Han Solo in Lego Carbonite

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."

Small Scale Death Star II? As opposed to what?

[blat.info]

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.

Re:Small Scale Death Star II? As opposed to what?

[RevRa]

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_ ?) :-)

Re:Small Scale Death Star II? As opposed to what?

[Uncle Gropey]

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

Re:Small Scale Death Star II? As opposed to what?

[Awptimus Prime]

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?

[DrLudicrous]

I find the 'fat and bald' bit incredibly entertaining.

Re:Small Scale Death Star II? As opposed to what?

[soft_guy]

Isn't it amazing the things adults will accuse children of that aren't true. And as kids we never got any justice.

I try not to jump to conclusions with my daughter, but unfortunately I'm not a school teacher and I don't work with children which makes me basically powerless to change anything.

Re:Small Scale Death Star II? As opposed to what?

[Awptimus Prime]

I used to just pee in the pool in retaliation for stupid things.

Re:Small Scale Death Star II? As opposed to what?

[kfg]

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?

[Glonoinha]

-I predate the American availability of Lego.

Holy cow. I had just assumed that Legos were part of the childhood toybox forever, like Crayons, toy guns, and fire. Thanks for the dose of reality.

Re:Small Scale Death Star II? As opposed to what?

[kfg]

When I was 5 or so it was still possible to walk through a well to do household and not see any plastic other than some knobs on appliances. Any rubber goods would be natural rubber mixed with carbon.

Unless you looked in the toy box. There you would find the familiar green plastic army men and plastic dolls. I still have the truck and cannon that came with the army men I received for my first birthday (sentimental value. They're the only birthday present I ever received from my father).

But the familiar Le

Re:Small Scale Death Star II? As opposed to what?

[irhtfp]

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?

[JoshWurzel]

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?

[John Courtland]

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.

Re:Small Scale Death Star II? As opposed to what?

[Ephemeriis]

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?

[mlush]

What I mind is the fact that it is becoming increasingly difficult for me to find/buy just the regular blocks.

You could just buy them bulk bulk [lego.com] and if you don't see what you want they do special orders

Re:Small Scale Death Star II? As opposed to what?

[bonch]

You're not the only one, although when I mentioned once that I liked custom pieces, I got modded down.

I grew up with Lego in the mid-80s, where it was a mix of basic blocks and custom blocks. So, you'd have big 4x4 bricks to make the police station, and then custom little motorcycles and a slope piece with a phone painted on it.

I never found a problem with it, and the pieces were quite usable with anything else I needed. I used those custom pieces everywhere--and so did Lego, actually. I used to examin

Re:Small Scale Death Star II? As opposed to what?

[jafuser]

I've been hoping for a long time now that they might come up with a smaller lego form factor, sort of the inverse size of Duplo.

This would allow us to make detailed models without having them be the "size of a small car" and still use mostly basic pieces.

Re:Small Scale Death Star II? As opposed to what?

[Monkelectric]

Do you recall those spheres that had 6 hexagonal connectors? You could build robots and space stations out of them ... now thats a toy!

Re:Small Scale Death Star II? As opposed to what?

[realdpk]

Yeah, Capsula or something like that. Those were awesome. When my parents got us the ones with motors, it was just so cool. It made me want motorized Lego though, which did not exist (that I'm aware of).

Re:Small Scale Death Star II? As opposed to what?

[Quino]

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!

Re:Small Scale Death Star II? As opposed to what?

[Afrosheen]

I think Lego started releasing the Technics kits around the same time as Capsela got popular, or a little afterwards. I never got to play with Capsela but a friend of mine got Technics kits for every holiday. Christmas, birthdays, you name it. I was so jealous of his dune buggy kit.

Later I ended up getting some Lego kit with the battery pack and a motor. It took massive D sized batteries (does anything use these anymore?) and was too heavy to engineer something small because the motor it drove was weak.

Re:Small Scale Death Star II? As opposed to what?

[einTier]

Capsela. They still [url=http://www.discoverthis.com/capsela.html]sell this stuff[/url].

Re:Small Scale Death Star II? As opposed to what?

[Monkelectric]

ohHHH those look cool to. I think I'm going to ebay some and build a stand for my speak-n-spell :)

Re:Small Scale Death Star II? As opposed to what?

[Yakman]

A lot of Mindstorms stuff is built with standard, albeit Technics, bricks (and gears, axles, etc). I'd still consider those traditional components, Technics has been around since 1977.

Re:Small Scale Death Star II? As opposed to what?

[Darth23]

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

Re:Small Scale Death Star II? As opposed to what?

[inertia187]

Your bold statement got me thinking. What if the Death Star II from Return of the Jedi was actually the Death Star III. And the one from A New Hope was really Death Star II. That would allow for there to be an original Death Star prototype in Episode III that was not fully armed perhaps.

Re:Small Scale Death Star II? As opposed to what?

[tuffy]

I'm just waiting for George Lucas to have Alderaan shoot first in the next special edition.

Re:Small Scale Death Star II? As opposed to what?

[Fjord]

There's always this [ucsc.edu]

Of course, this [dervishdukot.org] was better from a technical perspective, IMO. Ken Starr as Vader is quite good, as is the cigar.

Re:Small Scale Death Star II? As opposed to what?

[juhaz]

Yeah, I'm still waiting for that full-size Lego replica of Death Star.

Re:Small Scale Death Star II? As opposed to what?

[inertia187]

It's like the Soviet Russian guy I guess. Not as funny though.

In Soviet Russia, Han Solo whacks you!

Girlfriend?

[_w00d_]

I'm guessing he doesn't have a girlfriend.

<artificial breathing>

[bersl2]

I find your lack of faith disturbing.

Re:

[mog007]

The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant, next to the power of the Lego.

Re:

[tgd]

And neither does he.

Re:Girlfriend?

[Tablizer]

I'm guessing he doesn't have a girlfriend.

If he did, this surely ended it.

"Look sweety! Look what I built..........honey? HONEY! Come baaaaack!"

"Fuck! It's just you and me again, Han buddy."

Re:Girlfriend?

[IainMH]

Han (and) Solo. ;-)

Re:Girlfriend?

[mroch]

Not anymore... he used her as a mold for Han!

Re:Girlfriend?

[cptgrudge]

I'm guessing he doesn't have a girlfriend.

Actually, from reading on his site, he does have a girlfriend, plus a six-figure salary as a lawyer. But he might give it all up, move from New York to California, and take a sixth of the pay to be a Lego Master Builder.

That's dedication.

Here [nathanbrickartist.com] is the article that he talks of his dreams of Lego.

Re:Girlfriend?

[kris]

In fact, the Lego Master Builder contest is over, and Lego did choose not one, but three new Master Builders. One of them is him, and he is currently moving from east coast to San Diego.

Re:Girlfriend?

[paulcammish]

Looks like he is giving it up, as hes got the job of Lego Master Builder!

http://www.legomasterbuilder.com/release1.php [legomasterbuilder.com]

Yay for him - theres some VERY nice sculpture on his site, and maybe with the Star Wars influence, he'll become a... sorry... Jedi Master Builder...

Girlfriend: Negative.

[Benwick]

We have found it. The geekiest piece of art in the history of the universe.

I'll have these babies on the market while he's still wrestling with the pickle matrix... mgl'hey...

Re:Girlfriend?

[brocktune]

His nickname is Hand Solo.

Huh

[Hyro]

No kidding... Too much time + genius + star wars geek= art

Great work.

[blackwizard]

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])

Re:Great work.

[4minus0]

You're not a eunuch are you?

No sir, we prefer to be referred to as eunuch-like if you don't mind. ;)

Re:Great work.

[GreggBert]

Isn't that supposed to be GNU/Eunuch ?

Re:Great work.

[Deraj DeZine]

You're not a eunuch are you?

Better watch out, SCO owns all references to eunuchs...

Slow already..

[njan]

..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

Re:Slow already..

[blat.info]

I had flashbacks of the old 60's Batman sound effects:

Article is: here. *POW*

Slashdottable large jpg files are: here and here. *BIFF*

Re:Slow already..

[MonkeyBoyUk]

Piccies mirrored here:

solo11.jpg [port.ac.uk]
solo6.jpg [port.ac.uk]

I felt a great disturbance in the Force...

[Gleng]

...as if a webserver cried out in terror, and was suddenly silenced.

I fear something terrible has happened.

Re:Slow already..

[Gabrill]

You killed my website! [p][p]No, Luke! I am your Slashdot!

So many hours you'll never get back

[jbrader]

That is easily the coolest waste of time I have ever seen

Slashdotted

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently his server is made out of Lego too...

Re:Slashdotted

[nocomment]

Apparently his server is made out of Lego too...

here's a mirror [kingcountyjournal.com].

Re:Slashdotted

[nocomment]

By the way, feel free to pound the parent mirror. It's on a T1 that won't be used for much till Monday. I will be pulling the mirror then though. Till then...have fun!

Re:Slashdotted

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Here, let me help you... just copy this script and use it with libwww.

#!/usr/bin/perl

print "Apparently his server is made out of $TOPIC too..."

Re:Slashdotted

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Link [24.125.12.101].

Never bothered to change my sig after Hurricane Isabel powered my cable modem off for 11 days.

Full mirror

[CowboyMeal]

Here's [rit.edu] a mirror of the entire site.

Ahhh..

[Anonymous Coward]

Reminds me of the good ol days back when I was frozen in carbonite...

Re:Ahhh..

[Some Bitch]

You had carbonite? Oh you youngsters have no idea how lucky you *SLAP*

OW! What was that for?

Re:Ahhh..

[Carbonite]

You were frozen in me? Liar...

Image Mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is a mirror for those 2 images:

http://colo.fibersnet.net/solo6.jpg
http://colo .fibersnet.net/solo11.jpg

Re:Image Mirror

[Tumbleweed]

Hmmm...colo'd Solo! Nice.

/.'ed already

[Ignorant Aardvark]

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!

[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

Parent is offtopic and flamebait

[Anonymous Coward]

Your recent posting history indicates a wild mix of highly-rated posts and low-rated posts.

That's not Karma whoring, that's exactly how it should work. Here's a relevent quote [slashdot.org] from Slashdot's FAQ:

Karma fluctuates dramatically as users post, moderate, and meta-moderate. Don't let it bother you. It's just a number in the database.

There is absolutely no reason to penalize someone to the degree you suggest (foes listing) for posting an old rehashed joke. That's what metamoderation is for. Of course, yo

slashdot don't bother

[circletimessquare]

links are also frozen in carbonite

Open up the way

[Aliencow]

For some "Har har, his web server must be made of LEGOs ! ROFL!" jokes...

We're almost there people!

[Anonymous Coward]

We just need an article about a "Commemorative Mac Classic Lego Built Case Mod Landing On Mars" and the topics will have completely overlapped themselves.

Legos?? I have an easier way.

[holnet]

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

[Sean Johnson]

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?

Re:Lego show

[fliplap]

its still a dream. Although, I've read enough over the years to know it unlikely. And with the recent contest/interviews I've all but completely given up hope

Re:Lego show

[BrynM]

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.

I believe it lives at the Lego Store [go.com] at Disneyland [disneyland.com] in Anaheim, CA with the rest of the New York skyline. The store is in Downtown Disney between the hotel and the park. I saw it last year, but it's not listed on the site so it may not be there any more. They also have 23 foot giraffe, a life size Bionicle, life size Darth Vader, life size Boba Fett and

Well

[cubicledrone]

For anyone who doubted that any unpaid creative work or thinking is constantly belittled and laughed at, there you go.

I guess that the fact...

[Anonymous Coward]

... that we now have two functioning probes on Mars for the first time since the Viking missions of the 1970s isn't quite as interesting to the Slashdot editors as some chucklehead with too many Legos and too much time on his hands. :(

Re:I guess that the fact...

[maxpublic]

And in that you'd be right. Mars, shmars, this guy can do some really cool art in legos! Much better than a bunch of geeks dropping a super-expensive remote-control car on one of the most boring planets in the solar system.

Max

Re:I guess that the fact...

[Tumbleweed]

Maybe he could make a LEGO(tm) Mars? :)

Death Star

[Uncle Gropey]

It's not Lego(R), but check out this Death Star [starwarz.com] that some guy made.

Heavy duty...

[Akki]

That thing probably weighs about as much as a slab of carbonate, too.

Here's the plan ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Saturday night ... 1:32am ...
You guys go look at LEGOs ... I'll go back to looking at porn.

You know what I'd like to see?

[Xpilot]

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.

Re:You know what I'd like to see?

[hawaiian717]

I'll be sufficiently impressed if it's good enough to blow up a small city the size of, say, Redmond.

Troi: Captain, I'm picking up hostile intentions.

Oh, wait... wrong show.

Re:You know what I'd like to see?

[EmagGeek]

"Troi: Captain, I'm picking up hostile intentions."

Riker: Wait a minute! I don't understand!

Crusher: Captain, I'm picking up an energy buildup in the middle of the city. I don't know what that means, but it might be a weapon of some kind.

Worf: AAAARRRRGGGHHHHHHH!

Picard: Data, analysis

Data: Curious.

Picard: That's not analysis, Mr. Data.

Data: Apologies, Captain.

Picard: That isn't, either.

Riker: Wait a minute! I don't understand!

Data: Sensors detect high levels of Proprietary Software in the city the

Re:You know what I'd like to see?

[whiteranger99x]

Well, if you going to pit the Death Star against Redmond, it's only fair if you match it up with this [chello.be] ;)

Re:You know what I'd like to see?

[metlin]

I was actually thinking more along the lines of a certain place in Utah?

Then we could perhaps call it Operation: Santa Cruz and do the world a favour.

Oh the irony of the dilemma!

the obligatory qutoe

[Tumbleweed]

The ability to blow up Microsoft is _insignificant_ next to the power of the Force.

The questions I have to ask.....

[Talking Toaster]

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

[pr00f]

Here's a mirror of the referenced images:

http://unbolted.llarian.net/lego/ [llarian.net]

Hope he can...

[Comatose51]

Hope he can build a web server out of LEGOs... He's going to need it now.

I torrented it!

[JThundley]

The web site is getting a little slow, so I actually made a torrent of the star wars lego pictures and pages.
Download the torrent here [homelinux.com].

This may be overkill, but at least I'll get experience. I'm hosting this shit myself, so send me some input or post back :)

What I am waiting for...

[Black Art]

is the Han Solo TV dinner.

Well, he looks like one...

Re:the least they could do is

[kfg]

put episodes 1 & 2 in frozen carbonite...boy they were horrid!

You liked them that much, huh? Well, there's no accounting for taste.

KFG

I'm sorry

[KalvinB]

I didn't realize the world stopped revolving.

Maybe you would like to discuss Mars 24 hours a day but I don't. Other things do happen you know that are interesting to talk about as well.

MOLA->BT [icarusindie.com] Everything you need to know to get MOLA data converted over to the BT format to be loaded into a terrain engine.

It's quite facinating when you realize the entire city of Phoenix could fit into one of those larger craters. Many people find it hard to fathom just how bad it would be if Earth got hit by a decen

Re:Where's the money ?

[einTier]

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.

Re:Sad state of affairs with Legos

[einTier]

Though I have fond memories of LEGO Town LEGO bricks, I really think that around 1984 was the beginning of the end. Some specialized bricks aren't bad, wheels are definately nice for something more than just a static structure. Maxi and Mini-figs are nice when you're a kid as well, as it give you a population to build for (or in my case, mutilate with strange weapons of destruction).

But somewhere shortly after the minifigs, it went very, very wrong. Too many special pieces. Too many things that could

Re:What is it with /. and Star Wars ?

[Jacer]

Duh! It's simple. We don't like Star Wars at all, we just want light sabers. Face it, while it isn't god's gift to cinema, jedi are god's gift to science fiction. Every nerds wet dream.

Re:What is it with /. and Star Wars ?

[EmagGeek]

"Movies have improved dramatically over the last 30 years"

Yeah, no kidding! Look at the NEW star wars movies... Simplistic plot, one-dimensional characters, poor acting, but WOW, look at the effects and color!! They're amazing!

Re:Wow

[Pidder]

something tells me that a lawyer with a six figure salary is very likely to get a date if he wanted to.

Re:Lego Animation

[HalfFlat]

There's always Star Lego [6nema.com]. Which is simply a classic.