#news Award-winning Lego artist says he can recreate anything in colorful bricks

Junpei Mitsui poses for photograph with one of his Lego brick works. (Mainichi)

Twenty-three-year-old Junpei Mitsui can recreate any famous building in the world with small, colorful Lego bricks -- from the National Diet Building of Japan to the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy.

"I can't think of anything that I cannot make with Lego," Mitsui says confidently. He is skilled enough to create a Lego version of "Doraemon" despite the popular cartoon character's difficult-to-shape round body.

Mitsui's "Battleship Yamato" has been chosen this year's best Lego work by an individual artist on the world's largest website for Lego creations. The 6.6-meter-long battleship is made of some 200,000 pieces of Lego and faithfully reproduces the warship in tiny detail, down to the movement of the doors on the ship's cannons.

Since childhood, Mitsui would always ask for Lego for his birthday and Christmas presents. He now owns some 1 million bricks weighing in at a total 1 metric ton. It was when Mitsui was a junior high school student that he discovered the world of Lego art through the Internet.

"My early works are all in rainbow colors," he recalls, saying he was obsessed with the shapes of his works but did not pay much attention to their colors.

After high school, he entered the University of Tokyo to study manufacturing technologies and founded the country's first Lego club.

While introducing a series of large-scale works, including the University of Tokyo's iconic Yasuda Auditorium, Mitsui has been taking part in a charity exhibition featuring UNESCO World Heritage sites built with Lego, and received this year's University of Tokyo President Award.

Mitsui is currently studying precious metal recycling technology at the university's graduate school. After coming home from school late at night, he works on Lego creations until dawn.

"Bricks are similar to the elements. We can create anything by changing their combinations," Mitsui says.

"I have various Lego friends, from children to those who are 30 years older than me, and I get feedback on my works from all over the world," he added.

Mitsui's Lego works can be seen on his website at http://www.geocities.jp/jun_brick/

Click here for the original Japanese story

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