Lego "Maxifig"!

[Mifune73]

Not quite cardstock, but...

Life-Size LEGO Figure Is Cool, Cardboard - Geekologie

My twin boys birthday is coming up in May, and they want a "Lego Star Wars" birthday theme. Oy vey! I downloaded SketchUp and found a very accurate Lego minifig model on the Google SketchUp forums. Then I exported it to both .dxf and 3DS. I hope to able to unfold the curves somehow and replicate this guy's efforts without having to measure a Lego minifig with dial calipers. A swap out to the head, several cans of gold spray paint, and voila! One life sized Lego C3P0 to greet the kids as they arrive for the party. If I can actually pull this stunt off, I'll post pics. Any recommendations for unfolding the curves?

[Soaring]

Seriously, I have no idea what you did. I'm still fascinated however...

[B-Manic]

Pepakura should be able to unfold it. You will probably have to tweak it, unless the designer was very precise creating the Sketchup models. Then you can scale it up to life size. That will probably require breaking down some of the parts into smaller pieces. There are paper (freebee) Starwars characters (R2D2 and 3CPO etc) on the net that you could scale up also. Either way I look forward to seeing what you come up with.

~ cheers
Douglas

[Mifune73]

Yeah, actually I came to the same conclusion. For the head, I think I'll scale up Uhu's K-3P0 to life size using cardstock, then hit it with some wood hardener, before giving it the gold spray paint. I also, noticed that Shun-pop has a really good R2-D2 model now... Hmmm. Do I need to sleep between now and the end of May?

[motokid]

i would love to build one also... can you tell me where you got the sketchup model of the man or send it to me?
thanks!!

Jasson

[Mifune73]

LEGO® Man by J-m@n - Google 3D Warehouse

If I can get caught up on work, I'm going to try and do the head full scale this weekend. I've done a rough unfolding of the body, but I want to go back and do some serious cleanup work before posting any pics.

[Mifune73]

Ran out time due to work being all encompassing, so I had to go with a hybrid the night before. What you see is made from the head, taken from Uhu's kit scaled up approx. 20x; a body scratch built from scrapped cardboard, and the arms made from pool noodles. And about 2 cans of gold spraypaint. Yes, I know that the head is falling off, and yes I know that he isn't anywhere close to 6 feet tall. But he was almost 3 feet. The kids thought he was hysterical, and my wife scratch made some "Lego blocks" for the party out of leftover boxes and more pool noodles. For a start to finish run of 12 hours, I think it's OK. Could I do better? Sure...when I retire. Thoughts, comments, condolences?

[Soaring]

Excellent work! So that's nearly 3 feet? I thought that was an actual Lego CP-30

[logicman]

Great stuff!

12 hours? I couldn't do that in 12 weeks.

Not sure I understand 'pool noodles'.

Sounds like a rather Shakespearian description of the sort of people
who put the cue through the cloth.

[redhorse]

That's pretty cool. I'm really impressed!

[jparenti]

Great job! I always wished I had giant Legos when I was young. Still do, actually...
Pool noodles are large pool toys made out of a dense foam. They're generally cylindrical and about five feet long and four or five inches in diameter. They'll float a 300 lb man, I swear. We used to try to sink them when I was a kid. You could seriously build a raft out of these things.
Nice Shakespeare reference, BTW.

[logicman]

Thanks, jparenti.

We have stuff like that to lag our water pipes with.
Glad you enjoyed the 'shakespearian' phrase.

Mifune73: thank you for sharing.

Just an idea, our grey lagging wouldn't cut it, but with those
pool noodles, you could make: Bertie Bassett

(Lots more pictures on the web)