Brick Sketches Portray Beloved Characters Using LEGOs

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By Laura Vitto2013-08-02 21:02:28 UTC

It takes talent to create art from pen and paper, but it takes some serious creativity to create art using favorite childhood toy.

Author, illustrator and photographer Chris McVeigh masters this in his new series, "Brick Sketches," created entirely from LEGOs. They give life to pop culture characters we know and love, including Batman, Bender and R2-D2.

McVeigh told Mashable in an email that he was inspired to start this project after artist friends began creating marker sketches of pop culture characters that were 4 x 6 inches. He decided to join in the fun using LEGOs and created a Wolverine "sketch" that he posted to his social media accounts.

"I was blown away by the response, and so I challenged myself to do more," he wrote.

To create a brick sketch, McVeigh uses LEGO.com Digital Designer, a free consumer-level CAD program, to design his piece. He restricts himself to a brick canvas of 12 x 16 inches, roughly the same size as his friends' ink sketches.

Rendering a character in LEGOs comes with its fair share of challenges.

"Creating artwork with LEGOs is much more restrictive than with markers, and it's always a challenge to find just the right combination of plates to represent a specific character," he told Mashable. "Adding to the complexity is that not all parts are available in all colors, and worse yet, I may not have all the parts on hand."

Check out some of McVeigh's most creative Brick Sketches below, then let us know your favorite in the comments.