Tag Archives: Steven Wayne Howard

“Orange you glad I didn’t say red panda”

Amid the social media universe of artists, there is a creative prompt known as the color wheel challenge. The artist must complete a separate piece for each wedge of a color wheel, typically consisting of red, orange, yellow, green, teal, blue, purple, and pink. And LEGO character builder extraordinaire Steven Howard (aka Ghalad) has taken up the challenge in brick form with this first submission for the orange slice. Despite the misnomer, it’s fair to say that a red panda is quite the orange beast. But I’m pretty sure (and feel free to fact-check me on this one, dear readers) that a red panda has never presided over a fiefdom in the history of the animal. Nevertheless, fiction or not, this is still a dynamite character exuding all the regal glory that Ailurus fulgens can muster. Very much looking forward to the next wedge, Ghalad!

Orange - The Red Panda Prince of the Northlands

And if you’d like to see more of Steven’s awe-inspiring work, please take a look in our archives.

A LEGO character creation with explosive potential

Ever since a History of Science class my freshman year of college, I’ve read so many books on the history and discovery of radiation. But nowhere in those pages covering everything from the Curies to Chernobyl did I ever come across a scientist like the one depicted in this LEGO bust by Steven Wayne Howard. With the clever implementation of the Ninjago Spinjitzu canopy, we’re able to see all the nuclear reactors sticking out of this mad scientist’s cranium. An array of creature wings make up his wild facial hair, and his sinister visage is driven home with that skeletal bowtie. And the whole thing sits on a plinth that is, quite frankly, the bomb. The whole thing is downright maniacal, and gives me the chills!

The Nuclear Madman

Remember to take a break sometime–the cost could be deadly

This LEGO build comes to us from builder Ghalad through the Digital Iron Builder competition this year. It features the use of the SPIKE Prime color sensor, wonderfully used for the eyes of the skeleton and on the headphones. Every detail of this build is great with so many parts usages from Technic to the more classic LEGO pieces. I don’t know about you, but I really like the use of Mixel joints for the framing of the collarbone. I’m not particularly familiar with the finer details of skeletal anatomy, but this skeleton looks to be fairly accurate, which is something I can appreciate. I know this is a digital build, but this would be awesome to see IRL just to look at it from every angle.

The Cost

“This Captain America mosaic is super, soldier.”

It makes sense that when LEGO launched their new Art theme, they’d start their Marvel offerings off with Iron Man, the hero who gave birth to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. At least, he birthed it from a movie release date perspective. But Steven Wayne Howard hasn’t forgotten that the real first Avenger was Captain America. This tribute to Steve Rogers was created by fusing the pieces from Iron Man and Sith mosaics (with a handful of extra 1×1 red plates thrown in). So, it should be no problem to recreate yourself if you have both of those sets on hand. And if you’re looking for a great spot to hang it, I suggest the wall on your left.

Captain America Mosaic

Yngwie Malmsteen arpeggios your face off far beyond the sun

With LEGO coming out with the official Fender Stratocaster set it was only going to be a matter of time before someone becomes inspired to build guitar legends who play the Strat. It has happened and that builder is Steven Wayne Howard and the guitar legend he has built is none other than Yngwie Malmsteen. This guitarist is so legendary that throughout the 80’s I thought his middle name was Freakin’ or some variation thereof. One of the builder’s absolute favorite performances of his was from the live show in Leningrad in 1989. He has rendered Yngwie’s resemblance nicely; his heavy metal hairdo comprises mostly tree sprigs in brown, the ruffles of his shirt use the solar deltoid part. Even his pants appear to be leather thanks to some rendering trickery and lighting. Steven tells us this creation is 2,642 pieces and is 30 inches tall.

YNGWIE MALMSTEEN - FAR BEYOND THE SUN LIVE IN LENINGRAD 1989

This shot offers a close-up view of his face and those aforementioned LEGO solar panel pieces nicely mimicking a ruffled effect.

YNGWIE MALMSTEEN - FAR BEYOND THE SUN LIVE IN LENINGRAD 1989

You LEGO purists may want to cover your tender ears because it’s about to get cray-cray up in here. Steven tells us that this was created digitally using Bricklink Studio, Mecabricks, Cinema4D, Octane, Greyscalegorilla, and Photoshop on a Puget Systems computer. Now that’s freakin’ metal!

Beelzebub says never mind the bollocks

What happens when you’re a demon from Hades but still love Dead Kennedys, The Buzzcocks, and The Sex Pistols? Well, that makes you a punk rock devil and that is precisely what Steven Wayne Howard has built with LEGO. The eyes are eyeball-printed minifigure heads situated within space helmets and are bricked upsidedown. It makes for some great expressions! This builder has dazzled us before with some neat build techniques including one recently. Check out what I mean in our archives.

Punk Rock Devil