The vendor droid, also known as the
shopkeeper or market droid, was a type of droid assigned to sell merchandise. Vendor Droids were an unofficial class of droid. This class of droid was created by Star Wars Droids Wiki to better categorize droids. They originally functioned only as a background element, cityscape scenery in the
Clone Wars crowded streets. They later got independent function and their own lives. Initially they did not have official names I called them T-headed, or Hammerhead droids for a long time, until they had no name. They later received the vendor droid category name and began their evolution, which began to specialize them, and each representative received its name. At first they got fix droid names, later the names started to contain hidden features, refering to special things in English, and in English logic.
In the video game Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures,
vendor droids are all named after the items they sell:
- 5WO-OP – (Swoop) Speeder bike
- 80-T5 – (Bots) Droids
- AR-M33 – (Army) Clone trooper armor. Behind Armee we may
see the armor of Gree's squad.
- GL1-D3 – (Glide) Jedi starfighters
- H0-U53 – (House) Furniture
- SA8-3R – (Saber) Lightsabers
In the Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated series vendor droids showed up repeatedly, mostly in the background, without function. I noticed them in four episodes, but they may have more appearances. The
first appearance was in the second season episode 14, titled Duchess of Mandalore. In this episode Duchess Satine was hiding in lower Coruscant for a murder she had not committed, but she is attributed to the murder. The pursuing clones interrogated a local vendor droid, showing him the image of the princess, asking if he saw her.
Second appearance: Star Wars: The Clone Wars – "Lethal Trackdown"
The Ohnaka Gang, a group of pirates led by Hondo Ohnaka, owned an unidentified green plated vendor droid. They used this droid as a bartender at their base on the planet Florrum.
It is not uncommon, the
bartender droid is an old Star Wars concept, earlier I also introduced in my protocol droid article a droid who was functioning as a bartender droid. Their capabilities can be used this way, too, because the need of speaking with guests and serving them is the perfect
combo of a protocol droid and a vendor droid. (We can see it on the shape of the droid, since the typical vendor droids T head simply fitted onto a standard protocol torso.) So such a bartender droid served drinks to Aurra Sing during her brief time on the planet while on a mission to help Boba Fett assassinate Mace Windu.
Third appearance: Star Wars: The Clone Wars – "Evil Plans"
GL-916 was a vendor droid on Coruscant. This
droid sold various wares at a stand. He boasted the qualities of his products and was willing to reduce prices for the cost-conscious customer.
When R2-D2 asked GL-916 about the missing C-3PO, he finally spoke, his voice could be heard as he replied that he knew nothing of his whereabouts and proceed to attempt to sell his merchandise to R2-D2. Maybe because he finally spoke in this episode, GL-916 is the most infamous representative of the vendor droids.
When I custom made my vendor droid, I mostly used this droid as refferrence.
Fourth appearance: Star Wars: The Clone Wars – "Nomad Droids"
Weird episode in which C-3PO and R2-D2 destroyed two civilizations. Their energy depleted, and
pirates found them, carrying both depleted droids into their ship charging them up. The ship has an arena where droids fight like gladiators. In the arena a modified ASP-7 droid fight with a red-painted T-headed droid, finally beating him. Maybe this appearance of the Vendor droids is the most bizarre of all.
When I started to think about and working on a vendordroid, there was not a
vendor droid figure released officially, however by now, it has been
officially released abroad. But, unfortunately, not a single representative of
any vendod droids at home in Hungary. In Disneyshops foreign fans can buy a
blue, a black, and maybe other color variants, but we are not so lucky like
they are. Of course, Hasbro collects the money from it, because the same body,
repainted, can be sold to fans multiple times, which is a nice profit. They
can also collect BAD pieces of a vendor droid. However, I have previously
handmade my own custom vendor droid figure.
Vendor droid, mouse droid, astromechs together as in the
Clone Wars scene, built from my custom figures
(front)
Aurra Sing interogates the vendor droid
about Mace Windu
(back)
Thanks
for visiting the site CustomStarWars. Come back ASAP,
as there will be plenty of interesting things here!
written by: Norbert Rostas
