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Han Solo in Lego Carbonite

Posted by michael on Sun Jan 25, 2004 12:32 AM
from the running-out-of-grey-bricks dept.
Media Movies Star Wars Prequels Toys
metalion writes "Nathan Sawaya built a life size replica of Han Solo frozen in carbonite. It is composed of approximately 10,000 bricks and was built in approximately three months. Some sample photos are here and here. Sawaya's work also includes a mosaic of a stormtrooper and a small scale replica of the Death Star II."
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  • Small Scale Death Star II? As opposed to what? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by blat.info (744034) on Sunday January 25 2004, @12:33AM (#8079410) Homepage
    I'd like to see a large scale Death Star II.

    Anyway, I'm glad people still use the traditional Lego components for stuff like this. Don't get me wrong, Mindstorms [blat.info] is a great thing, and I'm glad Lego isn't totally giving up on it. But there's something about the more traditional Lego pieces.
    • I know exactly what you mean. When I was a kid I liked playing with Lego bricks, and when the "formed" legos came out in the shapes of trees and people and such (pre mindstorms), I never could get into playing with them. They weren't something I "made" myself. It seemed like cheating...or something. Like they didn't belong.

      Of course, I was a crazy kid. I made lego furniture and houses for my dolls instead of asking for the pre-made ones. One time, I built a motorized car for Barbi out of my brothers metal erector set. (anyone remember _those_ ?) :-)

      • Exactly... imagine getting a mondo box of Lincoln Logs and having several of them fused into prefab cabins and... er, other cabins.
          • Damn them.

            At the day care provider my parents stuck me in, there were, literally, thousands of lincoln logs. They had tubs of the things and I was the only kid who would touch them. While all the other kids had to share legos, I was build log mansions. It was great. I had one structure about 6 feet high (stood on a chair to place the top parts). The bitch who was in charge of us yelled at me because of my hoarding. I hope she's fat and bald now.

      • Re:Small Scale Death Star II? As opposed to what? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by kfg (145172) on Sunday January 25 2004, @01:12AM (#8079575)
        I predate the American availability of Lego. So for me it was first Lincoln Logs and then Erector Sets (in fact Gilbert made up a good deal of my childhood. You could go into a regular dept. store and buy jars of chemicals and frogs and scalpels to cut 'em open and stuff. All without parental permission or anything. People didn't worry about their kid swallowing a bolt or pickled frog back then).

        So the Erector set is my real love. You learn real engineering principles. I first met Lego when I had younger cousins.

        I agree with the "cheating" though. I mean, what's the point? Lego is for building things, not just to have a lousy model.

        KFG

      • Re:Small Scale Death Star II? As opposed to what? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by irhtfp (581712) on Sunday January 25 2004, @01:19AM (#8079596)
        When I was a little squeaker, my aunt worked at a lego factory. The legos that would fall off the line would be swept up, put in bags, and sold to the employees for next to nothing. I have a whole trunk full of 'em!

        They were all mismatched, every color and shape, but they were all just blocks (1s, 2s, 4s, etc.) along with a few of those angled roof blocks and some wheels, the old kind you pushed into the special blocks with holes on the side. I built EVERYTHING with them (except doll furniture).

        Later on, I got a police station for Christmas and I was all WTF! (or the analogous six year old phrase). I just couldn't understand what all those little special pieces were for. I built the station once, took out all the basic blocks and threw them in the trunk, then put the kit away and haven't touched it since.

        I still have them. My kids love them. And I have no doubt their kids will too!

        • Re:Small Scale Death Star II? As opposed to what? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by JoshWurzel (320371) on Sunday January 25 2004, @04:59AM (#8080239) Homepage
          Oh jesus, people, quit your whining! I am so tired of everyone bitching about how special shapes are ruining lego. You know what? I *LOVE* the custom pieces. They add detail that I wouldn't be able to get otherwise.

          Not when there are so many that the entire set is 8 pieces. That's stupid. But on a large set (600+ pieces), I see nothing wrong with having custom parts. Look, I love to build models [mac.com]. But I'm at college, and I don't have a lot of room for that. Instead, I build large lego sets. Sure, they only take a few hours, but they take a lot less space to build and are no less beautiful to me. And if the 2100-piece rebel blockade runner has a custom piece for its radar, BIG FUCKING DEAL.

          That gorgeous 3000-piece star destroyer uses those "custom" magnets to hold the outer panels together. If it didn't, it'd be SOLID LEGO and weigh 42 tons. If you want to build everything out of the original shaped blocks, then every model lego sells is going to be the size of a small car.

          Apparently, I'm the only one on Slashdot who feels this way. Maybe its not the most creative/inventive thing I could do with those blocks, but its fun for me.

          • Re:Small Scale Death Star II? As opposed to what? (Score:4, Insightful)

            by John Courtland (585609) on Sunday January 25 2004, @06:07AM (#8080344)
            I finally figured out why I hate custom pieces, and this is as good of a place as any to say why. If you need more of a custom piece, you usually can't just scrounge from other sets. You need to buy that same set again. The magents you refer to aren't custom. They are used in MANY sets. I have probably 30-40 of them, and I used them all the time. It's mostly the smaller sets that contain just one or two of a custom piece that really are the targets of this "backlash" or sorts. Especially when a standard piece or a combination of standard pieces could have done in place of the custom one.
          • I don't mind the custom pieces in small numbers... And if the intent is to build a specific model then they are very necessary. What I mind is the fact that it is becoming increasingly difficult for me to find/buy just the regular blocks. Sure...building a blockade runner is fun, but what about when you just want to assemble pieces and see what you can come up with? Last time I was in a toy store 95% of the lego kits they had were "models" of various kinds. Airplanes, star wars stuff, space shuttles, p

        • Re:Small Scale Death Star II? As opposed to what? (Score:4, Informative)

          by einTier (33752) on Sunday January 25 2004, @03:10AM (#8080012)
          Capsela. They still [url=http://www.discoverthis.com/capsela.html]sell this stuff[/url].

          • Re:Small Scale Death Star II? As opposed to what? (Score:4, Interesting)

            by Quino (613400) on Sunday January 25 2004, @03:32AM (#8080061)
            Yup, I got as much use out of my Capsela set as my Lego sets as a kid.

            The really cool capsela bubbles (and the neat thing about Capsela besides being letting you build motorized cars, boats, etc.) was seeing the special gearing bubbles. The most fascinating was the worm-gear. One set would turn the other set very slowly, but man did it increase its torque. It was absolute magic to a kid -- I was amazed that the cheap-looking motors (powered by two AA batteries) could, when used with the worm-gear, turn a wheel so that it was hard to stop it with your hand. The transparent bubbles made it so that you could see how it worked (even if I didn't quite understand it at the time).

            Funny too, I remember being puzzled because I couldn't put the motor on the other end of the worm gear, and get a wheel that turned super fast (as I had orignially guessed)! But it did work great the other way around, with a slower, but magically more determined, wheel ...

            Ah, the memories!
    • Well once SDI is fully funded, Emperor Dubya, Grand Moff Cheney and Darth Rumsfeld are gonna give you a chance to see a fully armed and operational battlestation.....

      (BE

  • Girlfriend? (Score:5, Funny)

    by _w00d_ (129045) on Sunday January 25 2004, @12:34AM (#8079417)
    I'm guessing he doesn't have a girlfriend.

  • Huh (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Hyro (696546)
    No kidding... Too much time + genius + star wars geek= art

  • Great work. (Score:5, Funny)

    by blackwizard (62282) on Sunday January 25 2004, @12:34AM (#8079421)
    I think this guy's work is awesome. But I can't help but be reminded of a quote from a movie I saw recently, Pirates of the Carribean:

    Jack Sparrow: [looking at all the swords] Who makes all these?
    Will Turner: I do! And I practice with them three hours a day!
    Jack Sparrow: You need to find yourself a girl mate. Or perhaps the reason you practice three hours a day is that you already found one, and are otherwise incapable of wooing said strumpet. You're not a eunuch are you?

    (thanks imdb [imdb.com])

  • Slow already.. (Score:3, Funny)

    by njan (606186) on Sunday January 25 2004, @12:35AM (#8079424) Homepage
    ..and no comments. ;)

    I pity the poor webhost.

    Article is: here.

    Slashdottable large jpg files are: here and here.

    There's another large file for you to sap the life out of this server: here. ;)

    I have to say, though, it does look rather good :-D

  • So many hours you'll never get back (Score:4, Funny)

    by jbrader (697703) <jbrader@gmail.com> on Sunday January 25 2004, @12:35AM (#8079425)
    That is easily the coolest waste of time I have ever seen

  • Slashdotted (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 25 2004, @12:35AM (#8079431)
    Apparently his server is made out of Lego too...

  • Ahhh.. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 25 2004, @12:35AM (#8079432)
    Reminds me of the good ol days back when I was frozen in carbonite...

  • Image Mirror (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 25 2004, @12:37AM (#8079439)
    Here is a mirror for those 2 images:

    http://colo.fibersnet.net/solo6.jpg
    http://colo .fibersnet.net/solo11.jpg
  • I feel a great disturbance in the force ... almost as if a whole webserver cried out in agony as it was engulfed in flames.

        • Mods (and others), PLEASE READ THIS! (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Why should people listen to an Anonymous Coward?

          Because some of us want to make important points without having our Friends and Foes list distract others from what we have to say. There is a lot you can learn about someone here at Slashdot with just a few clicks. In fact, here's some things I have learned about you:

          Your recent posting history [slashdot.org] indicates a wild mix of highly-rated posts and low-rated posts. This tends to suggest that you are someone who karma-whores a lot. Your own thoughts usually br

  • Legos?? I have an easier way. (Score:5, Funny)

    by holnet (718265) on Sunday January 25 2004, @12:46AM (#8079475)
    How do we know those are really legos... Maybe he pushed a giant one of these pin art things [officeplayground.com] on some poor guy at Chuck E Cheese and then took a picture of his pain....

  • Lego show (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Sean Johnson (66456) on Sunday January 25 2004, @12:47AM (#8079480)
    I once went to the mall and saw a lego show where they had all these cool things made. A statue of liberty model about 4-5 ft high stands out in my mind. 'Twas a wee little boy of about ten or eleven. It made my own lego creations back home seem like nothing. I was soo proud of my own lego creations until that day. I was thinking, maybe if I make some cooler stuff, these guys would let me work for them making this stuff. Yes, at one point in my childhood I wanted to build with legos as a career. Didn't every young boy at one point or another?

  • Well (Score:5, Funny)

    by cubicledrone (681598) on Sunday January 25 2004, @12:51AM (#8079500)
    For anyone who doubted that any unpaid creative work or thinking is constantly belittled and laughed at, there you go.

  • Death Star (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Uncle Gropey (542219) on Sunday January 25 2004, @12:59AM (#8079531) Journal
    It's not Lego(R), but check out this Death Star [starwarz.com] that some guy made.

  • You know what I'd like to see? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Xpilot (117961) on Sunday January 25 2004, @01:33AM (#8079646) Homepage
    A *working* model of the Death Star. Now it doesn't have to be to scale, nor does it need to blow up an entire planet. I'll be sufficiently impressed if it's good enough to blow up a small city the size of, say, Redmond.

  • The questions I have to ask..... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Talking Toaster (695539) on Sunday January 25 2004, @01:52AM (#8079705)
    Nathan Sawaya built a life size replica of Han Solo frozen in carbonite.

    Does it contain Harrison Ford?

    Could it be modified to contain Harrison Ford?

    And this is redundant, but it is slashdotted already.
    Here is google cache [216.239.57.104]

  • Image Mirror (Score:5, Informative)

    by pr00f (457508) on Sunday January 25 2004, @02:13AM (#8079783) Homepage
    Here's a mirror of the referenced images:

    http://unbolted.llarian.net/lego/ [llarian.net]
    • It says he spends about $7,000 a year on LEGO bricks. From the articles, it sounds as if he gets most of them on eBay. $7,000 of used eBay LEGO bricks is a LOT of bricks.

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