Nathan Sawaya didn’t always set out to be an artist. Years ago, as a hobby after long days working as a lawyer, Sawaya started fiddling around with Lego to see if he could build semi-complicated shapes, like spheres. He made a website featuring photos of some of his projects, and now he’s a full-time Lego artist, showing his work at museums around the world, doing custom commissions, and consulting on shows like Fox’s Lego Masters. The A.V. Club caught up with him in that workshop to tour his meticulous storage system, get the skinny on his gluing process, and find out what chronic Lego-related injuries he’s suffered on the job.
5 Comments
Why does someone become a full-time LEGO artist?
oh gee Idk, but I was wondering when someone on A.V. was gonna ask.
Stuff is fun but a bit blocky, like playing with pixels over messy watercolour. grr messy.
I had an acquaintance become a full time lego artist. He started doing flash animations then he moved to New York and his career really took off. He built a giant working Lego NES controller. I haven’t checked in the last year but at the time he still had a stretch of roadway adopted locally.http://baronvonbrunk.com/
How? By making a shit-ton of money as a lawyer first.
Does this guy use a computer to figure out how to do those LEGO sculptures? Does he do LEGO City sets as well? Star Wars sets? Hm, I guess not. So he’s like a LEGO artist, but not one of those Master Builders who can design really cool stuff we all want.