These photos of 'Star Wars' scenes made with LEGOs are totally incredible

Vesa Lehtimäki has no idea how much money he's dropped on LEGO toys, and he prefers to keep it that way.

The Finnish photographer began shooting his kid's LEGO toys in 2009, reigniting his lifelong love of the "Star Wars" franchise.

Eventually he started buying duplicate sets of the ships and fighter aircrafts so he wouldn't have to rebuild them after playtime.

"I like the limitations of LEGO," Lehtimäki says. "Seven points of articulation on a mini-figure is not a lot to work with."

His most photographed figurine is the Snowtrooper, which only has six points of articulation. "Its head doesn't turn because of the helmet," Lehtimäki says. "I compare that figure to the deadpan character of Buster Keaton."

When it comes to choosing a scene to recreate, Lehtimäki goes with his gut. "Sometimes an idea just pops into my head and I go after it with the camera," he says.

Here, a Jawa encounters a bot on his native planet of Tatooine. The Sandcrawler behind him looks just like the one in "Star Wars: A New Hope."

And in this photo, a band of Ewoks holds a jam session with the Figrin D'an and the Modal Nodes, the alien group that plays in the cantina scene.

Lehtimäki photographs LEGO in his basement or on the living room table during the dark winter months. The daylight is too harsh in his photos.

Many of Lehtimäki’s photographs are set in a snowy landscape, reminiscent of the fictional ice planet Hoth.

He substitutes baking powder for real snow, and uses the figurines to make tracks in the snow so it looks realistic.

"With the snow photos, I'm not only photographing them, in a way, I get to be a member of the audience," he says. He will set the shot up and see to it that the snow falls at the time of the camera's exposure ...

"But when I upload the images to my computer, I briefly switch from being a photographer to looking at the shoot with fresh eyes," he says. "It's often very exciting to find the minutiae of details that make one frame stand out."

One of the best tricks in his bag is manipulating the air with smoke, a technique used in movies to make actors pop off the background. He often burns paper.

His photos look so realistic, in fact, that one of the production companies behind "The Lego Movie" contacted him for advice during pre-production.

"LEGO is something a great number of people are familiar with. It's interesting to work with something so many people know inside out," Lehtimäki says.

"I think when you have the mini-figure in your hand and you look at a photograph of one, you see the photograph differently," he adds. "It connects in a unique way and, to me, that's one of the sweet spots in all of all this."