Tyler Halliwell’s Fantastic Visions

Tyler Halliwell’s creations have been stunning the Internet for the past 8 years. Whether building models inspired by gothic auteur Guillermo del Toro or popular video game franchise Pokémon, his art never fails to impress in both character and building skill.

The Endless

David Alexander Smith You have been an active and inspirational part of the LEGO scene for some time now. What got you involved in the first place, and what is it about LEGO that continues to inspire you to create?

Tyler Halliwell My first taste of the online LEGO community came in late 2009 when I was looking for source material for my MOC (before I knew what the term MOC or ‘my own creation’ meant) of Boba Fett’s second ship, the Slave II. At that time I was a 14 year old Star Wars nerd searching for some pictures who just happened to stumble upon someone’s LEGO creation of the same ship. The creation was hosted on a website I’d not come across before: MOCpages. This, to me, was mind-blowing, as people here were sharing creations, commenting on each other’s work, and building things I could never have dreamed of making. From there, I started joining contests, building in different themes, and eventually volunteered to help in a ‘MOCpages collaborative’ for Brickworld Chicago 2011. That collaborative, with the future members of VirtuaLUG, was certainly the beginning of my current involvement in the LEGO community. Since then it’s been a combination of finding my own style as well as continuing to work with others to create new and exciting things.

As to why it inspires me, LEGO is the perfect medium for creating, in my opinion. You can build for hours, then leave your workspace for days and nothing will change. If you mess up, you can take a part or all of the creation apart and start over. LEGO can be sturdy or it can be flimsy. Any shape that you want to create  can to be achieved. There are so many possibilities with LEGO. However, it also imposes many restrictions. There are only so many colours. There are only so many pieces. At the end of the day, you can only put so much weight on a stud or pin before the clutch power will begin to fail. This combination, of complete freedom in conjunction with very definite restrictions makes LEGO a constantly engaging and fun medium.

DAS You have a certain reputation for building models that are macabre or uncanny in some way. What draws you to this subject matter?

TH As a child, I read a lot of fantasy literature. My father is an English teacher and has always instilled in his children a love of mythology, fantasy, and science fiction. Thus, it was not too surprising for me to fall in love with Hellboy, where Mike Mignola combines mythology and fantasy with a taste of horror. After finding two trade paperbacks of Hellboy at a booksale, I of course had to watch the movie. This was my first encounter with the work of Guillermo del Toro. His stylish renderings of the comic characters made me seek out more of his work. I found in del Toro a director who, like Mignola, respected fantasy and mythology and combined those with themes of horror. His work made me appreciate the creepy, the uncanny, and the macabre, and through my respect for his art, made me want to recreate these themes through my art, which just happened to be LEGO. However, I would be remiss not to mention that I also enjoy building things in LEGO that challenge the way people tend to think about the medium. First and foremost, LEGO is a children’s toy. If building a bloody ghost that has a broken jaw and a cleaver in its head makes people view LEGO in a new light, I am happy that I can help alter their perception of the toy.

Lady Sharpe

DAS And then in creations like your recent Niffler and Oddish builds you seem to completely swing the other way towards a shamelessly cute aesthetic. Is this as important a side to your creativity as the more unnerving builds?

Niffler

TH I must admit, while I’ve enjoyed dabbling in the cuter side of LEGO, these creations were both requested by my significant other. She desired some less-creepy builds to balance out my standard fare, as well as to see if I could even make such things. I cannot complain really as both creations were fun challenges, especially the Niffler. Who knows, this could be the beginning of a period where I only make adorable creations. Or I could go for a decomposing corpse next. It’s always a toss-up.

Oddish

DAS I guess comic books might be seen as a connecting influence across your work, that draws the cute and uncanny together. What do you find so inspiring about this art form?

TH I’ve enjoyed comics for a long time. Hellboy will always be my favourite but Sandman has also influenced a lot of my work. While I enjoy those specific comics for many reasons, I think I most enjoy comics as an art form because of their accessibility. The stories are just as thorough as any literature but are easily picked up, put down, and reread. As a builder who does best when translating others’ visions into the brick, the art in comic books is very appealing when building. I love reading standard literature as well, I just tend to build from things that others have already designed.

Hellboy (2)

DAS The other aspect of your work people might know you for is the medium of bust building. What draws you to this type of creation, and what challenges and opportunities does it raise?

TH My first bust was the Faun, based on the creature from Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth. I needed to fill space on my little display table at Brickworld Lafayette, a small hometown exposition, and decided that the Faun would be a fun build. I’d recently built a giant based on Keith Thompson’s concept art and was in the mood for more large-scale figure building. I really hadn’t decided on scale specifics until I started building the nose and realized that the head would end up fairly large. Ten hours or so later, I had a bust and found the size and level of detail really satisfying. It was small enough that I had to use specific pieces to make shapes instead of basic-brick sculpting (a fairly common LEGO bust method) but large enough to allow for unique physical features.  Faun was a hit both at the expo and online. I realised that I’d found the scale I’d been searching for when creating creatures previously. With a bust, I could include a high level of detail without needing to produce a huge creation (though some have ended up quite large). I find the scale incredibly fun, and I never really know where each bust will take me. They’re entirely unplanned, I just start with a specific area that I think will be the hardest to replicate and, once that sets the scale, continue around to finish the creation. The biggest challenge has really been overcoming colour or part limitations. This was most prevalent when I made Thanos and the Infinity Gauntlet, as the parts palette for gold and medium lavender are both quite limited, dark blue less so. However, that made the build a lot of fun!

Faun

Thanos and the Infinity Gauntlet

DAS Some of your pieces look extremely complicated. How do you go about planning something as insanely complex as your awe inspiring Monkey King?

TH This assumes that I ever really plan anything! Other than having an idea of what I want to build next and ordering specific pieces if I know I’ll really need them (dinosaur tails/tentacles for the hair of the second of the two Endless after the success of Dream), I don’t really go into a creation with any sort of plan. There is no sketching, I just pull up some reference pictures and go for it. For the Monkey King, I originally made what is essentially a pseudo-chimpanzee head, but in tan and brown. As that turned out well, I remembered liking the mythology behind Sun WuKong in the past and decided to continue my way on down the body. I made the front and back armour plates, chose white for the colour of the clothes (as I have a vast amount from my Red Queen’s Castle build in 2012), and got to work. I made the staff after the armour to set the scale, then finished the upper body. Due to weight concerns, I followed the suggestion of Matt Rowntree and settled on the lotus position. So, there’s really no planning. It’s probably not the best method as it has occasionally led to some urgent Bricklink orders, but overall it’s never been a huge problem. The most planning that I generally do these days is looking over what colours I still have lots of pieces in and letting that determine the next creation.

The Monkey King

Monkey King Work in Progress

DAS Having had a close look at the innards of one of your pieces I know from first hand experience how much you like to push what most people would consider traditional LEGO building techniques. Do you have any special building approaches or tips you’d like to share?

TH This is a difficult question, as I have no experience building in the way that anyone else does. I’ve just gathered the techniques that are out there (SNOT [studs not on top], etc) and apply things that I’ve used with success in the past. I certainly don’t care at all about ‘illegal’ connections. If a connection will help achieve a desired form and there is no better option, I will use it. I suppose my special approach is that I do whatever is necessary to achieve the preferred outer form. If the inside of my creation is a web of hinges and clips all fragilely connected to one another, so be it. Just don’t be afraid to use some unorthodox connections if the perfect shape can be achieved.

DAS Looking back over your work you see a clear point of departure in your work where these new techniques were implemented. Do you see yourself seriously returning to mini-figure scale building – although I know there are the odd pieces for collaborations you still make – or does your art now entirely rely on this advanced way of building?

TH While I am not opposed to using minifigures, I just don’t find that scale very engaging. I have much more fun at a larger scale and have found a niche there. Minifigures certainly have their use, such as in my recent Ancient Ruins moc, where the overall scene needs to be large and there is no room, or need, for a larger scale. However, I doubt that I will be making any macabre LEGO creations at minifigure scale anytime soon. It is fair to say that my ‘art’ relies on the larger, non-minifigure scale creations, but I occasionally find it hard to shake the appeal of the cute little guys.

Ancient Ruins

DAS You are an amazing part of the LEGO community, what has your experience of it been like?

TH I’ve had a great time in the LEGO community. I may not have started as much of a builder, but it seems I have found my niche and since then have been very fortunate to gain my current following. I’ve been in magazines, Mike Doyle’s Beautiful LEGO books, numerous blogs, and recently have been invited as part of a museum show. I’ve also gained the notice of many artists who inspire me, notably Neil Gaiman, Mike Mignola, and Guillermo del Toro. I’ve made many wonderful friends, some of whom I have visited while abroad, and continue to be inspired by the wonderful art constantly being produced. It’s also been strangely effective at making me embrace my overall nerdiness, as my success in the hobby has made it difficult to hide this facet of my life. This has been a good thing, as my friends have accepted that I’m actually pretty good at this weird LEGO thing. My involvement in the LEGO community has definitely opened a lot of doors and led to some incredible relationships and opportunities. I have to assume that my parent’s didn’t expect it to be this successful when I decided to attend my first LEGO convention as a nerdy teenager, beginning to make his way into the online LEGO community.

Anubis

DAS The community has led you into several high profile and exciting collaborative projects, with VirtuaLUG, the Rivers of Hell with Mihai Marius Mihu and the Exquisite Corpse project we worked on together. Could you tell me a little more about these ventures?

TH VirtuaLUG collaborations have been a constant throughout my time in the LEGO community. While these are always fun, Mihai’s invitation to collaborate together was a wonderful opportunity to work on a something that perfectly fit my interests. Mihai has always been one of my favourite builders, if not my favourite. I also adore Greek mythology and thus, while we departed quite a bit from the myths in the end, I could not have chosen a better theme. Mihai is an incredible artist and combines a similar building aesthetic to my own with extraordinary artistic vision. I can build, but I could never hope to come up with the brilliant worlds that he does. Luckily, he was brimming with ideas and produced a hauntingly beautiful version of Hell in which we dwelled for six months. Once we determined which rivers each of us would build, Mihai produced final concept drawings and we got to work. As I mentioned earlier, I am at my best when building something from an established design. This is quite apparent when my final creations are compared with Mihai’s concept drawings. Of the rivers, my favourite to build was Lethe, as it provided me with the opportunity to build a LEGO skull as the centrepiece of the landscape. While the rest of the diorama was dismantled, the skull has stayed together as one of my many display pieces. I would love to collaborate with Mihai again, as we worked well together and shared a single vision throughout the project. I wish the project had been a little better received by the community and elsewhere online, but I suppose it wasn’t exactly the most mainstream of themes.

Lethe

Styx

The Exquisite Corpse project was also very engaging, as I was able to build what I arguably am best at, a head. However, this did come with the problem of shipping the creation across the Atlantic, as you know well. I decided to build a very sturdy head wearing a tribal mask. I wish I’d gone for a somewhat less sturdy creation, if only to give you a challenge, David, but I did have a lot of fun making the mask. I loved the end result of the project, too, as Tom’s Popeye torso and Stu’s volcano section made for a fantastic sculpture. The end result was as gloriously surreal as I hoped.

The Exquisite Corpse

DAS And finally, what is next, where do you see you future building going?

TH This is a good question. I don’t see much building taking place in my near future, as I’ll be on your side of the pond in Scotland come fall, doing my Master’s work in Anatomy at the University of Dundee. So, for those twelve months, I don’t expect to have much in the way of LEGO on hand or time to build even if I did. After that, who knows where life will take me. It could be the beginning of my ‘dark ages,’ we’ll just have to see. I suppose I am fortunate enough to have staved them off through my undergraduate years. I think there is still a lot to do at this larger scale, and will continue to make organic builds and hopefully push the medium whenever I can.

You can see many more of Tyler’s amazing creations on his Flickr stream here, and for a closer look at the Rivers of Hell project click here.