LEGO artist creates 11 DC comics characters out of plastic bricks

By Rachel Swatman

Published 14 November 2017

What would your dream job be? For comics fan Nathan Sawaya, it was to be a professional LEGO artist.

The 43-year-old American is well known for his huge, detailed sculptures made out of plastic toy bricks.

Nathan’s talents have earned him a spot in the Guinness World Records book.

He created the world’s Largest display of outsized LEGO® brick sculptures of superheroes – crafting 11 DC characters – including Batman, Superman and The Flash – in London, UK, on 28 Feb 2017.

Nathan’s sculptures formed part of his touring exhibit “The Art of the Brick: DC Super Heroes”, which was built from nearly 2 million bricks!

The Largest Lego® brick sculpture of the Batmobile was also on show at the event.

It measured 1.30 m (4 ft 3 in) tall, 5.51 m (18 ft 0 in) long and 1.69 m (5 ft 6 in) wide.

We recently caught up with Nathan to find out more about his impressive creations.

Which of the superhero sculptures did you build first?

When I was very young, I taped a red cape to one of my little blue LEGO minifigures and made my first “Superman.” So it is fitting that one of the first large-scale sculptures I made was also Superman. This time he was life-size and I spent over two weeks working on him!

How long did it take to build the sculptures?

I spent over 18 months creating all of the superhero sculptures in the exhibition.

How did you go about building these?

I have created many different sculptures over the years, but I found that creating superego sculptures comes with its own set of challenges. For example, many superheroes wear capes – and making thin fabric capes out of LEGO was quite difficult! Especially when the capes needed to look like they were blowing in the wind…

When did you start working with LEGO bricks?

I have been an independent artist that creates sculptures out of LEGO bricks for the past ten years. I have built thousands of sculptures over the course of my career.

What is your favourite LEGO sculpture you’ve built?

I don't have a favourite. I put my heart and soul into each one. Some days it might be a giant Wonder Woman sculpture and other days it might be the life size Batmobile I built using half of a million LEGO bricks. If I have to pick a favourite, it would be the next one because that is where all my energy is focused, on my next project.

Are you going to attempt any more Guinness World Records titles?

Yes! But you will have to wait and see…