Two R2-D2 builders club members working on Rogue One

On Starwars7news.com, the site features two Star Wars fans and members of the R2-D2 Builders Club who’ve turned their hobby into jobs with Lucasfilm. Oliver Steeples and Lee Towersey, now members of the Creature Effects team for The Force Awakens, will also use their robot-building for the new Star Wars Anthology: Rogue One movie.

Here’s an article on the two from Entertainment Weekly.

Many Star Wars fans have build their own R2-D2s, but only two turned the hobby into a job on TFA. In 2013 Oliver Steeples attended SWCE, where he met Lucasfilm head Kathleen Kennedy and “cheekly” told her that he was available if she ever needed an R2-D2. Six months later Steeples got the call from LFL, and he drafted his friend Lee Towersey, whom he knew through the R2-builders community, to help him out. “I still have to pinch myself,” says Towersey, who says he is currently working on Star Wars Anthology: Rogue One.

Although the article confirms Oliver and Lee are working on the new Star Wars Anthology: Rogue One, there’s no word if R2-D2 is or isn’t going to appear in that movie. I would also like to give Oliver and Lee some credit on the work they do because they’re not only responsible for the making of R2-D2 (my favorite blue colored droid), but also several other new kinds of astromech droids (except for BB-8 who is currently being worked on by another team) that I have never seen before.

Sample of some of the new droids: