TheBear Posted January 28, 2014 Posted January 28, 2014 With all this talk of a new cantina set I was curious, how big would a cantina have to be to fit in everyone from the movie? The best reference for the cantina is this site. Not only does it have a full list of characters but it has a really good map of the floor plan and a best guess of where everyone is standing. I’m going with his “movie accurate” floor plan which consists of the main bar with 6 large alcoves around it, plus the slightly smaller alcoves behind the bar, and the main entrance. Using placeholder figures for everyone I started off with the bar. It turned out to be a lot bigger than I was expecting, but the bar in the movie is actually huge. Using the size of the bar as a guide I then started sizing up the alcoves. The 6 main alcoves can be treated as being identical, except for the placement of the furniture and windows, so this is a nice modular component. Unfortunately there is no Lego element that can give us the nice deep arch of the alcoves so I have gone with 12x3 arches combined with straight sides. One of these alcoves contains the bandstand with the seven Modal Nodes, the others contain one or two round tables and the side chairs. This size seems to be big enough to accommodate that and fit in all the people that are supposed to be in each one. Finally I built up the smaller alcoves behind the bar and a rough main entrance and hooked it all together. Just for fun I put in placeholders for every known person in the cantina in the places they are supposed to be. I'm afraid my placeholder figures are rather poor because I just used whatever I had to hand. The nice thing about this floor plan is that not only does it have the possibility of being modular but if each module was put on it's own plates then it has the possibility of opening out in a straight line just like the official set. Plus, parts can easily be removed for photography or play. How close did I manage to get to the movie? I took these comparison shots to find out. I am fairly happy with these. Although it seems it is still slightly too small to get accurate angles it is the best I could do and for me it is close enough. Of course, building a cantina is the easy part, populating it is a lot more difficult. There are about 80 different characters in the cantina and only a fraction of them are represented in Lego form. Even with the new Bith and Ithorian heads coming this year, customs are the only way to go for a lot of the aliens and probably always will be. I honestly don’t know if I will ever complete this which is why I am posting it now, but I plan to slowly work on it over the long term. Quote
tkatt Posted January 28, 2014 Posted January 28, 2014 Thanks for sharing this. I hope the designers of the official cantina set have put as much thought into it as you have. Quote
Sir Brickalot Posted January 28, 2014 Posted January 28, 2014 Nice attention to detail when recreating those scenes! Quote
New_guy Posted January 28, 2014 Posted January 28, 2014 This is going to look awesome when you are finished. Good luck and have fun. Quote
TomatoSoup Posted January 28, 2014 Posted January 28, 2014 it already looks marvelous! doing a great job here, can't wait for the final touches! Quote
WaysofSorting Posted January 28, 2014 Posted January 28, 2014 Really really great - I am envious of this model - I really like the approach and planning you took to staring this build. I am going to have to go back to some urban planning books and finding some realistic floor plans! Quote
DonBrizzel Posted January 28, 2014 Posted January 28, 2014 The attention to detail in the characters is what makes this special in my eyes. Very nice work! Quote
Dayton Posted January 28, 2014 Posted January 28, 2014 This is going great! You should add a tan floor and an exterior next! Quote
TheBear Posted January 29, 2014 Author Posted January 29, 2014 Thanks for the comments everyone, it makes me more determined to keep going. Quote
Diaaabo Posted January 29, 2014 Posted January 29, 2014 This is an awesome project, I'm looking forward for it's complection! Quote
tman684 Posted January 30, 2014 Posted January 30, 2014 Wow! Great concept! I am very disappointed with the cantina they are releasing this year. I've waited so long, and the set looks terrible. You're layout is great! I love the crowd in the cantina, it is my favorite part of Star Wars. I can't wait to see if you continue this project. The thought just hit me, I have a bunch of tan pieces set aside for a mansion I was constructing. As much as I love my project, I may scrap it and make a Cantina instead! Thanks for the inspiration! Quote
gavralcraw Posted February 10, 2014 Posted February 10, 2014 Keep at it! Looks great as a base! Quote
Swan Dutchman Posted February 10, 2014 Posted February 10, 2014 Oh, this is looking very good! I love the comparison pics. If you really want to match lego minifigures to the movie characters why not make the characters yourself? There's some nice tips and tricks in the minifig customizations workshop thread. Quote
Pop Bumper Pete Posted February 11, 2014 Posted February 11, 2014 I have a book full of Star wars blueprints you cantina is very acurate Quote
TheBear Posted February 11, 2014 Author Posted February 11, 2014 Thanks for the comments. If you really want to match lego minifigures to the movie characters why not make the characters yourself? I would love to but it is not easy and I doubt I could produce anything at a level I would be happy with. On the other hand my test shots have proved that things can be less than perfect and still look ok in a dark and crowded scene. At the moment I'm just focusing on finishing the building, I am struggling to figure out how to get a smoother curve on the bar at the required size and thickness. Quote
TheBear Posted May 31, 2014 Author Posted May 31, 2014 I've been very slowly working on this on and off. For a long time I was stuck with the sizing of the alcoves. I knew they should be a bit bigger, but I was pretty happy with the size of the tables so I couldn't figure out how to make the alcove bigger without making the tables too far away from the chairs. In the movie you never really see an alcove clearly in any kind of detail so it is actually pretty hard to figure out how they are laid out. After a lot of searching I finally found what I was looking for in a shot from the deleted scenes. It turns out that the tables and the windows aren't centred in the alcoves! This isn't at all obvious from the shots in the movie, so nearly all the models I have seen (both Lego and otherwise) put the tables in the centre and end up with the alcove being too small. With this piece of information I was finally able to move forward. I made the alcove two studs wider and made the curve more accurate using inverted slopes. With the alcoves wider I made the bar slightly wider and longer, which seems to work better when trying to fit everyone in. For a while now I have been working on the dispensers and piping at the bar which is by far the hardest part of this build. Getting accurate information on the layout of the bar was surprisingly hard. Using a combination of movie stills and production shots I have been able to figure out the position of all the dispensers and the major sections of piping but I still have some way to go to implementing it. Just to show how big this thing is, here it is next to the new cantina set. This is not intended as a criticism of the set, I think it is good for what it is, but it seems tiny next to something close to true minifigure scale. Now I am focused on finishing the bar and adding two more alcoves on the right hand side. I have found this build to be difficult since I am fairly new to MOCing, but I am pleased that I am slowly making progress and haven't given up! Quote
BJM Posted May 31, 2014 Posted May 31, 2014 Love it. Ok Hoth and the Death Star hanger seem to be the ultimate scenes to MOC, but like you, I have always loved the cantina, and am going to pick up 2 sets and somehow work on mocing up something smaller than your efforts. My trouble is that I have no tan lego. Does anyone know any good big sets that I could ebay for arches and walls etc??? Possibly some prince of persia or Indiana Jones sets? Would love any answers. I reckon you will end up with something looking very great - and I have loved this thread and cannot wait for more... good luck, Quote
rollermonkey Posted May 31, 2014 Posted May 31, 2014 (edited) We always knew that the cantina was a lot bigger on the inside than the outside made it seem. Must have been some Time Lord assistance in construction. Edited June 1, 2014 by rollermonkey Quote
emilstorm Posted June 1, 2014 Posted June 1, 2014 Nice work! The new arches are a lot better and the new table as well. I like how you do it in modules. The interior looks great and very close to the original, you definedly recognize it from the movie:) I will stay tuned for the progress :) Quote
TheBear Posted June 1, 2014 Author Posted June 1, 2014 Does anyone know any good big sets that I could ebay for arches and walls etc??? It depends really on what arches you want to use. If you just stick with the 5x4 ones from the cantina sets then sourcing a few more is easy. If you want to make them bigger then things get harder. The 12x3 arches I am using are quite rare in tan and I am using 2 for each alcove and another 2 for the bar. The inverted slopes I am using are also rare in tan and there are 4 for each alcove. Either way Bricklink is the best way to get what you need. Quote
benisnow Posted June 15, 2014 Posted June 15, 2014 Really good job. I've been mocing my own to scale Cantina since December and have just seen your June update above. We've both reached a similar conclusion regarding the size of the booths. I'm integrating mine with lights (lifelites) so I have a cavity wall in between the booths making the inside of mine 10 x12 studs. I've also used two 3 x12 tan arches - one at the front and one at the back. I haven't used the inverted slope for the front though - I've just got it under the rear arch. I've also found the bar the hardest bit to get right. At one point mine did look a lot like yours, but thought it looked too high - I can't see how else to lower it other than cutting the bar (6L pearl gold) down to 4L. For source material I'm using the films, the excellent website at http://cantinacustoms.tripod.com/id20.htm & the book STAR WARS: Complete Locations below. One of my biggest frustrations is the difference in the lighting types and positions between the original set in North Africa and the second shoot in LA - having to compromise with one or the other. Have spent the last couple of months building Chalmun's office and dome above - it took a while to source all of the tan slopes from Bricklink. I need to take some decent pictures - not sure whether to post them here or create my own page. What do you think? Quote
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.