Droidmaking...

To kickstart my own brainstorming on the idea, how would you folks here go about putting a protocol droid or medical droid in a fanfilm on a shoestring budget? What would be the best/most cost effective method?

-CGI?
-Costume?
-Puppet?

 

I personally prefer practical effects; I'd rather spend $100 to get a droid made out of scrap parts and a person under it than have bad CG that people on set aren't quite interacting with right.

If it's a bit part, I'd probably concentrate that money and make it a slightly better looking animatronic/puppet, but for larger roles, dress up a person as a droid and call it a day.

 

Which is easier to come by- lots of money, lots of junk, or a REALLY good CG artist? Animating humanlike figures is one of the hardest things in the world to do. For a medical droid you're better off using a puppet, whether controlled by fishing line or electronics. For a protocol droid, better off with a person in costume, though a good protocol costume would probably be as hard and expensive to come by as stormtrooper armor.

It all depends on which you have more readily. If you're low on cash but have an OK CG artist, you might be able to get away with animating the medical droid.

Just my two cents. Good luck!

 

As a person practiced in making models and armor starting out with CGI, I can tell you...

Yeah, practical is always better. Unless you can get some really talented student or have absolutely no time restriction and can wait forever and a day, practical will probably be cheaper. If you had to pay someone for time spend building, rigging, and animating a model... Sheesh.

You just need a skinny actor, talented model builder/crafter, and the budget for parts&materials.
Maybe contact your local fanforce / rebel legion costuming groups?

 

It may be worth checking out your local Rebel Legion/501st groups, as well as the R2 Builders Club. The RL does have members who do C-3P0 (and I believe a few other protocol droids) though they are a rarity. The R2 Builders build all sorts of droids, even though the focus is mainly on Astromechs. If nothing else, they may be able to guide you in building (or at least acquiring parts for) a bare-bones droid for your project.