In February 2006, I was commissioned by Dwight Escliman Photography to build three life-size monochromatic busts, to be included in Herman Miller's award-winning design magazine, "SEE", alongside an article about the humanization of architecture and design.




Each bust took about three days to design, build, and glue, and each contains about 3000 LEGO elements.















The biggest challenge with these models was trying to create the subtlety of human features ... normally you can use a color change to indicate where areas like eyes, lips, or hair begin and end. But I didn't have that luxury, so I was forced to exaggerate these features and use depth-of-LEGO-bricks to define areas.




On any human figure, the eyes are the most time consuming because not only are they looked at the most, but in addition, the slightest change can have a great effect on the emotion of the face ... having only one color to do this with made it even more complicated!




Woman's clothing is also often more fitted than men's, and it was challenging to attempt to illustrate where clothing began and skin ended. I am happy with the results, but getting there took a lot (and I mean a LOT) of designing-and-redesigning.





Click to enlarge:















It was also important to me that these three people each have their own unique features, and not just be three identical heads with different hairdos. I modelled the yellow man to have a large bone structure and mostly european features. The tan woman has a much smaller bone structure, higher cheekbones, and a pointer nose and chin. The red woman has more African features, with a wider, more rounded jawline and a shorter nose. Every feature, from their ear lobes to the shape of their eyes, is different.

The busts were professionally photographed by Dwight Eschliman Photography, and included in the article. This is one of the two-page spreads from the magazine, featuring "the yellow guy".

Here is another two-page-spread from the magazine article.

Another two-page spread. In addition to the three busts, I also built the tan contoured model on the right... and the photographer built the model on the left!

Here is the first of the three busts, shortly after completion. In the background, you can see some of the prototypes I'd created before building the final glued model.

I should have named these three folks, but I never did. The yellow guy always looked like an "Ed" to me. And the tan lady looked like "Mary". I never came up with a name for the red woman, but I copied her hairdo from a Jada Pinkett Smith photo, so I suppose I'll call her "Jada". :)

Just in case you didn't believe me... yes, they are life size. :)

A closeup of the tan woman. She was the third and final bust that I built, and I like the way she came out the best. I especially like the way she photographs from the side; I think she has the most realistic profile of all three models. I was learning more and more about monochromatic construction as I went through the other two, and applied what I learned to her.

Here's a closeup of the man's collar and neck. He has a rather squarish, manly jaw, and a nice stiff high-starched shirt. (Just the way I like them!)

A closeup of the third sculpture. See the earrings? :)

Here's a little close-up of how I decided to construct the eyes and eyelids. It was important to me that the eyes convey a neutral expression, but not look spaced-out or zombielike. This was the solution I designed.