Garden Gnome Sculpture
My first sculpture in over two years is the Garden Gnome.
This enigmatic figure watches over your garden and makes sure everything is in order. Along with Scarlet Mayhem, this was built from my “east coast collection” during my trip for BrickFest. Detailed photos are available on Flickr, or check out the slide show.
I built the gnome using parts from 3 sets of the LEGO Special Edition tub 6092 which I bought at BrickFest. I bought those sets largely for the red tubs, which use the same lids and are exactly 2/3 the height of the blue tubs from the set that got me into LEGO sculpture, 3033, from a few years ago. Ah, I miss that set…
You can see the sculpture work I’ve done in the past on my other blog. (Sooner or later I’m going to transfer the old LEGO content from that blog to here, but I haven’t figured out the best way to do that yet.)
This sculpture, like all the ones I did before (except Maneki Neko) is done entirely with regular LEGO bricks. No SNOT, no unusual shapes, not even any plates. (Maneki Neko has plates in the Japanese coin and SNOT in the claws.) Should I go for more detail by using such parts or stick with basic bricks? Let me know (by posting a comment) what you think.
Update: Photos are now also on Brickshelf, and I posted about this on lugnet.build.sculpture.
Technorati Tags: lego, sculpture, garden, gnome, gardengnome
September 11th, 2006 at 8:23 pm
There’s something to be said for using only basic bricks in a sculpture. (Love the cat!)
September 12th, 2006 at 8:14 am
Very nice. I may have to try to do one for my sister who has a love/hate relationship with garden gnomes. Perhaps I will build it and leave it in her garden one night. :)
I escpecially love the detail of the belt loops. Many would simply ignore them so well done!
September 12th, 2006 at 8:56 am
Tedward: thanks for noticing the belt loops. I never used them before in a sculpture. The only other one I made with a belt was my Leprechaun which doesn’t have them. I based the design on this gnome but changed the pants to blue as I didn’t have enough brown bricks handy.
September 23rd, 2006 at 8:53 pm
[…] As you may recall, while we were back east for BrickFest I bought a bunch of LEGO and built two new models, the Scarlet Mayhem spaceship and Garden Gnome sculpture.Well it turns out I bought a lot of LEGO. Way too much in fact. So much that I had to buy a 5-piece luggage set (3 suitcases, a handbag, and a toiletries bag) and all 3 suitcases were basically packed full of LEGO. […]
December 20th, 2006 at 9:57 pm
[…] I think garden gnomes aren’t half bad. I got one recently for my wife (and not one of those nasty resin ones either). Anyway, Bill Ward puts little plastic bricks to good use in his own garden gnome: […]
July 9th, 2008 at 1:28 am
[…] As to why this is interesting, I built my own garden gnome in 2006 as well - while I was in Fairfax VA for the Brickfest convention (it wasn’t at the convention; I built it from parts I bought there, in my hotel room afterward). I posted it here shortly after I built it in September 2006. Here’s mine for comparison: […]