Lily Creative Aston Villa Lion

  • The finished brick lion prop standing proudly in the centre of the new merchandise store.
  • The store was opened by Sharon Osbourne, who stood in front of our lion prop for a promotional selfie.
  • Projection of graphics on our lion prop in the new Aston Villa Store.

The brief

Aston Villa opened a new merchandise store outside their stadium in 2024 and required a giant lion from their logo to stand proudly in the centre of the store. Designed by us and made with various materials with a textured brick effect finish, the names of past managers can be seen within the bricks. A projector plays footage and graphics onto the lion making it an ideal selfie taking spot for visiting fans. 

Project Details

Prop process images

  1. Welding up the internal frame for the giant brick prop lion.
  2. Applying fibreglass to the sides of the brick lion to give it strength and for the brick texture to be placed onto.
  3. Marking out and taping up the bricks ready for texture to be applied.
  4. Applying a texture mix to create the brick effect on the lion.
  5. Painting the texture bricks on the giant lion prop.
  6. Sponging on a dirty paint wash over the painted brick lion prop to create an older brick wall look.

The Process

For the new Aston Villa merchandise store we designed and built a giant brick effect lion to stand proudly in the centre. We started by making the structural base and legs from metal, which we then clad with plywood and had the lion body shapes CNC cut to create a layered effect; this was then laminated with fibreglass to strengthen and give the texture something to adhere to. We marked up the plywood with masking tape onto which we added two thick layers of texture, then removed it to create brick mortar lines. We also added bricks that had names of past managers laser cut into them; these had to be glued onto the lion in specific positions so they could link up the names onto their projector image to have them highlighted. We then scenically painted the bricks,  sponging, brushing and spraying on to build up a brick wall effect to match a very specific Aston Villa brick and then coated the whole lion a dirty paint wash to age the bricks and mortar lines.

We installed the lion on site which required some scenic painting to hide any joins and screws. The lion sat on a base that was tiled and the projector team then got to work positioning their projector to display some football match footage and Aston Villa graphics ready for the grand opening a week later.

Project Images

  • The store was opened by Sharon Osbourne, who stood in front of our lion prop for a promotional selfie.
  • Projection of graphics on our lion prop in the new Aston Villa Store.

The Result

The giant brick lion has been a hotspot for selfies for Aston Villa fans, it was exciting to make and install, and a fun one for our scenic painting skills.