What if Star Wars invaded our cities!

by Ben | Jun 29, 2015 | Other cool Stars Wars stuff!

What if Star Wars invaded our cities!

On huffingtonpost.com, artist Nicolas Amiard (who is an an art director at an ad agency based in Paris) posted photos that he created of what would happen if our world was invaded by Star Wars.

What amazing pictures!

London, England:

New York City:

Venice, Italy:

Paris, France:

Rio de Janeiro:

Tokyo, Japan:

Moscow, Russia:

San Francisco:

I would say that these photos that Nicolas Amiard has made are pretty cool and very well thought out. I like how the photos look so realistic; it makes me think that if a clone star destroyer really crashed near San Francisco it would make a good tourist attraction.

Astromech.net: Cool community for robot builders

by Ben | Jun 14, 2015 | Other cool Stars Wars stuff!

At the Dallas Comic Con, I met the great folks of the Astromech.net website. The site is a community for robot builders. Astromech.net focuses on how people around the world use plans to build their very own remote controlled astromech droids. Droids can either be based on the ones from the Star Wars movies, the cartoon series or more futuristic astromech droids that have not been seen in the movies or in the cartoon.

Created by folks around the world, these astromech droids can be R2, R3, R4, R5 units, etc. When creating an astromech droid you can have it look just like R2-D2 or have it look like a kind of droid with a different head, color, name, or differently shaped eye cam—or perhaps a mix of two colors. Here is an example of a fan-built R2 unit I came across at the Dallas Comic Con.

The Astromech site has different sections like forums (and chat rooms) that talk about building new droids like BB-8, for example, from The Force Awakens.  Other sections on this site include a FAQ, a Gallery (where you can look at images of R2-D2 and all kinds of the other astromech droids from the movies, cartoons, and in real life), a droid wiki page that discusses droid origins, and a Yahoo group that contains blueprints of what droid that you want to build. The droid wiki page does also include a droid registry page that contains two pages of a list of droids, features, location etc.

On a the droid wiki page of how to build R2-D2 there was link that goes to a site called starwars.wiki.com. On this site it has everything that you can learn more about Artoo’s information, description, known features, and biography for example. The Astromech site even has a quick style chooser at the bottom of the page which allows you to pick standard styles or mobile styles to change the appearance of the site to what you want it to look like.

All in all, Astromech.net is cool site. Anyone who is interested in building new droids should check it out!

Ultrasabers.com: Custom built lightsabers!

by Ben | Jun 14, 2015 | Other cool Stars Wars stuff!

While looking around Dallas Comic Con convention, I met another great vender, Ultrasabers.com. This company sells custom designed lightsaber to call your own. Or you can buy off-the-shelf lightsaber designs that have already been constructed.

I played with some of their designs and it turns out that these aren’t anything like the lightsabers that you find in toy stores. Ultrasabers have different colored lights, offer a variety of sounds, and are constructed to be more like a real lightsaber. I noticed that one of the lightsabers in particular looked exactly like the one that the hooded figure (the newest Dark Jedi) was holding in the trailer for the movie, The Force Awakens.

This new lightsaber looked something like a traditional sword with a cross-guard. Normally other lightsabers  do not have any cross-guards on them, so I was impressed that this one did.  Even cooler: the cross-guard on the saber was also in lazar mode so it lights up just like the blade of the lightsaber itself. Here’s a look at the handle:

So how much do these lightsabers cost? According to the website, they run about $150 to $419. You can choose the simplest, no sound option or go all out for a custom design. They let you choose:

• hilts
• bodies
• pommels
• emitters
• sound effect
• end caps
• complete hilts

As an example, you could by a pre-made design that looks like Obi-Wan’s old lightsaber for about $169. This includes a choice of five blade colors and a polycarbonate blade. You can choose the length and type of blade, finish (extra for nickel plating), tip style (round or pointed) and a couple option features. Unfortunately, there are a lot of choices, some that require an additional charge, and you’ll need to read up on some of the options like battery type and such. Once you add it all up, this could be significantly more expensive than the base price.

The website shows that it’s also running a summer deals sale for free initiate sabers along with a discount code “FREEINITIATE”. The site even has some featured videos that show you commercials, how the lightsabers work, what they look like on the inside, how to add/remove a lightsaber blade, and about the new productions that have just hit the market. The FAQ page on the website uses featured videos (along with text) to help answer peoples questions when they’re asking about the lightsabers. Some of the products of where each different lightsaber comes from are named Menace, Flamberge, Chosen One, Scorpion, Sentinel, Apprentice v4, etc.

Here’s a quick video of the Ultrasabers:

Here is another video about how to add/remove a lightsaber blade: