"I just wanted to see what would happen if I recreated that scene with Lego. I never expected it to go viral or catch the attention of the actual filmmakers."
Preston Mutanga is a teenage 3D artist who captured the world's attention in 2023 when his Lego recreation of the 'Across the Spider-Verse' trailer went viral. The video was so impressive — perfectly replicating the film's revolutionary art style using Lego bricks in Blender — that the directors of Spider-Verse, Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson, personally reached out to him.
Preston, who was 14 at the time, was subsequently hired by Sony Pictures to create a Lego-style scene for the actual film's theatrical release. His shot appears in the final movie — a remarkable achievement for a self-taught teenager working from his bedroom.
His story became international news, with features on major outlets worldwide. Preston continues to create impressive 3D animations in Blender, inspiring a generation of young artists to pursue 3D creation.
Preston manually modeled individual Lego bricks in Blender, then used them to reconstruct complex Spider-Verse scenes. Each brick is a separate model with proper dimensions and stud details.
His recreation perfectly matched the film's signature '2D-in-3D' look — stepped animation, comic book halftones, stylized motion blur, and intentional framerate variations — all achieved in Blender's Eevee render engine.
Preston handled modeling, lighting, animation, compositing, and editing entirely by himself using free tools (Blender + DaVinci Resolve), demonstrating that expensive software is not a barrier to professional-quality work.
Preston Mutanga
Blender Guru
Preston Mutanga