Taken with a Sony ILCE-7 at 55 mm f/18 6.0 sec ISO200

Got my copy of The Force Awakens on Blu Ray today and fell in love with this brief, deleted scene. Loved the look of Kylo Ren investigating the Falcon. Couldn't resist trying to recreate it.

Taken with a Sony ILCE-7 at 70 mm f/9.0 2.0 sec ISO200

I dunno, Rey - 60 portions for a droid you just met isn't the worst deal in teh galaxy. Then again, the whole story of The Force Awakens might have turned out differently if you throught with your stomach instead of your heart. Why Was Unkar itching to get his hands on BB-8 so badly? Don't get me wrong, I love the little beach ball, but he is probably the most impractical droid you can find for Unkar's surroundings.

I took some liberties with this shot from the Star Wars Rebels Midseason trailer, but I just couldn't help it. Obi-Wan potentially facing off against Darth Maul was just too good to pass up.

Rebels has made Maul into a much more interesting character than Episode 1 ever allowed. I have a feeling there is going to be much more to this scene than a lightsaber battle. Can't wait.

The scene itself went through numerous build iterations until settling upon what you see above. Though the campfire is super subtle, it proved to be an immense pain in the ass to put it together. Hope you like.

Thanks for looking, and be sure to tune into Rebels every Saturday on Disney XD.... at least I think that's where/when it airs. I just watch it on iTunes since we don't have cable :)

Walking through the Falcon is an incredible experience. Something I have been wanting to do ever since I was a kid. Looking forward to going back there some day.

Taken with a Sony DSC-RX100M5 at 8.8 mm f/1.8 ¹⁄₂₀₀ sec ISOISO 3200

Cracked open my first, Rogue One LEGO set - the U-Wing. While assembling the set I got the idea for this shot and had to drop everything to shoot it.

The set piece is a small, MOC I built for a previous shot. Also, I'm getting a ton of mileage out of this mini Death Star. So glad I scooped it up.

Still counting down the days until Rogue One's premiere. Who's going to be there on day 1 with me?

This was a fun, practical effect to put together. Not much trickery going on here - just a laser pointer and a slow shutter.

Thanks for looking and have a great day

Out of all my minifigs, Mola Ram is my absolute favorite. I only wish I bought the Temple of Doom sets when they were available. Maybe I'll get lucky one day and add them to the collection.

Seeing as I am attempting a LEGO-A-DAY project for 2017, I thought it would be helpful to give my non-Star Wars figures a chance at the spotlight.

This shot was pretty simple to put together - the background is just a bunch of chili-pepper lights which do a commendable job at creating fire.

In the foreground, I arranged a bunch of LEGO flame peices so they would be visible, but mostly out of focus.

Then, I lit the scene with the light from my iPhone making sure to move it around to throw light all over the place.

Then, in Lightroom I just tweaked things a bit. I did learn a new trick though with regards to Camera Calibration that was helpful in getting the colors I wanted.

I'm sure there is still a ton in Lightroom that I don't know about, so hopefully this project will help change that.

My original idea for this shot was to make a robot gang called "The Bad Motivators" but it somehow morphed into a pissed off and armed GNK droid.

I'm on a quest to pick up all the LEGO variatons of Gonk, and the one pictured here was my first grab.

Forget the Han Solo story, lets get a movie all about these silent (but deadly) power droids.

What do you say?

EDIT: Went back and uploaded a different version of this shot. The scratches in the glass still bug me, but I like this exposure better.

Star Wars Rebels has been teasing Admiral Thrawn for some time now, but looks like we're getting closer to seeing him in action. Can't wait to see what he has in store for the Rebels. I also can't wait to get my hands on a Thrawn minifig in March!

This was another peppers ghost shots. The piece of plexiglass I have been using for this is effect is scratched to hell. I need to replace it as the scratches were clearly visible in some of the better shots from this session.

Had a bunch of fun with this one. Got the idea when I picked up the Glam Metal Batman minifigure. The more I thought about the shot, the more I wanted Captain Phasma in it, so I had to go back to the store to find a Harley Quinn so I could 'borrow' her hair.

The build was pretty simple, though it took me a while to figure out a drumset for the Emperor to rock.

I used christmas lights (from Blinky Bricks I think) to light the stage and then gathered a crowd to enjoy the show.

There are a couple of cameos from previous shots I've posted. Can you spot them?

Thanks for looking

Taken with a Sony ILCE-7 at 70 mm f/18 6.0 sec ISO200

I keep picking up more and more LEGO Dimensions sets though for some reason I still have yet to buy the game. How can you resist B.A. though? Awesome minifig, and I love the mini build of the van as well.

Explosive start to Star Wars Rebels: Season 3. Really looking forward to seeing where this season takes the cast - and hoping we get some new sets and minifigs while we're at it.

Finally added a Grand Inquisitor minifigure to my Rebels collection. Have a ton of plans for him and the rest of the cast in front of my camera. Just need to find the time.

This was all shot in camera using the Peppers Ghost effect and my iPhone. I used a small sheet of plexiglass to reflect the image on my phone towards my camera.

Thanks for looking and may The Force be with you

Taken with a Sony ILCE-7 at 70 mm f/13 6.0 sec ISO50

No idea what Ray said to Teedo, but I guess it was enough for him to give up on catching BB-8 and moving on. Little did Teedo know that there were 60 portions on the line for the little droid. Perhaps a bit more if he reached out to The First Order as well.

I wanted to try a different perspective for this shot, to give you a look at the scene from Teedo's vantage point.

For the sand, I just scattered a bunch of tan and sand colored bricks around.

I've become such a huge fan of all the characters from Star Wars Rebels, but my favorite has to be Hera Syndulla. She's strong, extremely capable yet outgoingly warm and compasionate. She has a great 'back and forth' with Kanan, which has me wondering if there's just a little something going on between the two of them. Looking forward to the series return... whenever it comes back...

All kidding aside, I'm dying to learn more about Ben Solo and his fall to the Dark Side (spoilers! Ooops!)

Fun fact, I spent days working on a BB-8 trashcan disquise. I first started with a large scale can for the BB-8 flashlight, which didn't work out. Then, I make numerous attempts at small scale builds. All that effort, and did you even notice BB-8 in the photo at all? I suppose that is a good thing if you didn't. Means his disguise worked ;)

I don't know why it took me this long to start playing around with a sense of motion. All my previous LEGO shots so far have been static, but I'm going to try and mix that up from here on out. To add motion to this scene, I slowly moved a LEGO wall behind the speeder throughout the 4 second exposure. I tried to add some motion to the foreground as well but I cropped all but a hint of it out of the scene. Thanks for looking, and have a great day.

Finally got my hands on a Fifth Brother minifigure. While I'm pretty psyched on him, I really hope LEGO releases a Seventh Sister figure as she is a stellar character in Rebels.

I'm also toying with different ways to make lightsabers glow in Lightroom. I'm torn between just going all out in Photoshop and making a realistic looking saber vs just making subtle tweaks in lightroom.

For this shot I used two radial adjustments over the blade. One to add more of a red glow, and the other to add a white core. What do you think?

This was a fun shot to shoot - I used the light on my iPhone with a red gel to make the red glow, as well as a LED saber to brighten the blade a tad. Fun stuff.

Thanks for looking and have a great day

Had a 3D print fail on me (well, they are all failing on me currently) but though I could still have a little fun with it.

Another shot I've been wanting to tackle for some time. Tried a bunch of times to catch a reflection of a sparkler in the windows, but it wasn't working out. Plus, I was afraid if I kept trying I was going to burn the house down. Ended up resoring to a flashlight with a orange gel and a crumpled up plastic bag.

Enjoy your new toys!

First photo taken with my new setup - a repurpose TV stand. Gives me a lot more room to play with, though perhaps I should have dusted it before using. Oh well, next time.

Now to go get my wallet out and grab those new, Rogue One sets. Happy hunting!

Been wanting to tackle this scene forever. Finally got all the peices to put together an appropriate Indy, and 'borrowed' bricks from the Lost Tomb set (7621) for the background.

Really happy with how this one came out. Now if I could only get my hands on the Temple of Doom set.

More fun from the Rogue One trailer, and first LEGO shot with my shiny new Sony A6300.

Fire = chili pepper lights

Smoke = garbage bag

Background = brown t-shirt draped over a bunch of yo-yos with some lego bricks on top

Got a GoPro today and the more I played around with it, the more this image kinda popped into my head. Neat little camera. Not sure what I'm going to do with it just yet, aside from dressing it up as a GNK power droid.

Wishing everyone a safe and happy holiday season, and a wonderful new year! May your 2017 be full of new BRICKS and awesome MOCS!

Took the little guy (and some toys) to the local park today. Great times all around.

Taken with a Sony ILCE-6300 at 70 mm f/5.6 ¹⁄₂₀₀ sec ISO800

Taken with a Sony ILCE-7 at 70 mm f/18 2.0 sec ISO400

Another one of Poe's X-Wings bites the dust in The Last Jedi.

I had a different shot planned for today, but some bricks I was awaiting ended up not arriving. Oh well, hopefully tomorrow.

I set out with this shot not really knowing what I wanted to shoot. All I knew was that I just finished building this TIE Striker and I had developed a big crush on it.

I toyed around with different angles for a bit, and just when I thought I was finished I got the idea to try something symetrical. Turned out to be huge pain in the ass trying to get everything lined up, and at nearly 3am, I think my eyesight started to go.

Hopefully I got close enough.

To achive the shot, I ended up building a base for the TIE Striker which required a counterbalance to keep it from tipping over. In front of the TIE I placed an LED flashlight and covered it with some soft, foam material.

When shooting, I held a second peice of the foam right up to my lens, gently moving it through the exposure.

In lightroom I cropped the image to re-center things. Then bumped up the glow of the... whatever the hell those things are called that the ground crew is holding. I used radial filters to create an extremely sublte glow and then also tried to take down the reflection of my camera & tripod in the back of the helmet (oops).

Not sure if any of this worked, but it's late, and I'm tired so it's done.

Thanks for looking and have a great day

Getting that itch to head back to Disney, so started looking over photos from our trip last year. This shot was from the first time I saw in person the renovations to the Polynesian's lobby. I used to enjoyed the water feature, but I think the new look is a nice upgrade.

This was one of the few shots I took during this trip with the 10mm lens I rented from Borrow-lenses. I wasn't crazy about the lens, but to be fair, I didn't really put it through it's paces too much.

Happy Valentine'ss Day

Playing with my toys on the beach.

Taken with a Sony ILCE-7 at 70 mm f/18 3.2 sec ISO200

Taken with a Sony ILCE-6300 at 70 mm f/13 1.0 sec ISO400

Did I mention how much fun I am having with this K-2S0 figure? I love the articulation, even if he's sometime difficult to balance.

Been meaning to shoot this scene for a while. Wish I could have come up with a better Luke stand-in, but old Obi Wan will just have to do.

Got this idea from a trading card in the Star Wars Card Trader app. This was a fun build, though it's always a challenge for me to build something that is not entirely made out of gray bricks. I need to expand my LEGO brick color spectrum :)

Thanks for looking, and have a great day

Bespin Duel was a fun set to build. If there is any upside to this Covid-19 mess, is that mere mortals like myself have had the opportunity to buy what may have been an exclusive, convention set. Thats a stretch though, as this Covid crap is for the birds. Hope everyone is safe and sane. hang in there!

The Doc Brown figure from Neca is so fantastic! Couldn't resist a little mashup with him.

I had been wanting to tackle a Rathtar shot for some time now, even though I think the whole Rathtar scene in The Force Awakens is pretty ridiculous.

I tried a few builds, but none really worked out well enough to shoot. Well, in walks Doctor Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum set. I know nothing about Doctor Strange, but I do know that the monster in this set makes for a pretty plausible Rathtar.

With that in mind, I scooped up the set via eBay (sans minifigs) for cheap, just for this photo.

I lit the shot with two LED flashlights - one with a red gel, and one with a blue gel, and used the overhead lights to fill in the foreground.

It was a rush shot (needed to shoot it before the kiddo woke up from his nap) but even still I'm happy with the way it came out.

Hope you like. Please feel free to comment either way below. Thanks for looking and have a LEGO day!

More fun mashups with this set of Up figures.

Gotta love K-2SO. Pretty psyched to have Rogue One at home now to start scouring for more scenes to shoot in LEGO.

Trying a new setup now, and haven't quite nailed it down. I'm using an umbrella to try and control the overhead lights a bit more, but it's... been a little frustrating. Plus, I keep forgetting to shut off my computer monitor, so there is a blue cast (noticable on K2's head). Will keep messing around. Thanks for looking

My favorite scene Knights of Ren scene from The Rise of Skywalker ;)

Where would The Last Jedi have taken us if Ben and Rey teamed up? Imagine that show down with Luke? Maybe we find out that Rey is Snoke's daughter, and as soon as he turns her to the Dark Side, she kills him and takes her place along side Ben.