LEGO safari animals are popping up at Cardiff Bay for the first time

Citizens have been gathering at the Bay to marvel at 12 amazing animal models in Cardiff made completely of Lego.

A child is sitting on daddy’s shoulder and watching at the LEGO kangaroo.

Students and citizens were excited to see life-size wild animals out of LEGO displaying on Cardiff bay last Saturday.

The 12 life-size models of wild animals made out of LEGO bricks have appeared in the heart of Cardiff bay from 10 February. These animals are going to be on display until 25 February.

It’s quite crowded on Saturday because of the weekend.

These works of art can be viewed by people of all ages free of cost. They have attracted children and grandparents, alike.

“It’s really amazing and unbelievable to see such huge LEGO animals’ models […] my son feels really excited today,” said Rosie, a mum of a six-year-old boy.

Many at the scene were witnessed gasping and mumbling praises such as “amazing” at the safari animals.

The Lego gazelle is quite a small model on show.

The 12 models took a total of 4,024 hours to build and are made up of more than 600,000 LEGO bricks. The touring show exhibits an elephant, a lion, an ostrich, a gorilla as well as a crocodile, three zebras, gazelle, hyenas and even a kangaroo.

Jack Rizzo, a staff from Bright Bricks Company which is a team of experts associated with LEGO, states that, “when we were devising the shows, we thought about the kinds of things people might like to see. So we have Kingdom, a medieval fantasy display; Brick Architecture, which is made up of impressive buildings from around the world; and doing the Great Brick Safari, and showing off some amazing animals from all kinds of terrains and continents, seemed like a logical balance..”

This African elephant is 2.5 m high.

The only model that is allowed to be touched at the exhibition is a lion that attracts many children. It took four builders 400 hours and 65,000 LEGO bricks to create the massive structure.

Weekends at the event have witnessed a large crowd with parents and grandparents accompanying their children for a fun family day out. The show also attracted and inspired other LEGO lovers.

Children are excited to touch the LEGO lion.

The Great Brick Safari has been brought to Tacoma Square. It is in the middle of Mermaid Quay by Bright Bricks, the world’s premier independent LEGO building firm.

Previously, Bright Bricks gathered a team of more than 30 professional LEGO artists to work together on producing brick models.

Jack also mentioned that, “Our director, Duncan Titmarsh, is one of 14 LEGO Certified Professionals across the globe. However,  we’re the only company outside of the LEGO Group themselves who have quite such a big operation. A couple of years ago, we made a model of Tower Bridge from 2 million LEGO bricks. It’s strong enough to support two Land Rovers driving over it. That’s something that only we can really do, at that scale. But lots of techniques and the ways we build our models, are things anyone can learn to do with bricks they have at home.”

The ostrich is made from 45,000 bricks and took four people 200 hours to build.

This is the first time that the Great Brick Safari displayed in Wales. Also, it is the second time in the UK.