10-Foot-Tall Cardboard Optimus Prime Is Better Than Your Kid’s School Project
This article is more than 2 years old
No question about it, the coolest cardboard contraption in science fiction came from Calvin and Hobbes, which served as a time machine, transmogrifier, Cerebral Enhance-O-Tron, and a duplicator with optional ethicator. No one is going to be topping that one anytime soon. And in second place — (drum roll) — Paul Warner. Applaud him, you fools!
For a yearlong school art project, UK artist and Transformers fan Paul Warner decided to transform a bunch of cardboard into a menacing, 10-foot-tall sculpture of Optimus Prime. This towering mass of packing material is almost twice as nice as my first car, and though Warner’s own thoughts about his finished product are too self-deprecating — “His proportions, for one thing, are slightly off, and the hips are way too skinny for my liking.” — it’s probably just the Decepticons trying to brainwash him.
But that was back in the beginning of 2012, before the sculpture was haphazardly locked away in storage, where it had fallen backwards and the entire sculpture was deemed too damaged to repair.
“In all honesty, this is the perfect example of how my art teachers treat students and their work,” Warner posted. “If it ain’t their own, it’s not worth looking after apparently…What a waste of years worth of work to say the least…Glad I never have to go back to that god-forsaken school!”
From the ashes, a more detailed Optimus Prime will rise. Warner is already hard at work crafting a second cardboard sculpture, which he understandably calls Cardboardimus 2.0. He’ll be scaling the size down for this one and just doing a bust rather than the full body, but without the time constraints of schooling, there’s a chance he could replace himself for second place. Autobots assemble! Wait, that’s not right…
