Here’s a large acrylic painting whose subject is a classic LEGO Space M-Tron minifigure. Back in the early ’90s when I was very young, the M-Tron theme was a series of LEGO sets involving intergalactic space scientists and geologists who used futuristic space cranes and spaceships to mine magnets from planets. As a kid I was always fascinated by them, since red and black were my favorite colors and the fluorescent green lasers always looked cool.

This painting went through multiple revisions and was almost scrapped, so I’m actually surprised it turned out well. The original liquid paint pour background didn’t settle properly, and a lot of the paint cracked. I poured more paint over top of it, which heavily distorted the background. When painting the minifigure’s colors, I was weary about the outcome since its body were mainly black and white, which I felt would look bland. The break up the dull colors a bit, I added harsh shadows and highlights for the arms, legs, helmet, and airtank. For example, I painted the arms and legs grey rather than white, but added hard shadows rather than making them look plain white.