Wall-E became my favorite robot from the moment I saw him in Pixar movie. It is my biggest dream to build him as full scale animatronic figure. I watch the Facebook group focused on recreating every detail of this character so it is possible. I have some experience in building at this scale on BB-8 project, but this robot has much more moving parts and everything is more complex. All I need is more space, free time and funds. This dream, needs to wait.
Building First Wall-E Engagement Ring Box
I built yy very first Wall-E ring box for a gentleman from Los Angeles who found me through my previous work. I always wanted to build him as a remote controlled animatronic figure. When I got the question about making small Wall-E a personalized engagement ring box, I couldn’t say NO.
Wall_E builders club reverse engineered this character to build the full scale working robot, some of them can be found on Youtube. They have all their plans published for free, just sign in, browse and learn. They now moved to Facebook group
They did amazing job, their plans were professional with all the dimensions and 3d views, what saved me countless hours watching e Wall E movie on DVD trying to capture the images of the character from all angles. I still had to scale their drawings and prepare my own parts for laser cutting in styrene sheets. It was many of them, especially when making the tracks driving mechanism. To give you an idea, each of this 2 little parts on photo below was made of 59 separate pieces, assembled together and sanded.
This was the moment when I regretted that I didn’t buy this toy as a base platform. The only thing that kept me going, was the thought, that injection molded parts would probably lack of some details and here, I could make what I needed.
The ring was resting on this little pillow, hidden inside. The small copper slider is made at the bottom so it can be pushed to reveal the surprise.
The best part was the painting stage. I could finally see it assembled and painting the rust is my favorite now. The basic colors were made with spray paints to get nice and even yellow color or random dots on rusted areas where I used few shades of grays and browns. It was later refined with fine brushes and acrylics. It was great, but I had to be careful not to overdo it, so it doesn’t look too much like a trash. It will at the end hold the very expensive piece of jewelry.
This little guy was featured on TESTED.COM, along with the short interview with me, check it out if you want to learn more about this and other projects. They have amazing collection of podcasts and news and product reviews, you will love it. I visit their website everyday.
My New WallE Ring Box V2
I got many requests after my first Wall E became very popular. I did not want to go through whole scratch building process one more time. I did it once, I now know I could make it and how much work it requires. I searched for more robust solution and I found the existing toy which was the right size to hide diamond ring. I now customize it to create the ring box v2.
Using toy as a base has many advantages. It is more robust and durable because it is not glued from many pieces and it has more points of articulation. I clean all the imperfections, seams, made in china signs and fill the screw holes. I then paint hit to high standard. It takes many hours to layer the rust and dirt and make him look alive. I still love painting him. If you are interested in buying one, send me message through contact form in About section.
I am so happy this little guy took part in many happy moments of proposal and even weddings. Here is one of the photos I received from Jared and Eva, one of the couples which trusted me with this project. The photo was made by @liasphotography2011
Another beautiful people used robot Wall E and Eve as wedding ring boxes to carry wedding bands. Thank you Tawy for sharing with me your photos. You can see few of them on my Instagram
