20”x24” acrylic painting of my favorite LEGO minifigure of all time: a red astronaut from the 1987 Space Futuron series. As a small child in the 1980s, I was always fascinated by the artwork and aesthetics of this particular LEGO theme. The series contained four different variants of the astronauts: yellow, blue, black, or red. I never actually owned the red spaceman as a kid, as it was a rare figure that was only featured in a few retail sets, whereas the other three colored spacemen were much more common, especially in the cheaper sets that I had lots of. Nonetheless, I always wanted the red astronaut.

It wasn’t until when I was an adult that I would finally acquire my own red spacemen minifigures at last. Then in my mid-20s I got a tattoo on my right forearm of the red spaceman, permanently uniting myself with my coveted LEGO minifigure. And what you see here is an acrylic canvas portrait I’ve created to pay tribute to the elusive red spaceman.

Side by side comparison of the real minifg vs. my tattoo. This was my arm back in 2015: sadly the tattoo is currently really faded and needs a touch-up.

The base for this painting is an acrylic paint pour which was achieved by mixing paint with various additives, and then poured onto the canvas for the abstract swirl effect. The reference model was a close-up shot I took of with my camera of one of the red spacemen from my collection. I used multiple brands of paint including Blick, Liquitex, and Artists Loft. I created the metallic gold for the zipper and planet logo by mixing metallic silver paint with a tiny amount of yellow and orange. After the painting was done, I used a tiny amount of glitter paint to glaze the background for an iridescent effect.