Welcome to R2! I've wanted one of these guys since I was 9 years old. So, I've started to build one! I've been trying out new materials learning as I've been building. This dome was custom spun and is made of aluminum. Each of the plates are cut out and painted with a custom mix of Createx Auto Air airbrush paint. (The main eye needs to be repainted to match the panels!) Being my first time to really cut metal, this was a task and a half! I burned up two dremels - and the third is making a weird noise! And holding a machine cut straight line with a hand jigsaw across a curved surface is trickery to say the least! The Story of my R2? He was the first built. Junked, it was later rebuilt and reprogrammed as a battle field unit. It has been in the middle of quite a few horrific battles attempting to repair war-torn bodies. It isn't uncommon to see the dried remains of a spray or stream of blood. Not everyone in the universe uses laser weapons and even when they do, explosions rock the area. This little droid has seen some of the bloodiest action during the darkest time of the Empire's reign.