Buck Rogers - Dr. Theopolis

For those of you that loved sci fi in the 70's, one of the best shows around was Buck Rogers. Sure Erin Gray looked hot in that tight spandex, but the real show stoppers were Twiki and Dr. Theopolis, the robots.

Still don't remember?? Ok, here ya go:


Twiki is the silver guy and Dr. Theopolis is thing around his neck!

Although this is project is in it's begining stages, I wanted to post some in progress pics. This project is using both CNC work as well as vacforming up this point. Vac(uum) forming is the process where you heat plastic until it is extremely plyable, pull it over a mold, suck all the air out of it from underneath and voila...you have a copy of the mold in plastic.












The next step was to create all of the details that go in the center of the chest, again Dane to the rescue! All of the guts, the clear and colored acrylic pieces were CNC'd by Dane and couldn't have fit nicer together.



Next we brought one of our resident graphic artists in to create an exact replica of what was on the face of the original Dr. Theopolis. Sean and I spent an afternoon matching screen grabs and photos of the original prop to find that perfect look...and what Sean came up with was nothing short of perfect.


Now we're nearing the home stretch! Paint!!

Paint on this piece was particularly difficult for a couple of reasons. 1) an off the shelf paint color doesn't exsist, 2) everyone remembers Dr. Theopolis to be silver when he was in fact a green color, and 3) I just don't like painting! Needless to say I believe we found the perfect color. At least perfect meaning that in person it looks like it does on screen.

Here it is with the last CNC'd bits, the side brackets! The devil is always in the details.



Hopefully in the next few days we'll have some finishing touches done along with some lights and we will have yet another satisfied customer!