R7-A7 astromech droid from Clone Wars season 2 and 3

R7-A7 is Ahsoka Tano's astromech droid, who was in the droid socket of Ahsoka's Delta-7B in the Clone Wars Season 1 Episode 19: Storm Over Ryloth. Till this point, Hasbro has not released this astromech droid officially, however they were always able to find new Star Wars characters to make into an action figure from the movies or from the Clone Wars episodes. This is particularly true for astromech droids, there were released the highest variety of all kind of R series astromechs in the most different colors and with the widest spectrum of identifiers, from R1 to R7, and ending up their names with a real, or a imagined identifier. And since the alphabet has even more letters, and numbers can be found from 0 to the infinity, we can except even more astromechs to come. Yet, Ahsoka's droid has not been released, so I decided to custom make it for me.

What makes it particularly frustrating however is the name designation. Why is this an R7 droid? If you have collected the Build A Droid lines of figures, you know that R7 units are different head shaped units from R2 and R3 units. So why does R7-A7 looks like and R2 or R3 unit? I cannot figure it out, but to tell the true, sometimes it is difficult to follow the logic of the Star Wars Expanded Universe facts. Remember, even R3-S6 Goldie from the first season of The Clone Wars wasn't technically an R3 unit, since they usually have transparent dome. Perhaps astromech droids didn't stick to a proper designation during the Clone Wars. Anyway, R7-A7 is a colorful astromech and it makes sense that it was the of Ahsoka Tano, the most popular female character in The Clone Wars line, so he is quite important, however he was not seen too much in the cartoon. Therefor, I had not the proper information about him, and since we could only see his dome, and his upper torso part, sitting in Ahsoka's Jedi starfighter, we did not know, how the lower regions, and the legs look like. It seemed, they are all red, according to the previously released keyholder item, and also the Lego variation. So R7-A7 seemed to be essentially all dark red in the whole body, with a grey dome, and with lime green details around specific regions. So when I made him, I accepted these two items as a reference, since there weren't any other. Up to this point. In the third phase of The Clone Wars line, Hasbro delves into the very first season to bring us Ahsoka Tano's astromech droid R7-A7, and released the figure. Oops! They applied a white leg! Why? Which is the canon? Which is the authentic, the true? Because either the LEGO and keyholder variation, or the action figure is wrong! It cannot be red and white in the same time!

R7-A7 is a repaint of 2008's TCW R3-S6 ("Goldie"), the traitor droid. It was a refreshingly interesting droid and Hasbro did a fine job making it very accurate to its onscreen appearance in The Clone Wars, but keep in mind, Goldie could be seen, and had a bigger role in the storyline. But Ahsoka's droid was only sitting the droid slot during the space battle over Rylot, as her co-pilot during the mission to take out the Separatist blockade surrounding the planet. He joined her on many missions previously and provided navigational and technical support when Ahsoka flied her Jedi starfighter. Ahsoka called "Arseven" and loved him, treating him as her partner.

The droid was released as an animated character to match the Clone wars line, but many fans would be happy to have these EU figures in the basic figure line, with realistic outfit. So I made him realistic, which is an unique attribute. And since Ahsoka Tano and her Jedi starfighter were released, we can have all three, the scene is complete. Both my figure, and the Hasbro R7-A7 droid have a dirty wash on their torso, making them appear as if they have picked up too much space dust on the body, and even the fine details with silvery abrasions, and heat caused various colored parts brings reality to the droid. Also, when he jumps out from the droid slot after the mission, it is inevitable to have scars and scratches on the torso.

Ahsoka Tano is popular, but her astromech presumably won't have the same (or remotely similar) popularity of for example Anakin's, or Luke's astromech, R2-D2. R2 is an etalon, the first astromech we knew, and got loved. In fact, R7-A7 has only appeared in a handful of The Clone Wars episodes. I say episodes, because R7-A7, or a very similar droid can be seen in the background of Jabba's palace in the third season, when the panthoran baron, Papanoida and his son Ion came to free his kidnapped daughters, Che Amanwe, and Chi Eekway. The Lucas family, including the girls, use pistols as the best cowboys in the wild west, killing every opponents in the room, but if you frequently look in the background in this episode, you will notice interesting characters there, not only the R7 clone, but also the two bounty hunters, who provided defence for that farmer village, which was endangered by the weequay band of Hondo Ohnaka.

As you see, many of the animated and the realistic astromechs made by Hasbro, despite they haven't seen much screen time at all. I also focused them in these Clone Wars month, and believe me, there will be many more, which are completed, made from BAD components, but will be published later on. I chose this R7-A7 droid to introduce, because I have been finished him for some time, and kept him for such an important time, that this moment. Getting new and cool droids is always a pleasure for a fan. I personally can't get enough of them, and hunt them in the background, and I hope many new ones await us in The Clone Wars line. Until they come, be sure to check out my custom R7-A7, it's a very cool droid and more exciting then a basic noname droid, since he is Ahsoka's droid! Target often releases exclusives. For the last few years there are exclusive G.I. Joe, Transformers, and Star Wars releases at Target. Mostly they're repaints and/or repacks, but these battle packs often come out with something new, or a pretty cool version.

The figure is a very special one. It was made from different color Build a droid (BAD) parts, and for that it is a quite special custom figure, which was never before seen, and never was released by any. I traded, bought, or just got the parts from fellow Hungarian Star Wars fans, readers of CustomStarWars, whose names are listed in the Hungarian "Csere bere" section site, where I say a special thank you for all those guy, look, what those parts became, how can birth a brand new droid from different colored rubbish.

Please take a look at my custom R7-A7 astrodroid unit figure!

Custom R7-A7 astromech unit figure front

Custom R7-A7 astrodroid unit figure from the left

Custom R7-A7 astrodroid unit figure from the right

Custom R7-A7 robot figure from the back

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 by: Norbert Rostas