I so have a new hero, Nathan Sawaya (), Lego artist extraordinaire.

My mom, via my sister, told me about this segment on The Colbert Report () the other night; a guy earning between 20,000 to 30,000 dollars for his Lego creations…ZOMG!

This is a link to a video of the interveiw, however, I couldn’t get this to work in any of my OS X web browsers, like Safari or FireFox. Let me know if you Windows’ users have better luck.

I am remembering my childhood now: my Lego spaceships, racing cars, my custom-built working Lego machine gun… um, [cough], yeah, I was a weird kid. If only someone had told me, “Hey, kid! Want 20 grand? Make art out of Legos!”, but alas, it wasn’t to be.

Sawaya’s pieces are amazing. Mind you, while some are actually “artsy” in an intellectual sense, the majority are just plain fun. The artist is just a year younger than me, and our generation’s cultural memes abound in his work. From Star Wars themed stormtroopers and Han Solo encased in carbonite to video game controllers and fully functioning computers, he’s a guy after my own heart.

I wish I had kept that Lego machine gun I made. I mean, in retrospect, it was creepy as all hell, but if Sawaya can manage 5-digit figure price tags for his Lego sculptures, I’ll bet my kooky Uzi could’ve garnered a couple hundred bucks on eBay.

Please note: The image in this posting was taken from Sawaya’s website. As a former Wikipedia administrator, I am (vaguely) aware of the issues related to copyright and images on the Web. I believe I can assert U.S. fair use of this small image for the purposes of review.

Remember kids, infringing upon copyright law is a sin, punishable by Weird Al, (check out Straight Outta Lynwood).

I wonder if I should create a new blog category; I know I will have plenty more to say about Legos in the future. Cheers.

Filed under: Lego, Weird & Wonderful