View allAll Photos Tagged theempirestrikesback
Macro Mondays 05/06/17 theme: Silhouette.
For this theme I chose an iconic silhouette from my childhood that of Darth Vader.The figure is just under 2" tall,for the background I used was a water mister which had blue LED's on it and a red light above,I chose these colours as they represent the lightsaber colours used in the film.To create the lightsaber I used a laser pointer to paint the area I wanted lit up.
Little known fact: the Lucasfilm crew made a blunder in Norway back in the winter of 1979. As we all know, they were doing a fine job shooting their movie but at the same time they were a little too careless with everything they had shipped to the location. Snowspeeders, beasts of the ice planet and even the big AT-AT walkers were frequently left unguarded. And sure enough, eventually one of these giants escaped the area during a snowstorm.
Now, 37 years later, we have a feral AT-AT walker loose up here in the north. It's never been caught, it's a master of disguise. Luckily, this thing is not dangerous but it makes a big mess stepping on parked cars and such.
Thanks a lot Lucasfilm!
Little known fact: Boba Fett always had his ski suit aboard the Slave 1. He was a keen skier and visited planet Hoth frequently for it's unparallelled off-piste opportunities.
The transit of a moon seen from the surface of Hoth is a spectacular sight. Even in a howling blizzard, if the clouds were thin enough to let the sun shine through, the rebel speeder patrol flights were often paused just for the pilots could step out and enjoy the magnifcient celestial display.
Little known fact: The planet Hoth has three unnamed moons. Like with most planets, the moons' orbits around Hoth bring them in conjunction with the sun from time to time. The moons are too small to eclipse the sun, they only transit across it. The event is often refferred to as "the doughnut".
I tried to find out whether the moons of Hoth have names. Apparently they don't. I want to name one, where do I sign?
The thing about this photograph is that snowspeeder, of course. Many of you recognize it, I'm sure. It is almost an exact Larry Lars build with just a few modifications. I had attempted to build this several years ago. I downloaded the Larry Lars instructions, bought the bricks from Bricklink but eventually I couldn't figure out the build. I gave up.
So, this particular speeder was not built by me, nor Larry Lars. I received it as a generous gift from Dark Alamez who didn't know that I had tried to build one earlier. I am very grateful for this gesture.
I like that snowspeeder a lot. I've had it on my desk for months now, waiting for a good day to shoot it. In my current cycle of work such days are rare as hen's teeth, but last sunday night I took the time from my good night's sleep and just shot it.
You'll see more of it later, I'm sure.
The TIE Striker was a TIE fighter variant designed for atmospheric missions. It was, in fact, a truly fantastic design, fit to withstand the extreme temperatures of a night on Hoth. Yes, space is much colder, but on Hoth the changing temperatures caused condensated moisture to wreak havoc on manned vehicles. TIE Striker had none of that.
TK-24/7 loved the Striker. He was the only non-pilot ranked trooper to be allowed to use it for experimental missions during the surveillance missions period on Hoth. It was not exactly official, but the officers did not see the need to play this by the book. Hoth was a desolate and remote place, there was no harm in giving some slack. The thing is that nobody knew that TK-24/7's "experiments" were mostly about how to build the perfect snow lantern. He was really good at that.
I am liking this ship more and more. It's a lovely desing both on screen and in Lego.
You know, some of my photographs used to reach the Flickr Explore back in the day. It didn't happen often, less than once a month, but when it did, it was a lot of fun. Then, exactly three years ago, it stopped, not a peep since. I kind of miss that. I wonder how it works?
Work, work, work... That's what I've been up to. It has been very difficult to find the time to make new photographs.
I had a little break today, met a friend and took a nice snowy walk on the field nearby. I thought I'd check on the spaceship that was there before we got snow. Do you remember it? Well, it was still there and it looks as if it's going to be there for the winter: the doors were closed and all lights were off, a tarp was pulled over the cockpit to protect it from the harsh winter weather.
So, here's my friend's snapshot of that ship while I'm too busy to make new photographs. That's me next to the ship, by the way.
A lonely Darth Vader.
Once again I find myself playing with the old material, trying to see them in a new way, trying to find a new life for them. This is one of them, as it is an new edit from the 2014 session titled as Storm on the Shoulders of Darth. I'd just love the blue here, love the all in-camera action on the front of the Darth. It looks like the Force is strong with this one. This was easy to share with you.
It was a beautiful winter morning today, I took the dog out for a nice walk as the sun came up. There is this nice path in the nearby forest, I hadn't walked it after the snowfall earlier this week and I thought it would be great to take the dog there.
It was fun – until I saw this! I guess it is an attempt to be considerate, parking that thing away from the driveways and such, but parked like that that piece of junk blocks the path that is supposed to turn left there.
I walked under it with the dog and you know what... I took my keys from my pocket and keyed that thing! That'll teach them.
As an afterthought, I think nobody will notice a new scratch on that. Next time I'll take a spray can.
This was a practice shoot, I noticed a nice spot yesterday with the dog and went back with a camera this morning. The challenge was to see if I can figure out how to put the model behind those twigs and branches on the center of the image. Everyone who has tried to do something like this in Photoshop knows it's not a lot of fun. Sometimes you really can't even do it because of how the twigs are lit from behind (at least I can't) but I think it came out alright this time.
As I was uploading this I had this feeling I had overlooked something, I just couldn't quite catch what it was. I was just about to hit enter when I realized that I may have been influenced by an image by Michael Paul Smith. In a recent photo he had this beautiful afternoon sun light (which I decided to see as an early morning light) and it is quite possible that it still reverberated in my head when I shot this. I couldn't tell, but it is funny how one's mind works.
Well, there was one more photo to post this year, a photo of the Lego TIE Striker I took for a Stuck in Plastic piece. I posted an alternative version of this a few days ago but this is the real mccoy.
I struggled to decide whether Vader should have his lightsaber blazing in this or not. Having both, the cockpit and the lightsaber at the same time did not work, I tried all the different variations. For the Stuck in Plastic piece I chose the version with the red cockpit, it was about the Striker after all.
The decision wasn't merely because of the subject first however, it was also because this simply was the better exposure; the blizzard behaved perfectly on this. So, this one has better overall ambiance but the other one had the lightsaber, I couldn't let that go. I posted them both, because, why not? :)
The story in this is about Vader being stressed out and the wing layout of the Striker being good when retreating for meditation on desolate locations – such as Hoth, as in this case.
Do you remember the moment when Han Solo and Chewie blast off from the Echo station on Hoth in the movie The Empire Strikes Back? Han Solo says "Let's hope we don't have a burnout". Well, I wanted to see how Millennium Falcon's burnout would look like. And who will clean up the mess, of course...
This was photographed exclusively for my "Small Scenes from a Big Galaxy" book. I will post more of these here shortly.
The TIE Striker fighter was an old model, easy to use, an inconspicuous little thing. You could get around with it without people paying too much attention. The wing layout was handy if it rained or snowed, it was like having an umbrella, but most importantly it acted as a cover when getting in and out of the craft.
Darth Vader preferred the Striker to his TIE Advanced when going for private lightsaber outdoors practice retreats. Yeah, he practiced. A lot. Like a maniac!
Little known fact: Darth Vader had weekly lightsaber practice. Every monday, no matter where he was.
An overview of the hangar set I made (though in reality, it's little more than a single wall!) If I'm honest it doesn't really convince - the set's not deep enough for the perspective trick to work, which is why the other photos I took were close-up's - but I thought you guys might like to see it nevertheless.
A little light shopping before heading to Dagobah.
Yoda really loves ice cream.
Thank you Trev for your help with the background. XOXO
Snowtroopers only task was to get a part of the feet closer to the repair place. The task has been nearly impossible until now. At least now it looks just like that everything is progressing very well!
Previously in this series there was a Moment in Truth. I was about to stop this series for this shot and move along, but I think that I will continue for a few more pictures somewhat. I hope you don't mind… ;)
A few days ago I was hiking with snowshoes on the plains of Hoth. I thought to test the new drone to take a landscape images. It was cloudy. In fact, so cloudy that the drone disappeared among the clouds from time to time, when I flew it. However, I gave my camera a run to test the flight characteristics and co-operation with the camera.
I watched the results from the day later in the evening. Most of the pictures were pictures of clouds and snowy ground. They did not have anything of interest, but one frame attracted my attention. It was this shot of the Snowspeeder driving close to the ground through the snowy terrain.
I'm pretty sure that the speed was very low, because the camera's shutter speed was very low, and it still is caught on film as a very sharp object. I can say that this frame saved the day!
Hoth has been good to me lately. It is not too cold to use the camera and accessories, because the wind is not as biting as last winter.
Hello everyone !
Now first and for most, Thank you all for getting me to 400 followers !! it means a world to me that you guys like my stuff and support everything that i do, i am nothing but grateful for this, and once again thank you.
Another quick thing, i recently placed an order for my Rogue One figs, however (if you have purchased anything online during christmas) it might take a while which means... that there most likely won't be any Rogue One stuff once the movie comes out :c .... you can thank the post office for that one... anyways
After being in the back burner for almost a month he has finally come out of the shadows... my Boba Fett
This figure was originally going to be a painted cast from Leonardo, but let's say i missed out on that.... so i wanted to give it a shot and do my own.
I started doing the grey jump suit and everything just came together rather nicely, since Boba is one of my fav SW characters i wanted to make him justice, specially since he had to look with my Vader which i still consider my best fig, so i had to make him accurate and also make him look on-par with my Vader.
The helmet was done belive it or not out of a phase 1 clone wars clone trooper helmet, just heavily modified, and the range finder with a needle and TLG's one.
I did the white vest and the rest of the torso using a knight vest, and i used some string i had to make the Wookie hair thingies.
As of the rest of the fig i used, e-tape, cardboard paper, credit card plastic and various other things.
I decided to go with the EE-3 carbine since i like it more, it is a combination of various diferent guns that i had lying around, it doesn't look 100% accurate since i had to make it compatible with a minifig.
I know most of you already noticed but i'm going to point out anyways the weathered look of Fett, this is something i really wanted to nail and the sideshow figure was of great help, making him one of my favorite figs so far, the only thing that i'm not happy with is the jetpack, i might go back and give him an Arealight one in the future.
Hope ya'll like it
Have a Bricktacular day and May the force be with you !
-Prime
"The evil lord Darth Vader, obsessed with finding young Skywalker, has dispatched thousands of remote probes into the far reaches of space ..."
('Imperial Probe Droid' by Hasbro / Star Wars - The Black Series 6-inch / 'Star Destroyer' by Bandai)
Diorama by RK
"3PO? Shut down all the garbage smashers on the detention level, will ya? Do you copy? Shut down all the garbage smashers on the detention level!"
('Chewbacca', 'Princess Leia', 'Han Solo' and 'Luke Skywalker' (Death Star Escape) by Hasbro / Star Wars - The Black Series / 6-inch)
Diorama by RK
For those interested in the making-of, go check here:
Even the darkest nights on Hoth come to an end. The extremely cold mornings are TK-24/7's favourite moments on the planet, crispy and fresh, no distractions, perfect in every way.
The snowy landscape is from a few years ago, it's sea ice on the Baltic sea. We didn't have winter last year and it was awful, no snow and no ice. We have winter now, a good old fashioned proper winter, and it is fabulous! The sea isn't frozen yet but the weather inspired me to dig up this old frame and add something to it today.
To stave off a full scale Imperial invasion and occupation of his city, Administrator Lando Calrissian mAkes a deal with the sinister Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Vader.
It is a decision that will haunt him for the rest of his life!
TK-24/7 was on tour – Hoth, yet again. It was great, TK-24/7 liked the Hoth assignments very much, they were peaceful and quiet. Most of the time during a shift he was the only human being on the entire planet. In fact, there were times there was nobody else in the entire system. It couldn’t get any quieter than this.
To avoid cabin fever TK-24/7’s workdays were not as long as on most other remote posts. He had time scheduled to spend on recreational activities, a luxury unknown to most troopers on service. Although solitude and isolation weren’t a problem for TK-24/7 there were days he felt he could have welcomed some company. Sculpting from snow would have been more fun with some friends from the ranks. And snowball fights, it needed a minimum of two to play.
Snow and Halloween, too soon? I don’t think so.
The Slave 1 wasn't the ship it used to be. All the heavy action and the numerous Kessel runs had taken their toll and minor kinks appeared every now and then. The landing ramp, for example, refused to open from time to time, and in order to get any skiing done in Hoth, Boba Fett had to exit the ship through the gun bays.
Did I say earlier that Boba Fett was the ultimate planet skier? Yes I did. :)
This photograph was shot for an interview for the Finnish broadcasting company YLE. I made this for them to show how my setups look like.
This photograph does not appear my book, if I may take this opportunity to bring that up.
Oh, and I saw The Force Awakens yesterday, but my lips are sealed.
Little known fact: the B-wing fighter was a pig to fly. In an attempt to stabilize the bladelike frame in atmospheric flight the pilots often deployed the attack s-foils. This was against regulations but without it the awkward aerodynamics easily caused violent vibrations throughout the fighter's frame, which in turn could lead to complete loss of control and crash. The B-wing was designed for missions in the vacuum of space, not flying in atmosphere.
While stabilizing atmospheric flight, the deployed s-foils were a hazard, as Clavius Pit found out trying to land his B-wing on a Hoth night test flight. There was no automatic system which would warn or retract the s-foils because they were not supposed to be deployed nowhere near landing procedures in the first place.
Clavius Pit was rescued from the crash site before freezing to death, the emergency beacon aboard the B-wing worked fine.
By the way, I did not know the ”B” in B-wing stands for blade. I always thought it was just a name, something to go with the A-wing, the other alphabet fighter introduced in Return of the Jedi.
Anyway, the B-wing has proven to be not only a pig to fly, but a pig to photograph. I have tried to figure out how to do that a few times but I didn’t see how it would work, not before I came up with this scenario. See, the B-wing looks nice when the s-foils are deployed in flight, but placing it in landed position forces them to be retracted, and from eye-level the fighter then has very little identifiable features. One could use a stand and park it vertically, but for a place like Hoth, it doesn’t really work. Not for me anyway. I’d have to build a hangar and, well, I don’t build.
These sentinels, or probes, patrol that wall all the time. I managed to get a shot of one a second before it got me in that searchlight. I ran in the woods, these things never follow you there. Scary buggers!
I have a folder on my computer that contains variations and alternatives of images that didn't quite make it at the time they were shot. There are multiple reasons why this happens, it can be because they're simply too close to the image that ended up as posted. Sometimes it's because of a minor fail in the image, something that doesn't work exactly as desired.
This one's "fail" is the snow that blows up behind the trooper. Together, with the yet unfinished lighting, it completely obscures an AT-ST walker standing in the background.
This was a lazy shoot and with the finished image (March 2014) I cheated a bit and made it from two different frames.
Remember the feral AT-AT from last winter? Well, it's back.
The good thing is that the big fella has proven to be quite docile, it doesn't charge or roll over cars or anything, it just seems to hang around on the edge of the big forest. It really has become quite the pet of our neighborhood. Each morning many of the dogs around here are walked by the areas the walker usually stays in, the dogs seem to like that.
The dogs aren't allowed too close though, we don't know how well the feet of that thing can take the, umm... puddles.
Acknowledging the wonderful works of many artists who have played with objects in mist; Cedric Delsaux, Simon Stålenhag, Jakub Rozalski, to name a few.
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► Instructions for the model available on thecreatorrmocs.com
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This diorama replicates a cutout of the gas processing vanes' iconic main control center located in Cloud City. Relive the epic first duel between Vader and Luke from Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back!
The MOC is built of 912 pieces. Features the Viewport leading to the curved railing outside, which makes this build displayable from both sides. An all-black frame makes for a premium display.
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A portrait of Boba. Boba Fett. Bounty hunter bad-ass.
I just had to continue where I left off with the previous photo. I think C-3PO needs something to his left side on my stream. This time is not the droid you're normally looking for.
Also, I haven't been in touch with Boba a long long time. It was time to wake him up from the hibernation...
The full moons on Hoth was a spectacular sight. It was something of a legend actually, only a handful of people have witnessed all three full moons and survived to tell the tale. Two moons wasn’t that rare an event, but the night on Hoth was still deadly, regardless of the number of moons in the sky.
TK-24/7 was careful never to let his supervisors know that sometimes he didn’t follow his mission guidelines to the tee. You see, T-24/7 would step down from his walker at times because the starry nocturnal Hoth sky was a sight to die for. Well, not literally die, a quick step outside with the snowtrooper gear on one would likely just risk a frostbite.
It boggles my mind that according to any source I can find, Hoth has three moons but they have no names. Can I name them? Please, please, please?
The stars in this one are a photograph of the sky I took a couple of years ago. I have tried to use real stars before in my non-Lego works but they have never really looked right, paradox as it is. But to this one they seemed to fit. It is against my principle to build a Lego image like this, from pieces, adding elements, but I figured why not.