Play on, LEGO brick layer, ’cause the projects adults are coming up with using these little plastic toy bricks are totally incredible. Some amazing recent creations either made from or inspired by LEGO bricks include a functional camera that prints photos, a plastic helmet based on LEGO figures’ bowl-cut hair, stop-motion animation, a life-sized Batmobile and a robot that folds and flies paper airplanes.
Twin-Lens LEGO Camera Prints Photos
Making use of two retrofitted camera components and a LEGO brick housing, this fun model by a Hong Kong photographer blogging as Instax Magic doesn’t just take real photos, it also prints them. Taking lenses from a vintage Japanese Yashica camera and an ejection mechanism modified from a Fuji Instax mini camera, the creation playfully incorporates LEGO elements like figurines, fences and turbines. After seeing a neighbor throw a box of toy bricks in the trash, the photographer says “I started to think about the possibility of modifying a camera with LEGO. My impression is that there is always some creative way to use LEGO.”
LEGO Claw Shopping Bag
Walk down the street looking like you’ve got a yellow LEGO claw for a hand with this fun promotional shopping bag by New York-based advertising and designers Junho Lee and Hyun Chun Choi. The illusion only works when you’re wearing long sleeves, and you clutch a fabric ribbon hidden inside to hold the bag.
Intentional Helmet Hair, Courtesy of LEGO
Helmet hair is actually desirable if you wanna bike around town looking like a LEGO figure that sprouted to real-life dimensions. Design firm MOEF created a functional bicycle helmet mimicking the proportions and characteristics of the original plastic toy thanks to 3D scanning. Right now, it’s just a prototype, but it could go into production with the aim of encouraging kids to wear helmets.
LEGO Stop-Motion Marriage Proposal
It took Atlanta-based filmmaker Walt Thompson 22 hours, 2,600 photos and hundreds of LEGOs to create a stop-motion animation marriage proposal to his girlfriend of four years, Nealey Dozier, even going so far as to dress the LEGO couple in outfits that matched what the real-life couple wore when they met.
Enlarged LEGO Vehicles in Real-Life Environments
What would LEGO Lamborghinis, trucks, camper vans and helicopter models look like if they were kept exactly as they are, but enlarged to fit into the real world? Pretty ridiculous, as it turns out in this series of digital images by Italian photographer Domenico Franco, which sets them among Italian scenery. But at the same time, the models are so familiar, they don’t seem particularly out of place. “The aim is to transform ordinary contexts into extraordinary ones, thus compelling the toys to get out of the idyllic and politically correct landscapes belonging to their perfect and idealistic cities, with the result of instilling them in those vices, virtues and desires typical of human beings.” says Franco.
