Creative Genius Tom Bob (33 Photos)

Tom Bob finds funny characters in pipes, meters and fire hydrants

Tom Bob turns gas meters into flamingos, pipes into anteaters and fire hydrants into Princess Leia. Born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and based in New York City, he prepares sketches and stencils before working with spray paint. In an interview with The New Bedford Light, he also describes scouting potential objects on Google Street View before traveling.

More: 31 More Clever Street Art Transformations by Tom Bob

🔗 Follow Tom Bob on Instagram

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🦩 A gas-meter flamingo — By Tom Bob

In this gas-meter flamingo, the meter becomes the bird’s body, with a bent pipe forming its neck. A painted head and one raised leg complete the bird, balanced against the green brick wall.

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🎷 A pipe-playing musician — By Tom Bob

Tom Bob painted this standpipe saxophonist at 64 NW 54th Street in Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood. The gold-painted pipe forms the instrument’s body, with its flared bell painted on the pavement and the musician’s puffed cheeks meeting the upper bend.

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⌚ Watches inside a coat — By Tom Bob

Three electrical meters become watches hanging inside a cartoon seller’s coat. Painted straps extend from the real dials; a fourth watch lies across the bottom of his display. Tom Bob’s original post places the work in the alley at Solana Court and West La Reina Way in Long Beach, California.

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🐍 Snakes in love — By Tom Bob

Two metal barriers become striped snakes whose heads meet on the pavement. Created at Pier-2 Art Center in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, the pair appeared in local coverage of Tom Bob’s work there in May 2018. Their bodies arch off the ground and back to the painted faces, beneath a red heart.

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🥁 Ringo at the drums — By Tom Bob

A concrete cylinder becomes a drum bearing The Beatles’ name, while two narrow posts become drumsticks. Behind them, Tom Bob paints Ringo Starr with a long nose and a mop of hair. He shared the work to celebrate Ringo’s 77th birthday in July 2017.

💡 Nerd Fact: According to drum historian Gary Astridge, sign painter Eddie Stokes was paid £5 to paint the Beatles’ first “drop-T” logo onto Ringo’s bass drum in 1963. Astridge identifies Stokes’s 1966 tour version as the one that later became the band’s official trademark.

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🐜 A drainpipe anteater — By Tom Bob

In this Bushwick, Brooklyn, piece, the drainpipe follows the anteater’s long snout down toward a trail of painted ants. One heavy eyelid gives the animal an unhurried look.

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🐦 A bird with a camera eye — By Tom Bob

In this Dubai work, a dome camera becomes the eye of a blue bird. Tom Bob adds a yellow beak and orange feet around it.

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🦞 Gas-meter lobsters — By Tom Bob

Two gas meters become lobster bodies in this New Bedford, Massachusetts, work. Red-painted pipes and claws added to the wall extend their limbs upward. The existing bends give each lobster a different reach.

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🪥 A very large toothbrush — By Tom Bob

Tom Bob created this oversized toothbrush in New Bedford, Massachusetts. A horizontal pipe runs across the character’s enormous grin, while its adjoining box becomes a fist gripping the handle.

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🐦 A window becomes a birdcage — By Tom Bob

The window already has the bars. In this New Bedford work, Tom Bob adds a domed top and a long stand to make a birdcage. The blackbird perches outside it, above the real grille.

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🐸 A frog at the water’s edge — By Tom Bob

At the waterfront of Kaohsiung’s Pier-2 Art Center, a rounded mooring bollard becomes the head of a green frog sticking out its tongue. Painted webbed feet spread across the quay beneath the bulky metal shape.

💡 Nerd Fact: Pier-2’s abandoned harbor warehouses were rediscovered in 2000 while organizers searched for a fireworks site. A group of Taiwanese artists formed the Pier-2 Artistic Development Association the following year, helping turn the former industrial area into an arts district.

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👷 A wall-mounted jackhammer — By Tom Bob

A box and its cables become a jackhammer in the hands of a worker wearing a yellow hard hat. The pavement below is already broken.

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🐘 An elephant leaves its cage — By Tom Bob

Tom Bob painted this escaping elephant at 127 Rodney French Boulevard in New Bedford, Massachusetts. A bent drainpipe becomes its trunk, while the neighboring grille forms a wheeled cage with a painted ramp leading toward the animal. Painted peanuts wait on the ledge below.

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🐍 Striped snakes and a guard — By Tom Bob

Black-and-white stripes carry the snakes’ bodies over the metal barriers and back onto the asphalt. The smaller photographs show an empty telephone housing beside them painted as a guard.

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👑 A Princess Leia hydrant — By Tom Bob

The hydrant’s side fittings become Princess Leia’s hair buns, framing a face painted around the front cap. A white outfit completes the character. Tom Bob painted this tribute to Carrie Fisher outside the Expo Arts Center at 4321 Atlantic Avenue in Long Beach, California, in January 2018.

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🎩 Charlie Chaplin’s cane — By Tom Bob

A slanting pipe becomes the cane in Charlie Chaplin’s hand, while two round caps on the wall plate become his eyes. Tom Bob adds the bowler hat, small moustache and oversized shoes around the existing fittings.

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🐻‍❄️ A polar bear taking it easy — By Tom Bob

Tom Bob shared this piece with the caption “Global Warming”, painting the cracked sidewalk at NW Miami Court and NW 21st Street in Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood as a broken ice sheet. A polar bear in sunglasses reclines on a red inflatable mattress above the cracks.

💡 Nerd Fact: Tom Bob traces his interest in street art to visits to Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood during Art Basel week. In an interview with The New Bedford Light, he recalled that the gathering of graffiti artists encouraged him to begin working in the street later in life.

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🪰 A winged wall creature — By Tom Bob

A projecting vent gives this winged creature a deep, open mouth at the center of its face. Tom Bob adds eyes, antennae and broad white wings around the dark opening.

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🍄 A flattened gnome — By Tom Bob

The heavy corner bollard becomes a gnome’s tall red hat in this Williamsburg, Brooklyn, piece. His beard, hands and feet spread across the pavement, with tire tracks running over his flattened body.

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🛡️ A knight in the pavement — By Tom Bob

The drain’s slotted grille becomes the visor of a knight’s helmet. A red plume and sections of armor are painted around it, with the knight facing up from the ground.

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🦒 A giraffe in the stairwell — By Tom Bob

An emergency light near the ceiling becomes the giraffe’s head, with two painted horns above it. A long painted neck reaches down to the body beside the stairs.

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🦀 A crab bench — By Tom Bob

At La Mer in Dubai, a wooden bench becomes a bright red crab, with a broad grin across its top. Painted legs and open claws spread over the decking beyond its rectangular body.

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🏋️ A workout for two — By Tom Bob

Tom Bob gave these neighboring gas meters different workouts at Body Builders Gym, 2516 Hyperion Avenue in Los Angeles’s Silver Lake neighborhood. One character lifts a barbell overhead; the other holds gymnastic rings, with the existing pipes connecting their bodies to the equipment.

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🐊 An alligator in the parking space — By Tom Bob

At La Mer in Dubai, Tom Bob painted a wooden parking block as an alligator. White teeth line its squared-off snout, while painted legs and a tail extend across the paving.

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🎳 A manhole bowling ball — By Tom Bob

At Kaohsiung’s Pier-2 Art Center, three painted finger holes turn a manhole cover into a bowling ball. Behind the fallen pins, a utility box becomes the bowler’s shirt, and its conduits follow his legs through the finishing pose.

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🎨 A creature made from a tank and air conditioners — By Tom Bob

A storage tank becomes a green head, and the neighboring air-conditioning units extend its body along the wall. The tank’s outlet becomes a red tongue; a painted hand holds a spray can.

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🪓 A Tin Man with a heart — By Tom Bob

The metal street cabinet is painted silver as the Tin Man, with an axe drawn across his body and a small red heart on his chest.

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🐍 A spotted pipe snake — By Tom Bob

Tom Bob painted this spotted snake at 3750 Broadway in Manhattan, between West 155th and West 156th Streets. The standpipe lifts its head above the sidewalk, while its body winds along the pavement. Colored spots continue from the metal onto the concrete.

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🪢 A bike-rack skipping rope — By Tom Bob

Tom Bob painted this girl in the parking garage at La Mer in Dubai. In her blue dress, she holds the two ends of a bicycle rack as a skipping rope. Her painted hands meet the rack’s mounting plates.

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🎈 Russell from Up — By Tom Bob

The hydrant becomes Russell from Up, complete with a yellow cap, red neckerchief and a sash of badges. Real balloons are tied beside him, with clouds painted around the base.

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🎶 Bob Marley on a utility box — By Tom Bob

Tom Bob turned a telephone cable box near West 151st Street and Broadway in Manhattan into this Bob Marley portrait. Existing cables join the painted dreadlocks, while the small figure below raises a peace sign and wears a shirt marked with a one and a red heart.

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🌈 A fan becomes a pinwheel — By Tom Bob

In this Taiwan piece, colored fan blades become the pinwheel in a girl’s hand. A painted yellow stick joins the fan to the figure. Her striped dress uses the same red, blue and yellow.

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✏️ A pencil by the beach — By Tom Bob

A wooden post at La Mer in Dubai becomes a yellow pencil with a pink eraser. The existing rope stays wrapped around the top, just above the smiling face. The work appears in SAN Projects’ gallery of the Dubai Canvas festival at La Mer.

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Which one is your favorite?