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These Lego "Star Wars" Photographs Are Incredible

Small scenes, big galaxy. Via Vesa Lehtimäki.

Vesa Lehtimäki, AKA Avanaut, is a Finnish photographer who creates stunningly realistic images using Star Wars Lego figures.

Letimäki told BuzzFeed: "My plan was to simply document my kid’s toys, to save them in photographs before they break, are given away or just vanish."

"In July 2009, I uploaded some Star Wars action figure photographs to Flickr to try out the platform and I found it very interesting."

"A little later I photographed some Lego snowtroopers in snow and I just got stuck with that."

"I use lots of Blu Tac. In some cases I’ve glued the minifigure down with hot glue. If there’s a blizzard in the photo, it was really there when I shot it."

“If there’s a moon in the sky, it’s there, not photoshopped in later. I have, however, photoshopped dust off from shiny surfaces and removed suspending threads or rods.”

"Shots can take anywhere from one hour to four years. Sometimes a simple idea is shot and posted within an hour, it’s not all that common, though."

"I’d say a photograph usually takes one evening, about six - eight hours from setup to upload."

"The hardest part is trying to be original, to come up with ideas that haven’t been around yet, but with so many people doing this these days, it’s getting harder and harder."

"I’ve had a couple of photographs up in Flickr thinking I nailed it, only to find out that the idea had been done before. If this happens, I add a link to the one that beat me."

"A favourite is The Last Ship to Rendezvous. It doesn’t look spectacular on Flickr, but I recently saw it printed on metallic paper, mounted on a huge acrylic plate and the atmosphere in that was just dreamy."

Lego Star Wars: Small Scenes From A Big Galaxy by Vesa Lehtimäki is out now.

The book is out November 10 in the US