Imperial Probe Droid - murderer

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With the Probe Droid nearing completion, thought turned to how to display it. I didn't want to have it just on a snow-covered base as that's kinda dull. I did toy with the idea of having it checking out one of the Shield Generators you see it pass by shortly before being blasted by Han and Chewie. But figured the generator would overshadow the Droid. So i started to think where else in the Star Wars universe i could place it. After all, they must be used elsewhere, right? Something that's always niggled me in "A New Hope" is how Luke's aunt and uncle are fried to a crisp when he discovers them. Sandtroopers carry the standard E-11 Blaster, which kills folk without even making a hole in the clothing. And the other weapons you see some of them carry just look like bigger versions - certainly none of them carry any sort of fuel tank. So who burnt them? Guessing not Jawa's or Tusken Raiders - their weapons look far too crude. As far as i know, Krayt Dragon's don't have fiery breath. Then who? I got to thinking, we know a "detachment" of troops was sent down to retrieve the Droids - we don't see it, but how about if it was supplemented by a number of Probe Droids? After all, Tatooine's a big place. And we know Star Destroyers carry them. That was that then, my Probe Droid would be the culprit. Which would give me a nice, easy, different setting for it. Straight away i decided to only have one figure with the droid as, again, i didn't want to take attention away from the main subject. Looking at the scene again, the easiest one to do would be the one on his/her back, splayed over some boxes. A quick search on the 'Bay typing in "Skeleton action figure" turned up this figure by Papo, which was going for only a couple of quid:

It looked to be almost already in the pose i wanted, with the bonus of having its mouth open, almost in a scream. First thing i did on its arrival was to sever the right arm and cut the spine at the base of the ribcage:

I then had to find a couple of boxes for the figure to be sprawled over. I wasn't tying too hard to be accurate here (which would be a heck of a job), more conveying the feel of it. I chose a 1/72nd tank turret for the main box and, as a lil' in-joke, half of R2D2's foot from the old MPC kit for the box the left arm rests on. Once i'd placed them, i could glue the spine and arm back on and, studying the scene, there seems to be remnants of clothing on the left shoulder of the corpse, which i made from damp toilet tissue soaked in White Glue. A hole was drilled in a round base for the clear support rod for the Probe Droid, boxes put in place, scatter material glued on, and everything was given a coat of Grey Primer:

Painting-wise, i went with warm greys for the boxes, dirtied right down. Looking closely at the scene, the skelton seems to still have some red flesh here and there, especially inbetween the ribs on the right side. So i filled that with a dark red and only drybrushed that area when covering it with black. Over the black i went back with the same red to highlight some areas, especially around the eye sockets etc to bring out a bit of the detail. And that were that, a nice simple, unusual way of displaying a superbly designed robot