If the art is in you, you have to let it out. If you happen to have a bunch of ground beef nearby, then you use what's handy. The Uwajimaya Asian food market in Seattle has a meat section that's populated with superhero, gaming, and "Star Wars" characters.
Kieran Gormley is the meat manager at Uwajimaya. He's also the resident meat artist with a penchant for building figures like R2-D2, Alien, Samus from Metroid, and Sonic the Hedgehog out of ground meat. He shares his beefy creations on his Tumblr, Epic Grinds.
Gormley takes beef fresh from the grinder and begins to form it as it comes out. He then uses a knife and his hands to shape the various pieces and put them together into recognizable forms. Sometimes artfully trimmed pieces of onion are used to add detail.
If you ever wondered what Alien tastes like, the answer would seem to be beef, not chicken. Customers can buy the edible-when-cooked sculptures by the pound for the regular price of ground beef.
Imagine stepping up to the meat counter and saying, "I would like two pounds of TIE fighter, please." I wonder what would happen if you just slapped R2-D2 on the grill whole. Would it whistle and boop as it cooked?
(Via Laughing Squid)