Connor Lee inherited a stockpile of cardboard boxes from his grandfather. Now he and his brother, Bauer, have created a garage full of cardboard superheroes and movie props. The L.A. teens will be hosting a Comic-Con@Home virtual panel this Sunday at noon about how to build life-size models of your favorite superheroes.
On their Cardboard Superheroes website, it states, "We are brothers who love superheroes."
But from that simple love of superheroes 15-year-old Connor and 13-year-old Bauer have created a non-profit organization that works to "hold free workshops for kids in an effort to promote the arts for youth as we've see funding for the arts being cut in school. We are working to provide an alternative that is free and fun for kids," states the website.
The brothers have been building cardboard superheroes and props for years, long before the coronavirus pandemic forced them to shelter at home.
"We've always loved to build ever since we were little," Connor said. "It's just been an interest of ours. But my mom, she actually used to babysit me at my grandpa's work, which was filled with cardboard boxes. And that was the first time I got introduced to cardboard and I loved it. I just have so much fun and then when he retired, he actually gifted me all of his boxes. And this is like the best gift I've ever got. And eventually I decided in the fifth grade to build R2D2. And this was like my first superhero model."
The models the brothers build range from small, simple versions of R2D2 that anyone can build, to amazingly detailed, full-scale models of C3P0 and Groot.
Conner explained that for his first R2D2, "what I did is I printed out a bunch of pictures from all different angles and I would use math to scale up all the photos and I would scale it up to what a life size version up R2D2 is."
But not all of us are able to look at a photo, use math and end up with a life-size model. That's where the Lee boys can help.
Last December they partnered with the Comic-Con Museum to do a live, one day tutorial to make Thor's Hammer or Wonder Woman gear. It drew 600 people and they ran out of templates to hand out.
Bauer said "my brother and I have always been huge fans of Comic-Con" so they were thrilled to partner with the Comic-Con Museum.
Now, with Comic-Con International forced to take its pop culture convention online, the Lee brothers will be hosting a virtual how-to panel, Cardboard Superheroes: Creating Life Size Models of Your Favorite Superheroes, at noon, Sunday. The panel becomes available at that time but will remain up indefinitely if you cannot "attend" when it is posted.
