'MR. MÍ LÈ' is inspired by the symbolic laughing buddha character who is wise, humorous, and cheerful. The section-cut gives the statue a futuristic look and a contrast feeling between his rich laugh and the emptiness inside his body.

I always wanted to create a character that has a very expressive emotion on the surface but has something else deep inside. A character that is laughing with his face and body, but hollow in his heart. I am inspired by the laughing buddha figure (English: Laughing Buddha; Chinese: 弥勒菩萨; 藏文：བྱམས་པ།；梵文：मैत्रेय Maitreya；巴利文：Metteyya), who has an exuberant laugh on his face, a big belly and an optimistic personality. The story behind it is this big belly can bear all the human sufferings and his laugh is towards all the ridiculous things in the world, which perfectly match the imagination look of my toy.

I found them in the Pearl River Mart on Walker St and Broadway. They come in all colors and sizes. I bought four of them pricing between $2.5-4.5 each. Great for kit-bashing.

I use the ban saw to cut them into half. Sanding the surface fo the cut will get a clean flat surface where the different materials attach to each other.

Trace the cross section of the cut, then laser cut arcrylic piece of different color and thickness.

Here comes the first generation of the buddha collection.

After kit-bashing from the real laughing buddha I bought from the market, I think it is hard to mass produce them. So it is necessary to build my own model. I use an existing 3D model and modified it to the way I like.

Hours and hours of 3D printing.

Printed 4 pairs of half buddhas with different printers (Lulzbot and Ultimaker 2+) in different scales (2.5 inches and 3.5 inches tall).

Spray painting: Black & Gold.

The illustrator file for laser cutting looks like this. This is 8 sections of the same buddha in different scales.

Instead of using glue, I cut a hole at the same place on every piece of arcrylics and also on the 3d prints, and then use a metal stick to attach them together. This will make the slices of the buddha flexible to rotate.

After attaching all the pieces together, the buddha is flexible to rotate.