Mosquemonster Robotic Drone

This prop is actually a sort of mobile made from styrofoam balls, white feathered wings from the doll aisle of a local Hobby Lobby, a hexagon-shaped paper box, and wooden toy wheels with black primer spray paint. Although I started with glue, I realized that a more reliable way to hold it together would be to drill a hole down every piece's poles and insert a zip-tie upwards. Good thing, too, because that glue didn't hold and it IS kinda nice how the eye can swivel from side-to-side now.

Fiction backstory: acting as street lamps, these hovering robots quietly flap their wings about nine feet off the ground as they watch the citizens of St. Petersberg go about their daily routines. At night, the drones also serve as streetlamps, but their main advantage is in their manufacture and their use at keeping the city free of crime. And dissent. And anyone attempting to gather in groups of more than two people at a time. Although tireless, their batteries do wear down after a week, but the flapping wings and lightweight construction allow it to slowly fly back to a recharging and maintenance building while a fully-charged lookalike arrives to take its place. In months were power and personnel shortages are commonplace throughout the city, these drones are often reprogrammed to return before their replacements arrive, meaning that the public often congregates for bits of gossip and the free exchange of ideas in stretches of park sidewalks where these flying sentries are temporarily not overhead.

While it's not difficult to "take out" with a single swing of a purse or cane or baseball bat, the citizen doing the deed will be filmed throughout the act of vandalism. Maybe the police are busy breaking legs at a peace demonstration across town, but rest assured that the next time the vandal falls asleep in their own home, they will hear knocks on the door. By that time at night, all appropriate warrants will have been fully authorized, signed, stamped, and dated. Although, the citizen will be grossly outnumbered. The more democratically-minded folks either left town or were jailed years ago. The ones who remain in the city are smart enough to keep their mouths shut and their eyes down to avoid meeting the retinal-scanning, monocular gaze of any of these ubiquitous, slow, all-seeing fliers.

Non-fiction backstory: I came up with the fictional backstory long before the U.S. was having its current controversy over domestic Predators flying over us. I originally got the idea from the two types of low-ranking enemy sprites in the Strider NES game and the Arcade/Sega Strider game. Although, when I was little, I found door knockers, lamp posts, and other wrought iron sculptures to be a little frightening due to the repetitive motif of what (at that age) I thought were eyes, teeth, and wings looking down at me. When I was older, I had a couple of kinda cool dreams with lamppost and totem-pole sized versions of floating, urban watchers such as these. A week or so ago, I had sketched some ideas for a life-sized 1:1 ratio prop of some of these quasi-mechanical quasi-biological creations at [link]

If I didn't current have a steady job, I'd deeply consider making and selling various versions of these immediately. The design is original, it would appeal to steampunk and sci-fi and fantasy enthusiasts, and no two fliers would have to look alike. They're lightweight enough in RL to dangle from a ceiling vent or an awning, and most of the parts I needed happened to have only been available in bulk anyway.