These photos of 'Star Wars' ships on Earth are mesmerizing
"I saw the first movie in its theater run back in 1977," Vesa Lehtimäki told Business Insider. "For my generation, that's like Woodstock."
As a kid, Lehtimäki bought scale models and built them. Later, they made their way into cardboard boxes where they collected dust for four decades.
In 2009, Lehtimäki began photographing his son's "Star Wars" LEGO toys and rediscovered his passion for the franchise. He also dug up his old scale models.
Since then, his growing collection of "Star Wars" scale models has dwarfed that of his son.
Though the photos don't look doctored, the models are mostly 1/72-scale of the battleships.
He paints them by hand, adding an abundance of detail that shines in photographs but wasn't necessary for wide shots in the movies.
Lehtimäki has two ways of shooting scale models so they look believable. The first involves dragging the toy on location.
He photographs the model on a table against a backdrop and then removes the table in Photoshop.
Other times, Lehtimäki captures the background and model separately. He combines the images in Photoshop.
The second approach is harder because he has to match the lighting and angles in two shots.
Many of Lehtimäki's photographs are set in a snowy landscape, reminiscent of the fictional ice planet Hoth. He substitutes baking powder for real frost.
Lehtimäki's favorite shot, titled "My Kind of Winter Wonderland," uses a 1/24-scale X-wing fighter that's a part-for-part replica of the ones used for filming the first "Star Wars" movie.
He modified the build with a custom brass landing gear and a cockpit outfitted with fiber optics. The paint job looks perfectly weathered.
His studio-scale Y-wing fighter is one of 44 units ever made. The original builders harvested parts from over 50 scale-model kits sold during the late 1960s and mid-1970s.
The studio-scale Y-wing fighter and the five-foot-wide Millennium Falcon are what Lehtimäki calls the holy grails of "Star Wars" scale models.
While Lehtimäki claims no photo is perfect, we're grateful for the chance to live the life of a Rebellion pilot vicariously.
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