At first glance I thought that these images, shot by the photographer Jean-Yves Lemoigne for the third issue of the achingly pretty French game magazine, Amusement, were of Lego models. On closer *ahem* inspection, I’m not so sure.

Whether they’re photoshopped or built from pixel blocks, either way, the series of images is arresting, even if they are more grotesque than titillating.

Pixel characters in videogames are in many ways more identifiable than their hyper real 3D modeled modern counterparts.

The blurry non-definition of 16-bit characters allows us to fill in the details for ourselves, attuning character designs to our own tastes (much like how the imagination works when picturing a character from a novel), the blanks in the physical appearance making it easier to identify and assume their roles in play.

But placed in a real-world setting, and blown up to human proportions as they have been here, the result is alien and ghastly, the poor definition of the woman’s features unsettling and ultimately repelling the viewer, rather than drawing them in.

View some more images from the shoot here and, follow the links at the bottom of the piece to see some other neat pixel art in real situations, such as these giant, alleyway-straddling Tetris blocks.