from just hearing my voice. Cause yeah, I listen to my self-talk. It's like you're sandpaper.
It's just horrible. I hate hearing myself talk. I hate my voice. It's,we all have our insecurities and stuff like that, and it's just one of mine is I'm not a super fan of listening to myself, so it makes it hard when you do a talking video and then you have to go back and edit it and you have to listen yourself over and over, and.

but it's just, it's one of those, you almost need to challenge yourself and say, this is just something that I need to do to step outta my comfort zone a little bit. And for some people, that's not gonna happen. Like my youngest daughter, she posts on TikTok [00:13:00] every now and then, but, she's never put her face up. 
She does these little animation things that, you know, whatever the 14 year olds are into now, I'm sorry I can't keep up with them. But, that's what she does and it makes her happy and it brings her joy and she has a lot of fun with it. And I fully support her doing that. And she goes through these ebbs and flows that a lot of other people do, where, like her views will go down and she's I don't wanna keep doing it.
And I was like, close for you. Don't post for other people. Make yourself happy. And that's the perspective that I try and keep, that I try and impart onto them. whatever you're comfortable with, I think is the big takeaway. just make yourself. make whatever you're gonna do as comfortable as you, you can get with it.
 That's, that's really good advice, and I really liked what you were saying about,for your daughter and, like being happy with why you're doing it. And I think that's a big thing for people to take a step back and like, why, why do you wanna post content?
for some people it's, to promote their business, but, I think, if you're just doing it for me, it's like almost a hobby and, it's a fun way to [00:14:00] connect with people and things like that. I think it's good to have that balance and, at the end of the day, if you're like, I don't wanna be on camera, or I, don't want my voice to be on the video, I don't feel like there's anything wrong with that.
And I agree. I think it's like really important to just, keep it where you're, you're having fun with what you're doing ultimately. Yeah. The thing that I like about it is there's really no wrong way to do it. There's just whatever way you choose that works for you. there's some accounts that I follow where all they do is just, they take audios that already exist and they do lip syncs to 'em.
So you really never actually hear that person, and that's perfectly okay. Like they'll be in front of the camera, but it's not actually them talking. and that, that's what makes them happy and brings them joy. And it makes me happy because they usually pick these like really hilarious, outrageous audience.

oh my God, somebody actually said that. And you go and look and you're like, oh God, like 10,000 people have used this. So it's, that's the nice thing about it is there's,it's not a one size fits all. You just have to find, what makes [00:15:00] you happy and just run with. And that's my approach to life in general is find what makes you happy and just run with it. 
Couldn't agree more. one of the things you had talked about in there was,on that first video you made, you said, I just have these parts thrown all over, and maybe it wasn't like super interesting. what you make on TikTok is so drastically different from what I make, even though we're both in the space of 3D printing.
 do you still look at what you do and have the perspective that like, it's really interesting or , are you just so used to it at this point where you can think that it's like maybe not interesting, from the insider's perspective.
I think I'm a really boring person. I don't think there's anything like super interesting about me. But then, you hear from the external sources where you're like, oh my God, that's the greatest thing ever. Please tell me more. And, I don't know. It's, I think it's probably like a little bit of the, I'm familiar with this is, our two lives in my dining room right now because it was cold in the garage and I didn't wanna leave him out there with his batteries.
[00:16:00] But he's almost like a, not a piece of furniture, but just, I'm so used to him. My kids are none of us bat an eye. but if someone comes over to my house, they're like, that is the coolest thing ever because it's not something you see every day. it's, that, that's part of the, I don't wanna say allure, but part of the reasoning why I got into it, was because I used to do a lot of charity work with the five oh first Legion.
I used to play dress up and wear Star Wars costumes and all that fun stuff. And I really, I gravitated more towards the droid side of things because I didn't want to be the one that everyone was looking at all the time. Okay. So if I can take my little remote controls and like stuff 'em in my pocket, nobody's gonna pay attention to me and they're gonna pay attention to these guys.
And that's really where I get a lot of joy is watching the people interact and see where their focus is and, taking the droids something that they see on the screen and bringing it to life. because that's just, it's not something you see every day. And I, that for [00:17:00] me will never get old.
Yeah. that, that part of it, that side of things like I love. Taken 'em out to events 

and doing things and watching people just lose their minds and want to take pictures. I've had people like, they, they've broken down in tears crying and hugging our, and stuff like that. that's what I really love the most about doing all that stuff, and that for me is never gonna roll. 
you talk about how your house, he's R two is like almost like a piece of furniture or a fixture in your house. I guess have you ever had a situation maybe where somebody had to come over to a repair person maybe a delivery person, who was just like blown away or I guess has any interaction maybe stood out, like outside of the home where maybe you've had them out and it was just like a really great interaction of somebody, seeing it for the first time.
The, with my old R two, with the first one that I built, I took it to, back in the day when we could still call things Comic Con. Now they're fan expo. I took it to Denver Comic Con and I watched this little kid that was just like chasing the R two all [00:18:00] around, cause I'm driving him around and we're doing stuff and I watched this little kid and he wanted to get close to it, but he was apprehensive, like I could see him, hanging on to his parents, poking his head around.
And so I piloted it where. You could tell that R two was trying to get this kid's attention, like R two has noticed you. And this little kid started getting a little braver and a little braver, and he finally came out and he had, an R two D two T-shirt on. he was definitely just smitten as a kitten with the fact that this thing, and it was bigger than him too, like he's about three and a half feet tall.
Like he's pretty decent sized and this, kid probably couldn't have been more than four or five years old and he just, threw his arms around him when he finally grew up the cur. And it was neat to watch that. That's one of the more special things is like you get to watch, someone who may start out apprehensive and they may be a little scared of something and they build up that courage and they come over and then finally they start interacting and it's they turn into a completely different person, but in the best way possible.
and I've got, [00:19:00] Lord, a million of those stories, stuff just it's hard to pick one. Yeah. because we do, we try and do a lot of, charity work with the appearances and stuff. Occasionally we get, casted by Lucas Film to go do things. But,I, we, I don't necessarily need to go and do those things.
I like going to Children's Hospital and I like going to cancer relays and, things like that. I don't necessarily need to go to the baseball games all the time or the 

hockey games or whatever. I've done those and they're fun. They're a blast. Don't get me wrong. But that's not my primary goal with all this is I like being around the kids, especially because the kids just, yeah, these are giant toys for the kids. 
And they love it. and that's really why I do it as a lot for the kids, but I've seen fullon grownups turn into little kids and absolutely lose their minds. And that's the fun part about all of it is getting to watch people revert back to that childlike,[00:20:00] state where, you don't often see people do that.
 star Wars in general, there seems to be such just like a persistent love for it of people, every age group you can find. And,it's cool to hear, like you said from, every range full grown adults to kids.
Just really, like connecting with it and getting to have a cool moment like that sounds really like a fun thing to get to experience, especially when it's something that you spent, hours and hours building and putting together. it's a lot of fun. It can also be hard sometimes, like the children's hospital stuff.
Like I said, I love doing that, but it's also probably good that I'm usually not in the rooms when that happens cuz there's usually tears that come down your face cuz you watch the, you get to see these kids that are just going through the worst stuff in life. kids on cancer wards and stuff like that.
these kids are just, they're living at this hospital and you get to see them like as soon as you peek around the door to their room and you see 'em in the bed and they're, maybe a little downtrodden or they're looking at a book or they're, doing whatever they do and they look up and they see,[00:21:00] RTV two coming in and making noise and you see him smile and you know that it's probably been forever since that kid smiled.
that always gets me like right down here in the bottom of my tiny shriveled black heart. Oh man, I love that. that's probably one of the few opportunities where. They get to be kids,in a way that probably doesn't happen every day.
So that's really special. But I could see how that could be hard to, be there too. Wow. It's very rewarding, but very hard sometimes. And the costumers too, like they, they go into the rooms with the kids. Yeah. And usually a lot of 'em come out and they're like, man, it's a good thing I have this helmet on.

Or,they'll, Amandas go in there and they're like, they come out and they're just tears coming down their face and you're like, oh God. So yeah. It's, but it, it's also that whole doing good in the neighborhood kind of thing. but yeah. And you talked earlier about someone coming over. 
And or someone coming into the house or something. I just had my, [00:22:00] kitchen counters replaced. And I tell you, R two lives in my dining room. And these guys, they came in and they saw him sitting in the corner and they're like, what the hell is that? Because they didn't know. And that's the other reaction you get to, is like, there are people on this planet of earth that have no idea what it's, yeah.
And, so some people are just like, what's that? Oh, okay, cool. Neat. Interesting I just assumed it's such like a universal character that it's shocking to hear that there would be people who wouldn't, instantly know what that is.
I, it, I don't know. I got no good explanation, but I'm not, I'm also not the one that's gonna hold that against someone, Yeah. Yeah. It's not everybody's jam. Yeah, I get it. I'm not a Harry Potter nerd, fair. there, there's people that are just, they're super into it.
My, my daughter's super into Harry Potter. We actually gonna to go to Harry Potter World and we go to Florida and all that stuff, and I'm just gonna follow her along and wherever she wants to go. But it's there, there's enough things out there in the world [00:23:00] that not everyone is gonna be into every single thing.
or even be able to recognize it. I guarantee you, I probably couldn't name a single character from Harry Potter. Maybe one, maybe who was the big guy? The, oh yeah. Maybe Dumbledor. Maybe Hagrid. Yeah. yeah. That's it. that's probably all I know. interesting. But, it's just things can seem very ubiquitous and very.
ingrained in the DNA of the just pop culture in general, but not everyone's into it. And that's okay. there's different strokes for different folks, and that's why there is a wide gamut of things out there, because not everyone's into it. not everybody's into Dr. Who, and not everybody's into Star Wars, not everybody's.
and it doesn't have to, be confined strictly to, sci-fi or fantasy. Like anything,somebody's gonna be a subject matter expert on something that you're gonna have absolutely no idea about. Yeah. I always think everybody's 

an expert in something. It's,interesting to see how nerdy people can get, even if they don't consider themselves nerdy. 
[00:24:00] I think some, everybody's nerdy about something. I think everybody geeks out on something really hard. Yeah, for sure. Now, something you interesting you mentioned is that this, the R two that you have that's,most of us know from TikTok. Is it the first one that you had why did you decide to build a second one?
so the times kind of roll along and I built my first one. and I didn't actually initially build it with plans on selling it. I don't actually build anything plans on selling it ever. And then eventually somebody comes along and says, I have a pile of money, would you like it for this thing?
And I'm like, I like money. yeah, I, everything has a price, I guess you could say. Like it just depends on how high that price is like, but I fell into a position where I was in need of, a cash infusion, so to say. And, this guy, came along and he'd been, it was mostly on Facebook at that point.
I think I was still back before I, [00:25:00] I gave up Facebook. he was, he lived out on the East coast, I think near, near Washington, DC somewhere. And,he posted jokingly of Hey, how much to Sellar are to, and I, pasted out what I thought was a crazy number. and he was like, he messaged me and I was like, oh, you're serious.
And, yeah, it was one of those,I did that because I needed the cash at the time. And then, over the years, Things get stable, life gets better. And I looked back at it and I'm like, I kind of regret selling that. Like I'm bummed that I don't have it. And it was a thing that I always loved.
And there, there were things like I said, that I would do different. That I did do different. I changed a lot of stuff about this one compared to the other one. and I said, it's not often, and especially with something like this, that we get presented with a second chance in life to go back and do it again and, fix things that we weren't happy with and correct mistakes [00:26:00] and things like that.
And so I got to go into doing this with that kind of a mindset of I already have the experience of building one of these things, which is already a rarity in and of itself, but now I get to make it better. Now I know what I didn't like from the first time. I also know what I did and I knew what I was gonna do again.

yeah, it was just one of those, I don't wanna, I don't wanna live a life of regret of not having that in my life. And, like I said, I never have any plans to sell anything, but, yeah, if I made a full size ha and carbonite, like frozen and hung on my wall. And, another one of my friends was like, how much for Han? 
And I again, put out like a ridiculous number and he was like, okay. It's hard to say. it's hard to say no. And that's the other thing too, is like building these things, like I know what the material costs of these things. [00:27:00] But I don't know how to evaluate my time. Like I have no idea how much to charge for my time.
I don't know. That's the hard, that's the other hard part too, is I know that in, in b a here I've probably got about 6,000 bucks worth of stuff into him, but that's just the materials. Yeah. so it, it's always a hard thing to do and that's why I never planned to sell these things.
but yeah, go to go go back to what you initially asked is that, I wanted to build a second one because I didn't wanna not have it. Now do you, I imagine you probably get requests from, do you have people reach out to you ever, like asking you to build them one.
Oh, yeah. every time I post something that even does like remotely, there'll be somebody inevitably that comes into comments and they're like, how much? How much? And when I tell 'em just what the material co I tell 'em that, just in R two and I stopped counting on R two.
Like I was keeping track for a little while of the materials on art two. Yeah. I think I stopped counting after 15,000. [00:28:00] Okay. and that, that's again, not counting the labor, that's just the parts and the materials to paint it and polish and all that, all that stuff. and as soon as I say that, they're like, that's too much.
I could go get one at Disney. And I'm like, you certainly can. Yeah. Yeah. Disney's very proud of theirs too, though. They want about 25,000. So it's not a wildly unreasonable number, but, yeah. it always happens. And I do occasion, like it's not always just our two stuff. Like I've got the pit droids printed.
Those are actually for, a movie car museum out here in Colorado. Okay. they have a pod racer from episode one and they want the little pit droids to put on display with it. And Geier reached out to me and was like, Hey, you've got the files, how much to print? A couple? And I was like, all I ever do is charge for 

materials. 
so here's what materials will cost for each one. And, gimme like 20 bucks for my power bill or [00:29:00] something for the print time. and he was like,I don't, I'm not gonna have time to do a finish on him. I need you to finish him. And I was like, I don't know how much to charge for. And the other thing too is I don't know how much I can.
Really, cuz I didn't design those files. Those are drug division files. And so I reached out to the guy that did design the files and I was like, Hey, I had this person ask me to make these for them. I've already paid for your files. I have one that I'm, gonna keep for myself cuz I've actually got four pets right now.
but he wants three. And how do I make that okay with you as the designer, because he wants to be compensated for his work. Yeah. For his design times. And he came back and said, as long as they come and buy the files from me, even if they're never gonna use 'em, that's fine. I don't care.
Okay. Just make sure that they buy the files. And I was like, [00:30:00] I can do that. So I'm gonna act, what I'm gonna actually end up doing, and it's a long, convoluted process, is I'm gonna buy the files from them again. And just build that in to the cost. Okay. Yeah. For everything. but I, like I said, I had no idea what to charge these guys for these things because it's three rolls of filament to do a pet droid.
So like 60, 80 bucks? Yeah. it's not a lot. K2 I think was like knocking on 10 rolls of government. Okay. Wow. 10 or 11, I can't remember. And, I think the B one, he, he was like six. Okay. that kind of gives you a guesstimate of how much, just in the materials. It's not a whole lot realistically, it's the time that goes into printing.
And then when you get these people that are like, Hey, I want you to finish it for me. Shit, I don't know how much to charge for my labor. Yeah. you're kind of in [00:31:00] this unique position that I imagine there's probably not too many people in this market who are making these things.
I don't know if you have an idea of how many people,or on the level of what you do. but I would imagine not level a ton on my level of insanity. I don't know. there's a few that I've seen, but are, super crazy. I know there's a guy, I think he's actually down in Arizona, say I think Tony,yeah.

Yeah. He, me and him I think are probably on about that same tier thing. he's got, he's act I'm jealous of his collection. he's got more in there than I do. Yeah. but I don't think he does. Commission work either. And I'm generally, I don't like doing commission work, just because I don't wanna feel like I have a deadline to me. 
Yeah. And I would rather just work at my own pace. So if anything, I'm definitely more comfortable if I've already got something done and printed and finished or whatever and somebody comes along and says, Hey, I want to give you a [00:32:00] pile of money for that, that I'm more okay with than trying to come along and take on a project
 and some people do thrive under that. They make a really good living doing that kind of stuff. I don't need this for a living. It's a hobby and it's gonna forever stay a hobby. I think when you take a hobby and you try and turn it into a business, it can cease to be a hobby at that point.
Yeah. So I like to keep that kind of segregated out, and I don't ever wanna be dependent on it. Yeah. That, that definitely makes sense. I've been in the position before where, I've transitioned hobbies into, businesses and it's, I hate to say it, but it really does suck so much of the fun out of it that, when I got into 3D printing, that was like a big thing for me.
I was like, this is just for me. It's only for me. And it's I just needed that in my life at the time. I can completely relate to that. Do you find yourself having any sort of emotional attachment to these things after so many hours have gone into building them? Yeah, absolutely.
every single one of 'em. I tell [00:33:00] people sometimes that, like R two is my third child, like you do, you get very invested in these things and especially when you spend, when you invest a significant amount of time, to make them come to life and to make them the way you want. Yeah, there's definitely a big emotional attachment.
And it goes, it goes back to the reasoning for why I built a second R two is because I was so emotionally attached to it that I was like, I need another one. And so I built another one, because my inner child is I want this, and I have a really hard time saying no to my inner child because I li it's just me.
I live by my, I live by myself with my kids. And I don't really have anybody to tell me no, which is a blessing and a curse, but yeah, no, I like the notion of being 

able to cater to and heal my inner child like that. For me, it's a, Yeah, it's definitely going back to healing that broken inner child that, didn't know, didn't get the Millennium Falcon when they were a little kid and they [00:34:00] wanted it so bad, so fine, I'll just go make my own. 
And then that's exactly what I did do. That's been one of. F best joys, I guess I could say in, being an adult and having like adult money is having that realization of oh, I can actually just go out and buy all those things that like I always wanted.
And it's,I think what I really love about I guess if you wanna call it the nerd community or the 3D printing C communities, I think a lot of people in that community really embraced just I don't know if you wanna say giving into the urge, but indulging in all those things that, made you, happy when you were younger and reliving that as an adult, which I think I think we're champions of letting the intrusive thoughts win.
Absolutely. Absolutely. We let the intrusive thoughts win all the time. I had no plans to actually print and build a BBB eight. but because of the group that I've found and the people on the Discord and everybody, they're like, I was like, how hard was it to do? And you start asking questions and get these answers back and you're like, I could do that.
I can make that happen. [00:35:00] And it almost becomes like a personal challenge at that point where you're like, I know I have the capability and the means to do this. I've never done it, but I'm gonna challenge myself and I'm gonna see what happens. And you don't always, come out on top, you, inevitably, things aren't gonna work out or you're gonna end up with a pile of plastic that you know you've printed, but you just don't have the time or the resources to actually get to finishing and stuff like that.
And I think for me personally, I'm probably gonna slow down on printing a little bit because I've got so many piles of plastic that need painting. Like my, it got, I had this strategy in my mind. And it's my A D H D probably taken over. But, I decided that because it's cold here,it's Colorado, it gets cold here in the winter.
I can't paint year round. Oh, okay. because my garage isn't heated and I don't want to die from [00:36:00] chemicals and propane and stuff like that, trying to heat it to paint. I generally don't paint in the winter out here. I won't start painting until it gets above 70 consistently. Okay. So I figured that over the winter and the colder months, I'll just print a bunch of things and I'll have all 

these things to paint, and now I have all these things to paint. 
And so I'm looking at this pile and I'm like, oh crap. Like I've got a lot of work to do. I've got a lot of stuff to do. and who knows? I could, end up putting a finish and everything on these guys and just decide I don't have the room for this. Yeah. because, they're not small.
K2 is huge. I don't really have a, his, you can't see it on the camera, but his head's about three inches from my ceiling. he's, I really underestimated how big he was gonna be cuz I bought the file and it was just for the, it was like a head and then it had a little stand for it. I printed out Mr.
Bone's [00:37:00] head and I was like, that's what I'll do. And I printed it out and I was like, Ooh, I want the whole thing. And so as you start printing and printing, I got his like, I think I got up to his hips and his hips are like mid chest. Oh no. And I was like, oh, I made a mistake. Was there a point with that where you like maybe not all the way done, did you think there was a possibility it like not fitting in your house?
Or had you devised it on? no, like I was more worried about it not fitting in my basement because my basement is more like my nerd cave. I keep my upstairs like you, you might consider me a normal person if you walked into my house and saw my upstairs. there's not too much crazy nerd stuff up there, aside from R two and my dining room.
but yeah, I was more worried about him not fitting in my basement. Okay. than in my upstairs. He'll definitely fit. Like I've got a 15 foot ceiling, so I'm not [00:38:00] Okay. You're good. Terribly worried about you got room to go bigger at this point. Yeah. but yeah, that was, that was definitely my most ambitious print to date.
It took the longest by far. I think total print time on it, like actual printing parts was probably a little over a month and a half. Wow. Okay. cuz you know, just the top of his head took two and a half days. Geez. and that's at 5% infill. there's barely any infill to give these things, just enough structure to not crumble when I'm finishing them.
Okay. and that's and again, it's like a, the community that I found, like if it was me left up to my own devices from like a couple years ago, I'd have done it with 20 or 40% infill. Yeah. You could weigh 80 pounds and would've taken 30 rolls of filament. But, one of the first people that I met, on TikTok when my account 

started growing was, RG Bria. 
I don't know if you know her or not. Oh yeah. she has taught me so much. She has been the most invaluable [00:39:00] resource ever. One of the most genuinely nice human beings I've ever encountered on this entire planet Earth. She's an absolute sweetheart. She answers all of my silly questions, because she prints all these things and she has printed them.
And so she's got that experience. And I can say, Hey Brianna, what'd you do for this part? How did you change the orientation on this? Did you change in, fill on this? And I'll get an answer. And it's leaning on that knowledge. And then I can take that knowledge and if she's not around, somebody asks, I can say, Hey, this is what I did.
Or if I change something, that's the other thing too, is this community's great at sharing. Yeah. we really share a lot with everybody, and that's been super. Yeah, it's,I've never printed anything that ambitious 
but I know even for me, just like as simple as like the comments on like thing avers or something like that. Like I'll, like you said, think oh, I probably need to do like a 20, 40% in info, and I'll scroll through it and see people who are like, oh no, I got away with 10. I got away with five. So [00:40:00] it's, it's really helpful.
And like you said, everybody's just, so willing to help and there's, it's not like a competitive thing that's, everybody's like just really happy to share, which is super cool. I love, that's, what I love about the whole maker spear in general is it's not, it bleeds over, not just from 3D printing, but a lot of makers, the costumers and stuff like that.
we all talk and we all bounce ideas off each other and stuff. Like I'm good friends with several people that their whole platform is nothing but costuming and stuff like that. And they, they ask me questions cause I used to do that. So I do have some knowledge tucked away in my information storage nugget.
but yeah, it's nice because everybody shares, what they know and what they, there's some things obviously that people will keep, especially proprietary things and stuff like that,but mostly we're out here like putting stuff together out of plastic and bubble gum and duct tape and, this is what I did to make it work.

And so it's a really great atmosphere that gets created [00:41:00] around all of the maker verse, where it's not just strictly, the 3D printers, but it's the prop makers and the costumers and all these different people, all these, and you get a lot of people from different walks of life too, because, It is a hobby for most people, and it's like not their day job. 
And you'll run into somebody whose day job is something, like they're an electrician or something and you're like, Hey, I got a question about this. And so you can get an actual professional answer about, so it's really been,over the last, I mean I've probably been in the maker kind of costuming world for not maybe 10 years now, just short of 10 years.
But it's like it's, and the internet too, bringing everybody together and having the wealth of knowledge at our fingertips, has just been great. So I really, there's some people that talk about the toxic side of it and it can be, but I don't think there's any collection of people or grouping of people where you wouldn't [00:42:00] run into something like that.
there's inevitably going to be that happens and that's okay. Like it's just I don't wanna say the cost of doing business, but those people will show up and eventually they will end up finding their way out or being shown their way out. Yeah. the community does a good job of policing itself, 
maybe policing is not a good idea, but just holding people accountable and saying, Hey, nice. there's no reason to be a jerk about this. So it's been good to find that it's mostly been really supportive. Yeah. No, I, I have a very similar experience. Now. I was before we hopped on today, I was scrolling back in time through all of your, different like old, older videos. And I actually had come across one, of you like, showing like your costuming that you used to do.
And once again, holy shit, it was like professional grade level. it was like a photo montage and you had a whole bunch of them that you did. Oh. I don't know if what I'm talking about, but, yeah, I think it was, like a May, the fourth one I did last year maybe.
yeah. yeah, I used to [00:43:00] do, my, my whole repertoire I started off with a Stormtrooper. that's what got me into everything. That's what really kick started, this whole obsession was like, I saw some stormtroopers, I think at a St. Patrick's Day parade here in Denver.
And I was like, that's something I want to do. And so then you start looking out 

on the internet and you find these people, that's how I found the five oh first, the costuming group. and you connect with those people and they get you pointed in the right direction. You're like, Hey, I want to, build a Stormtrooper costume. 
What do I need to do? And they're like, here, go to this website and look at all this stuff and now do your research and then come back once you've done your research with more questions and you do. And yeah, I started out with a Stormtrooper and that was a lot of fun, because you get to be silly and goofy, but you're still the bad guy, right?
and then I got, I got super ambitious and decided that, I want to be Darth Vader. I am not Darth Vader height. I am, I'm a very small person. not small. I'm, I don't know, is five nine small? [00:44:00] I think that's like exactly average if you look at, statistics.
So I'm not six foot seven. Okay. so I wasn't a very imposing Darth Vader. Like when people are looking down, it's a little less imposing. But I built, I helped put together a really just magnificent looking costume. It's just for me, I was never really happy because I didn't have the stature and stuff like that.
And so I ended up selling that one. and I always loved Darth Mall. And so I decided, since I can't be Darth Vader, cause I'm not big enough, I'm the same height as Ray Park, so I can be Darth Mall. and so I set out on a mission to go and make the most accurate Darth Mall costume that I could, to the point of where I bought robes from a guy in New Zealand that was making it with the material that they used on set.
I bought a pair of boots that, I paid [00:45:00] $700 for. Wow. Because they were, they were these like motors, And it, you start researching these things and you get into what did the production use for the actual props and what were the things that they made? They were just Frank Thomas, like motorcycle riding boots.
Okay. But it was like after the film release, like they discontinued those boots and they don't make 'em anymore. And I don't know if that was like done purposefully. I doubt it cause we're talking about 1999. I tried to buy these boots that hadn't been made in 20 years.
but it's fine. And stuff like that. And then you get to learn, how to do all the makeup and stuff because the make, the first time I put the makeup on, good 

lord, I looked like,a cross between Bozo the Clown and John Wayne Geese. It was awful. Oh, it was terrible. like I looked like I had just done it. 
It was terrible and I hated it. And I was like, this is gonna suck forever. And this is gonna be so hard. But you, my YouTube feed turned into, all these like makeup tip girls for quite a while and it was [00:46:00] like,are you okay? but yeah, you start chasing these things and I loved doing Garth Mall.
Garth Mall was a really. it's a very interesting take because people are fascinated and horrified at the same time. they're very, they wanna get close and they wanna look at you, but if you look their direction really fast, they look away and they shy away with it. Cause you have the eyes and everything.
it's one of those things, we call it a face character. cuz you can actually see the face, it's not under a helmet. Oh, okay. Or a mask or anything like that. So you can actually see the person and you see 'em looking at you and they've got those like contacts with the sit eyes and everything, and you're like, oh God, that's horrifying.
and you've got horns and you're black and red and you're, and it's like just crazy Yeah, I did Darth Mall. I love doing Darth Mall. Darth Mall was a lot of fun. Like I have a giant Darth Mall tattoo on my back. I've got, Ray Park actually signed my back at Celebration and I got that tattoo.[00:47:00] 
it runs deep. The nerd runs really deep. but I did Darth Mall for a while. I did. I've got a whole litany of costumes that I used to do, but, just over the course of my life, it's, my body's not able to take a lot of these things anymore. and especially like the Hard Armor costumes, like the LORs and the Storm Troopers, like stuff where I can't sit down at all for a long period of time.
That's just no, I'm a little too old. I'm a little too broken for that anymore. so I ended up selling off a lot of those. I had, the last costume that I made, that I sold off was, I did a Chewbacca. And I was full on seven foot two tall. cuz I had like stilts and everything. Okay. I hand latched all the hair onto this thing like five hairs at a time.
Oh my God. and I loved, chewy, I loved the reception that Chewy Got. Chewy was, the only costume, cuz you [00:48:00] don't see, there's not a lot of people that do that one because it's a heavy costume. It's hot. Like every time I put that thing on, I lost about eight pounds. Wow. And water weight because I'm sweating that much, wearing that thing.

but I've never, like I see people will wanna hug R two and they'll cry and they'll break. The emotional response for Chewy is more, people are more fond. And they loved Chewy so much. chewy was definitely like my all time favorite. But it's just, it was so much and so hot, and I couldn't physically do it anymore. 
yeah, I parted way, the only costume I have left is like a generic Jedi kind of costume. Everybody tells me I look Likeon and I need to do agon cosplay. But, I don't know I've never done Coplay before, so there's so many things that you mentioned along the way that never even crossed my mind, like the weight of it.
not being able to sit down in certain things. And [00:49:00] it totally makes sense now, but,I, everybody needs to go to that video, like scroll back in time, find that video and see the chewy costume, because like I said, it looked studio quality. Like it was just so well done. And I don't know, maybe that's, another thing that like, like you were saying, people would get so emotional and it was just like such a great thing for them to see.
I can't imagine there's. Too many versions of that out there that were as well done as that one had looked. yeah, really it was not something I was expecting. Like I said, when I was scrolling through yesterday and saw that I was like, wow, this is like a whole other, realm of like things that you've, like very talented at.
It's did you ever watch Parks and Rec? I love the Ron Swanson analogy of don't half-ass, two things, whole ass one thing. I love that. and I, that, that's just been my flow and my diction out through most of life is I don't like to half-ass stuff. and if I'm gonna make something, if I'm gonna make a prop and I'm gonna put my name on it and say, Hey, I made [00:50:00] this, I'm gonna make it as real as I can and it's gonna, you're gonna.
Really wonder did you steal this from somewhere? that's like the highest compliment I can get is actually if somebody asks me like, where'd you steal that from? Because that means I've done a good job and I've made it look like it looked on the picture and I made it look like, what they remember from the screen.
And that's my goal. And like you said with the costuming stuff too, like I definitely wanted to bring those characters to life for people. because, and it was, personal obviously, because these are characters that I'm attached to in some kind of way. I wanted to do injustice and I wanted to make 'em look right.

So I invested a lot of time and a lot of research and at times a lot of money if you have to. that's the other thing too, that they don't tell you about some of these costumes. It's more cheap, to make and to do Yeah, it's, But again, the other side of it is an with the costuming side is there are some costumes that are easy to make [00:51:00] and they are cheap, and it's a good entry. 
if it's something you're not sure you want to do,you can do those cheaper ones and get a feel for it. If you feel like it's something you wanna pursue more, then you invest more the same like I would, and it's, I know it's all really hypocritical to say, but start small with your printers.
Don't go out and buy something big. don't do what I did. listen to my cautionary tale, because you're gonna struggle with it. and if you wanna go out, you wanna get into something, like it's better, in my personal opinion, it's better to start smaller. And work your way up, because then even if you decide, later on that you're like, this isn't for me, Yeah. You buy your ender three and you're out 200 bucks. yeah. And you can probably throw it up on, offer up or the internet or somewhere and at least get some of your money back. Yeah. but when you go bigger and you invest really heavy and stuff, and I know, a lot of people that have ADHD and stuff [00:52:00] like that, we tend to hyperfocus on things.
So it can be, yeah. This is my new identity for this week. Yeah. yeah, and that also explains why I've jumped around a lot too. Yeah, you jump around, but you al you always seem to stay, at least, from obviously you, you definitely stay in genre with Star Wars and, you're definitely like the epitome of the way you do one thing is the way that you do everything.
just like you said, very detailed, very, I don't know if meticulous is the right word, but just, really like incredible intention to detail, which is really cool to see. I'll take meticulous that, that's the right word. Okay, cool. I think that's the right word. Yeah. Now,to that point what you're saying, starting small, things like that for, one of the things you talked about,for BB I think you said maybe 6,000 if I'm remembering correctly.
And I think R two, you said you stopped, counting around like 15 for, I think a lot of people that might be something that like maybe at least right now for them isn't super attainable. They really wanna do an R two or they really want to get [00:53:00] into droids?
Is there, maybe like a, least less expensive way for them to get started and get 

into the hobby without,really building up the expenses for it? yeah, there's ways to get in to, if you want to do just static droids, like the printed stuff, like you can get into a pit droid, like that little guide back there for three rolls of filament. 
I think the files are like 25 bucks and then whatever the cost of your printer is. So if you've already got the printer, it's really not gonna be a huge cost for you. there, as far as like the aromex side of things, like R two s and BB eights and all those things, You can fully 3D print, R two i or an astro in general.
there are several people that, are on TikTok and I know Tony, we talked about him. All of his droids are 3D printed, all of them. Oh, interesting. Every single one of 'em. So you can fully 3D print, those droids. Now is your droid gonna look like ponies? [00:54:00] Probably not, because Tony's probably thrown quite a bit of cash at his.
cuz there's just, there's some part, and especially when you start getting into the electronics and the movement and yeah, the automation and the sound and all that stuff,that's where these things can get really expensive. But if you just want to do something static to sit in the corner and look pretty, yeah, you can print those for fair, fairly reasonable.
the materials aren't terribly expensive. for R two. there's a Facebook group that has, R two and Chopper are in the same group. And, I think you have to subscribe to the guy's Patreon for a month and you can download all the files for both of 'em. they're relatively low cost to get all the files and stuff.
If you want any updates or anything from him, like you need to stay subscribed to the Patreon. But if you just want to grab the files and go, yeah, you can definitely get into these things [00:55:00] at a lower cost, but a lot of people when they look at stuff like, R two, they're like, oh, does he move?
Does he make noise? Can I, and that's where a lot of the cost of these things comes in. Now, mine's a little different because like I said, I had that hindsight of knowing what I wanted to do different. And I keep telling all the p all the folks in the Discord server, cuz a couple of the guys that have printed droids, they've busted some parts on their feet and stuff like that.
And I was like, my, my hindsight advice to myself, was invest heavy in your feet because they're the closest to the ground. If it's gonna be moving around, you're gonna be bumping into stuff. And like my foot st my foot shells are all 

steel. they're like welded steel. I think the feet just by themselves weigh about 40 pounds. 
Wow. and then the motors and stuff in there, they're like all welded steel and it's got a full on drive train chassis underneath it. but I knew from my previous experience because I made, I made my own foot shells outta [00:56:00] styne. And I knew that I was always just like terrified that I was gonna break those foot shelves.
So I'm like, I'm gonna go back and when I do this again, I'm not doing that. I'm gonna go ahead and spend the money and I'm gonna invest in these good foothills. Could I have 3D printed foot shells? Absolutely. but I would be terrified that they're gonna get broken. so yeah, you can cut costs on a lot of these things.
You don't have to spend $3,000 on your feet. You can spend, 40 bucks on filament. But, this is just that voice of experience talking back, saying, invest where it matters. And that's my big, I guess my biggest piece of advice to people is invest where it matters. And if you wanna start, if you wanna know where to invest, talk to someone that's built them.
there's a whole website that's been up for years, probably, a couple of decades at this point. It's ancient. but the ASEC Builders site. Is a literal plethora of knowledge. The problem is that it's like drinking from a [00:57:00] fire hose and you don't really know where to start. It's a lot of information and it's just, sometimes it's just a matter of sitting down and perusing for a couple hours and figuring out where you can save money and what can be cheaper and stuff like that.
But, yeah, when you start making them move and making 'em remote control, that's when they get expensive. Yeah. It's, I'm glad you mentioned the feet portion because I, that was one of the videos actually caught when I was going back and, what I thought was funny about that video is you had this huge box in front of you and you're like, ever, you're like, I bet you guys know it's inside this box.
I was like, I have no idea what's inside the box, so I need to know. And,you pulled the feet out. I was curious like. Did you have to like, reach out to somebody who does like metalworking to have those custom made? Or is there like somebody who that's their line of work and they make these for people who make these models?

How did you get those? So those came from the ASEC forum. there's a section on there where people will do, parts runs is what they call 'em. Okay. And [00:58:00] so like some guy has, and it's usually like some guy has either access to a CNC machine or he runs one for work or something like that and he can get time on the weekends to go in and cut these things out. 
generally it's not like their, primary job, like the Yeah. the guy that did my foot shells, I dunno what he does professionally. I have no idea actually. but I just know that he, he's doing these foot shell runs pretty regularly. I think I had to wait about three months to get him.
Okay. it's like you sign up and you're like, Hey,I'm ready to buy this part. And he is okay, I'll put you on the list. Okay. And you look at the list and you're like, oh shit, there's a pile of people in front of me. I guess I'll wait. and so I waited for the foot shells for quite a while.
but like the dome is all aluminum, right? It's like a two piece aluminum dome. the guy that makes those domes has a hydroforming machine. Oh. So that's how he makes 'em. They're like, it's not spun aluminum, it's [00:59:00] actually pressed aluminum. but he runs a granite business. Oh, interesting. So how he got access and you go to buy these parts from him and he has it as a secret link on his website.
you can't search for these parts, you can't, nothing will come up. But on our ASEC forums, there's a link that takes you straight to it and it's just you're like, interesting. Why am I buying R two YouTube parts from Granite Earth? It almost so the way you're describing it, it's like almost like these black market parts is how you're making it sound.
It, I guess it could be that, but it's all like publicly trans and they're, the one thing I do like about the astron boards is they operate the same way that I do. They don't take money from people until parts are ready to go. Okay. which is nice. they have what they call the, builders council.
So if somebody wants to offer parts, you have to go through and get approved by this builders [01:00:00] council. Which is, it's a really great system of checks and balances that they've built just over the years, over, over years and years of experience with all this stuff. but they've also got 3D printing files up on the website, freely available.
and the same with the BBB eight Builders club. They, all these files for BBB 

eight were a hundred percent free. Wow. Didn't pay for, didn't pay for a single one of 'em. and that's the other thing too, is a lot of the people that are doing these things are not doing it to make a profit. 
nobody's really out to make money on these things. They're generally doing them at cost plus,maybe 5% if that. Because, and that's the other thing is the builders council keeps 'em regulated to say, what are your materials costs and how much are you charging? Because again, we're all just hobbies.
We're all, nobody's trying to make a living doing these things. There are people that do that and they get found really quick and they get shuffled away cuz it's nobody, they're trying to take advantage of the system. but by and [01:01:00] large, most of the people out there are very reputable.
I've never had an issue with anything I've ever bought through those forums or through those boards. They also have, outside of the parts runs, they have a place they call the parts junkyard where, you know, if somebody decides they wanna build an R two D two and then they get like halfway through and they're like, holy shit, this is expensive.
Ah, I never thought I'm gonna cut bait and run. They can, resell their parts, but they just sell 'em, whatever they paid for 'em. Because usually they're buying parts off the board so everybody knows what they paid. So you can't jack up the price. And try and, turn a profit or anything.
but yeah, you may come down to where like you need to do an upgrade to something and you go and you look at that junkyard section and somebody's Hey, I got this part that I don't need, or that I got too many of, or that I can't use. And you're like, I'll take it from you. That way you're not waiting on a parts run.
Oh, okay. Yeah, that makes sense. but yeah, it's been,I always tell people when they, whenever [01:02:00] anybody says, Hey, I wanna build an R two D tube, I'm like, be prepared for the sticker shock. Yeah. Because it's real, it's genuine. It, it hurts. But a lot of people, I think my first R two that I built probably seven, eight years, I think I kept that one under 10,000.
Okay. I think I was, but again, I didn't keep any of the records of it or anything. Yeah. But even when I say I kept it under 10,000 in the droid world, people are like, damn, that's cheap. You got away with that one Scott Fried. You're like, and I think that's roughly what I ended up selling it for.

but yeah, when I'm like, you're gonna be hard pressed, especially if you want one, cuz people will say, put out a laundry list of, oh, I want it to look like, R two from a New Hope, or I want it to look like R two from this movie or that movie, or I want it to do this and I want it to do that. 
And I'm like, every time you say I want, just add a four digit number to what [01:03:00] you want. so you know, if you just want it to sit in your living room and look pretty, you can absolutely print an R two D two for, I would probably have to guess you could print one for about a thousand bucks. Okay. That would be my ballpark guess of like filament paint some hardware to stick it together and then you can slap it in your room and you can give it a thumbs up and smile at it.
As long as you're comfortable with that. Now, on the, I guess like on the flip side of that is there is, would you say it's like sky's the limit of how much you can spend? Absolutely. there are guys, guys and gals. That's the other nice part too, is that like everybody gets to play. but there, there's folks out there that I've seen that just have, they'll have a completely aluminum droid, like every part is machined aluminum.
[01:04:00] And you could spend on an all aluminum droid. If I had to like ballpark guess you're probably looking at about 40,000. That would be my guess. So even my 15,001 is still relatively cheap in the grand scheme of things. cuz you think, you look at it this way, like you spend.
Just on the dome. that's probably, I think 900 or a thousand. I can't remember. the feet are another 4,000. Throw the motors in there. Those are like 2000. So now you're just to get your dome and your feet and your motors. You're up at, 8,000 bucks already. Yeah. You haven't even bought a frame.
You haven't bought skins, you haven't bought the legs. So I went the cheaper route. My frame is wood, my legs are wood. I 3D printed as many of the little bits and bobs that go. The gre. I love that word. That's a fun word. but all the little greeley [01:05:00] bits that you put on there, the things that, you know, in the studio world, they're just stuff that they stick on to things.
And it looks cool on camera, but it could be like, one of my favorite Greeley's ever was in on Boba, on the original Boba from Empire Strikes back, I think on his leg. He's got, they call him Shin Tools. And you never really see 'em on screen, but the obsessive nerds went and found 'em cuz they had to, and it turns out they were like dental tools.

They were like dental picks Oh yeah. And stuff like that. So and on the Han Solo and Carbonite, like those little side panels that you see. Yeah. Those are actually the dash out of an old Volvo flipped around backwards. Oh, no way. So I mean it, yeah, you can go down these really deep rabbit holes of what all these different found parts are, but Yeah, as far as found parts on R [01:06:00] two, the hollow projectors, were the air nozzles from an airplane. 
Oh yeah. Like the old school overhead vents. Yeah. he's got coin slots like you would see on an old video game. Like an old arcade game thing. Yeah. Yeah. we actually call them the coin slots cuz that's what they are and what they look like. but yeah, tons of these found parts. But the nice part is that you can 3D print a lot of these parts that cuts down a lot of the costs.
if I were to get those in aluminum, I think just those little coin slots, I'm talking about a part that's like maybe six inches long is gonna cost me 200 bucks. Wow. Okay. But I can 3D print it for. A dollar, A couple dollars. Yeah. Element. Yeah. And then sand it and paint it. And no one will ever know if you do a good enough finished job.
That's the other skill that I've gotten to learn too over time is like how to do paint work and finish work and body work. And for a while my YouTube feed turned into nothing but like [01:07:00] car painting videos. Cause I'm trying to learn how to do body work and I need to, how to do pillar and stuff like that.
So it's like YouTube's been immensely helpful. and again, the whole reason I got into all this was because of, frankly, bill on YouTube, I found his videos and I'm like, that's what I want to do. So YouTube is an invaluable resource for a lot of this stuff and a lot of the stuff that we do, on a day-to-day basis.
And if you're not using YouTube, to search for these things, like I said, find a community. That you can latch onto. These people are super helpful. I haven't met anybody that's just absolutely no, I'm not helping you now. Figure it out. so it's been a really great overall experience.
The other funny thing you would mentioned was like your makeup tutorials on YouTube, but your YouTube algorithm at this point has to be like, doesn't know what to serve you at this point in terms of, recommendations. I like to think that both my YouTube algorithm and my Amazon algorithm just yeah, [01:08:00] have no idea what the hell I'm doing.
Because one day I'm ordering like, I'm ordering something from Amazon, like I 

need, I just redid my kitchen and everything. So now I'm ordering a bunch of kitchen stuff and then the next day I'm like Star Wars collectibles, or I need a blanket shaped like a burrito. I really want that algorithm to have absolutely no way to sell me anything. 
Yeah. Yeah. they're just a lost cause at this point. yeah. U YouTube's the same way, and I feel like sometimes my TikTok algorithm gets that way too. Or it's yeah, what do you wanna see? You don't interact with anything or you interact with the most random shit. No, same. Honestly. I know we're running up on time, so I'll leave this at the last thing here, but.
If we just fast forward 20 years into the future, where, what kind of projects do you think you might work on? Is there anything that, like in the back of your mind, you're like, I really wanna try this, or I really wanna do this, and do you think your house just becomes overrun with droids? 
yeah. I'm fairly certain my house [01:09:00] will definitely be overrun with droids. the day, like one of my kids moves out, in 15, 20 years. Whenever that happens, I'm not holding my breath on it, but, like I get to turn that bedroom into this is where all the droids live.
I, I don't know. I've al I've always got a, I've got a real soft spot outside of Star Wars. My next great love is Fu Ahma. Oh yes. And I would very much love to find a good full life size bender. Oh, yes. That would be so cool. Cool. I would love to print a full size bender and finish it and throw a bunch of, audio stuff into it and have it be like, you're not gonna make it move, obviously, but you can find ways to make things interactive still.
Like with k2, I want to do stuff with him. I need to get his lights lit up and I want to grab some of the audio files from the movie and stuff like that. congratulations, you're being rescued. Please don't resist.[01:10:00] yeah, I hope I'm still doing this kind of stuff. I hope I'm still, out here helping people.
I love doing that. I love, I really try and when people take the time to reach out to me and talk to me, through TikTok or through YouTube or whatever, like I really try and take the time to. Respond to them thoughtfully because they took the time to say something to me. Now, if you just post a smiley emoji, you're just gonna get a, yes, I've seen your comment, but if you ask me a question, you're like, Hey, I'm running into this, or what do you use for this?
I'm gonna do what I can to try and keep that kind of interaction going. Because 

that's the way that the whole community grows is because you never know what kind of random act of kindness you're going to visit on somebody that just ends up blowing up. when I very first started getting into printing, I remember, seeing Frank's videos of his Ironman costume and I'm like, trying to print this Ironman mask and I'm just [01:11:00] having all kinds of problems with it. 
And I took like an arbitrary shot in the dark and I like messaged him on Instagram cuz he, he was getting, he was growing, yeah. At that point when he was still living in the uk, he wasn't back in the States yet. and I randomly messaged him and he like started this whole dialogue back and forth with me.
and this is a dude that I like, really look up to. I'm like feeling like I'm talking to my idol at this point, and you get a little starstruck and stuff like that. It's but it's nice to know that you can do that for somebody. I've been on the receiving end of it where, you never know who's looking up to you and who's oh, you're, I wanna do what you do.
And you're just like, this is my R two. He gathers dust in the corner and like you. So I try and treat everybody with that mindset of I want to treat you. you have my totally undivided attention because at that time you [01:12:00] do. so keeping those genuine interactions is definitely a big driver of why I'm even still doing, the TikTok thing and stuff like that is I love those interactions with people, which is weird for being an introvert, but I think it's because there's that like barricade of this is just something on my phone.
I'm like, I'm good. I can do this all day. yeah, I'm like a broken record over here, but the community's really cool in the sense that even those people who, they have a hundred thousand, a million followers, like you still get to interact with them.
And, I feel like they're really receptive to helping and, it's Like you said, it's almost like you get that starstruck feeling like, I can't believe this person's responding. I can't believe I'm talking to this person right now. And honestly, even just in,doing this podcast for the last couple weeks, it's like the people who I've had yourself included, it's so wild to me to get to sit down and have conversations with, people like yourself.
yeah, and it's so quiet. I don't know, like at what point do you consider yourself big? I don't, I'd consider myself a very small fish, right? I'm probably always gonna do that. I could have 20 [01:13:00] million people following me and I 

would just, no. I'm like, I don't know. I think it's like interesting how I, you always see yourself as you, but other people see you as like this, bigger thing that maybe you're not. 
So it's definitely an interesting dynamic on, yeah. Like we don't get to look at ourselves through the lens of other people's eyes. So yeah, it's definitely an interesting. Interesting thing, to see, and it's been really great. I remember when you started your TikTok channel and you were just like, I think you had gotten your inner three and you were just like super excited about it.
And I love the positivity that you brought. I love the energy that you brought out there to your videos, just the way that you presented yourself. And I, I'm like, somewhere in the back of my tiny little brain, I was like, this person's gonna do something big. you're gonna, you're gonna do something big because of the way that you carry yourself, the way you present yourself.
You're very relatable. You're very down to earth, like [01:14:00] genuinely good content. So no notes. I appreciate it more than and I appreciate you so much for coming on here today. I. Such a great time talking to you. we probably could have talked for another three hours, but I'm sure you have plenty of joy building to get back to, so I will hold you any longer.
do you wanna tell people where, if, for whatever crazy reason they're not following you already where they can find you on the internet? I do most of my posting on TikTok. It's the wild underscore stallions underscore printing, cause Long Live Bill and Ted. I'm generally that just about anywhere else.
I have an Instagram that I occasionally remember exists, with the whole notion of our favorite app potentially getting banned. I did start posting stuff over on Clapper, but again, I forget that it exists. So I'm not really regular anywhere else outside of TikTok. Okay, cool. like I said, if you don't follow him, absolutely.
Make it a top priority, go over there, check [01:15:00] out what he's doing. So cool. thank you Matt, so much again for spending time today coming on. And with that said, that is our episode of Meet the Makers.