Source: http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/19/51231...

Lucasfilm has brought on a pair of Star Wars fans and enthusiast droid builders to create R2-D2 for a role in Episode VII. Lucasfilm's president, Kathleen Kennedy, spotted builders Lee Towersey and Oliver Steeples at an R2-D2 Builders Club conference in Germany over the summer. "[Kennedy] posed for pictures with us, looked at all the droids we’d built and was very complimentary," Steeples tells StarWars.com. "I mentioned that the R2-D2 Builders in the UK were available if required, as a semi-joke." When they were eventually contacted to work on the film, Steeples says, "it was on [Kennedy's] recommendation."