Barriss Offee

Barriss Offee, a photo by s.kosoris on Flickr.

I originally got a Barriss Offee minifig for another project. I had never heard of her before and so had no qualms about taking the minifigure apart. But then somewhere along the way, I discovered this picture, which really intrigued me. A jedi using the force to heal? This is the type of thing I imagined Master Yoda doing (before his lightsaber duel sort of ruined that image of him for me). I liked the idea of a jedi who doesn't fight (and doesn't have a lightsaber), but instead can heal and do other mysterious things with the Force. I realize that in Star Wars, the real Barriss Offee does have a lightsaber, but I've refused to get one for my minifig.

This shot was a long time in the making. After I saw the aforementioned picture, I thought that Yoda's Hut would be the perfect backdrop! I acquired Yoda's Hut a long time ago from ebay, but haven't had a chance to use it before now (again, it was purchased for another project, different from the one I wanted Barriss Offee for. I just haven't had time to shoot it yet). I also wanted a large chunk of time to shoot this picture, knowing I would need time to get everything posed right (and I'd probably need to take multiple shots). I was planning on shooting something else tonight (one of my minifigure portraits for my Faces of Lego set) when I found the picture sitting with my Lego collection. Having the needed time, I decided that now was the perfect time to attempt this.

I originally had a larger trans blue piece for Barriss to hold (as the force magic), but it was too large and looked funny. Luckily the end of Mr. Freeze's gun worked perfectly!
I took over 30 shots with my Canon. I had it narrowed down to four before ultimately choosing this one. I originally had a shot uploaded where I had the trans blue piece really sparkling (thanks to multiple flashlights!), which looked really neat. But I ended up going with this one because I liked the lighting way better on the rest of the shot.
If you know who the artist of the original picture is, please let me know so I can give proper credit!

Thanks!

Just wanted to say thank you to whomever bought a copy of "Grab That Scorpion!" from my Red Bubble site! Your support is greatly appreciated!!!!

Thank You!

Just a quick shout out to whomever bought a copy of "Ahoy There!" from my Red Bubble site yesterday! Your support means a lot to me; thank you so much!

Another Thank You!

I just wanted to say thank you to the two people who bought some of my photos this past week from my Red Bubble site! Someone bought a copy of "Lego Boba Fett Macro," and then a few days later someone else bought a copy of "Yoda on the Dock." Thank you both so much!

Thank You!!!

A big thank you to whomever purchased a greeting card of "Yoda on the Dock" from my Red Bubble site! Your support is greatly appreciated!!!

Ninja Attack! recreated with Lego

Ever since recreating "Red vs Blue" and "Aw Shit!" I've thought about shooting "Ninja Attack!" But life got in the way and it just never happened. Today a friend came over to play through Halo 2; once he left, I didn't feel like playing video games anymore (especially Halo), so instead I turned to photography. I dug out all the pieces I thought I would need (as well as a couple of extra pieces that didn't end up making it into the finished photo) and set to work on staging this. I only have one white Spartan, which was a bit of an issue because there are two in the original photo. In the end I decided to make the front Spartan blue; it was more important to me that the background Spartan be white because that just happens to be one of my good friends. Besides, blue works for the whole "red vs blue" war that is Halo multiplayer.

Once that was decided, I set to work. I grabbed one of the large gray cave pieces and decorated it with random flora. The original has a couple of bare branches in the bottom left corner, so I took a couple of the branch pieces from the Dark Forest set Bandit Ambush; unfortunately they never made it into the finished shot (being a macro, they just didn't fit into the frame).

The next problem I had was making the red Spartan hover in the air. In the end I used some clear pieces (which are mostly hidden behind the blue Spartan). I later had the red Spartan standing on a thin 1x3 piece to better hide the clear pieces behind the blue Spartan, which worked rather well. The background is "In the Woods" which was also used for "None Shall Pass!" I was really excited when I noticed the trees in the original's background. They're rather faint, but they really reminded me of "In the Woods" so I thought that was perfect. Unfortunately I then had to fight with placing it properly. From the angle I shot this, you could see above the actual picture in many of the shots I took (as in "None Shall Pass!" and like "Loading Slave 1," this background is a printed version of "In the Woods." I taped it onto my usual black background, but the printed picture is smaller than my usual background). The cave piece already had to be elevated so you could see it properly from this angle; the background had to be even higher than the cave. Luckily a couple of stacks of books came to the rescue!

The one thing missing from my Lego recreation is the bubble shield. In "Red vs Blue," I used cellophane. I had every intention of doing the same here, but when I tried, I didn't really like the results. I thought that the blurry background that this shot had in macro worked just as well, so I left it at that.

So long story short, the Lego version is just an interpretation of the Halo screenshot. But that's totally okay with me; I'm really happy with how this shot turned out.

As usual, "Ninja Attack!" is on my Flickr photostream.

Your Best Shot 2011

It's that time of year again: time for Flickr's Your Best Shot group, where you get to post your best shot of the year. This time around, I decided to give it to "Squid Warrior." Originally I polled family and friends with a list of eleven pictures I took during the year; these eleven pictures did not include any of my Lego shots. "Sunset on the Rails" came out as the clear winner based off of my poll.

So about a week ago, I went to post "Sunset on the Rails" to the group. After doing so, I attempted to write this post about it. But the more I thought about it, the more I decided that "Sunset on the Rails" wasn't my best shot of the year. For me it was really a toss up between "Squid Warrior" and "So Be It, Jedi," both of which were backgrounds for my laptop this year ("Squid Warrior," the newer of the two, is still my laptop's background picture). It was really tough deciding between the two pictures, but in the end I decided that "Squid Warrior" was what I consider to be my best shot of the year. So today I submitted it the the Your Best Shot 2011 group on Flickr.

If you'd like to see my previous winners, check out My Best Shots, the set I created to showcase the pictures I've submitted to the last three Your Best Shot groups.