San Diego Comic-Con: Artist remakes DC Comics classics in LEGO form

Sculptor Nathan Sawaya is sure to be a hit at the upcoming San Diego Comic-Con with his giant LEGO sculptures of DC Comics superheroes.

Sawaya has teamed up with Warner Bros. to re-imagine characters like Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, painstakingly sculpted with the famed plastic building toy blocks. In addition to superheroes, Sawaya also devoted some time to sculpting arch villains like the Joker, and the iconic 1938 cover of DC Action Comics No.1, one of the most sought-after comic books in history.

For the artist, the ability to devote his career to one of his favourite childhood pastimes is a dream come true.

"I have fun, I've found my passion. It's creating art out of Lego bricks. Is there a better job out there?" said Sawaya.

To make the sculptures, Sawaya had to carefully glue thousands of Lego bricks into form, painstakingly crafting each piece over a period of weeks.

"When I'm working on these sculptures, it's these two hands that are doing all the building, and it takes me 2-3 weeks to create a large, life-size human form out of Lego bricks," says Sawaya.

The pieces heading to Comic-Con are a preview of the artist's upcoming show, The Art of the Brick, at Sydney's Powerhouse Museum in Australia.

"For this exhibition, I wanted to explore themes of good and evil, and really heroes and villains, so what better place to turn to than comic books, and what better place than DC Comics, with all their famous characters. So I wanted to take their superheroes, and their supervillains and combine them in an art exhibition," says Sawaya.

Comic-Con 2015, held at the San Diego Convention Center, runs from 9-12 July.