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Spectacular Lego model of Hamilton Princess

Photograph supplied

American artist Sean Kenney has created an impeccably detailed replica of the Hamilton Princess Hotel and Beach Club using Lego bricks and based on satellite images.

Mr Kenney, an artist and self-described “professional kid” who builds exclusively with Lego bricks, was contacted by managers of Hamilton Princess to create a model of the resort.

After three months of meticulous work, Mr Kenney and his team produced a 27,500-piece scale model of the “Pink Palace”, complete with a turquoise ocean, outdoor furniture, palm trees, and even people enjoying their vacation time.

According to Mr Kenney, the process took three times longer than he had initially planned, due in part to the difficulty of being precise with Lego bricks.

“Lego is a very blocky medium, if you can call it that, and I say that because it can be really hard to make them lifelike and get the accuracy just right,” he told The Royal Gazette.

On top of this, the Princess was built on an uneven surface and forced Mr Kenney to construct the land around his replica.

He started off with basic sketches of the area and prototypes of the building, before finding the most accurate to-scale measurements he could.

From there, Mr Kenney and his team carefully glued each brick together to make the building’s structure and add the marina and pools.

Details were added to create realism, and the finished product included individual rooms, artwork and shutters, residences, and even working circuitry and lights in every room, allowing the “occupied” rooms to be lit up when plugged in.

Even though the replica boasts meticulous detail, Mr Kenney and his team have never been to Bermuda: their references all came from satellite imagery, street view pictures, and blueprints of the hotel grounds.

While many artists study their models in person, the group studied hundreds of images from Google Maps and Flickr. This is not the first model they have created using references from the internet, according to Mr Kenney, but because of the hotel’s long-term renovation plans, his team had trouble finding accurate pictures of the grounds on the internet and had to use their better judgment to find the most recent photographs.

Regardless, they feel that the work paid off, and cited the project as “a good way to push the creative envelop”.

Allan Federer, general manager at the Hamilton Princess Hotel and Beach Club, said in a press release: “We couldn’t be happier with our new art with Lego bricks. Being able to see the hotel in Lego bricks is just spectacular.

“Our latest piece of art is already gathering praise as it’s just so realistic; visitors and locals alike can’t help but stop to admire it. Sean has got everything just right, his attention to detail is amazing.”

The scale model resides in the retail corridor on the ground floor of the hotel.

Mr Kenney said that while his team has never visited the island, they “certainly wouldn’t mind” flying over or doing another Bermudian landmark.

“Every time we researched the hotel and the island we fell in love with the architecture.

“We always said that we should probably pay the island a visit, just to make sure we didn’t leave out a doorknob or a small detail on the model.”

More information about Sean Kenney and his artwork can be found at www.seankenney.com.