Tommy Armstrong from Brick Engraver has been cooking up something rather cool — custom-printing on LEGO bricks:
Tommy can print just about any design on white LEGO, including standard bricks, plates, and even minifig torsos, as modeled above by GO MINIMAN GO and BrickCon minifigs. Note the high level of detail on the four issues of BrickJournal.
Tommy was kind enough to send along a rather sizable number of samples to BrickCon 2008. If you were there on the last day, I hope you got some of the GO MINIMAN GO minifigs and 2×2 tiles we handed out. Thanks Tommy!
We’ll be sure to post the news when Brick Engraver announces that they’re taking orders for what is sure to be one of the coolest additions to the LEGO customization world.
Yeah, I saw him at BrickFair, I got a BrickFair torso from him :D
It’s pretty neat, does he only do certain size bricks/tiles?
^ I suspect you got an engraved brick, not a printed brick, since Tommy only started experimenting with printing in the last few weeks. ;-)
Tommy had a table at BrickCon (though he wasn’t there himself), and there was a big range of bricks there — from tiny 1×2 tiles to big 1x6x5 wall panels. Pretty darn cool.
Ah, cool, because I was going to try requesting some movie posters only LEGO-ized ;)
Looks like Tommy’s been experimenting with printing for longer than I thought (Dr. Kile’s photo):
Anyway, Tommy’s really careful about getting the necessary permission for printing. Movie posters would be really, really awesome, but they’d violate copyright, so I don’t think those would fly. :(
Wow, those are amazing and detailed.
I do hope he continues to engrave bricks. It’s an awesome idea that stands out, where as printing on a brick doesn’t do what engraving does.
Only one step away from printing decals for heads and torsos then? Would totally revolutionize the customization industry. I’d sure pay to have my sigfig permanently imprinted…
Show the world the back of the minifig with “Andrew” and “Brothers Brick” on it.
^ Heh heh. Nah, let’s not. ;-)
(There was a minor misprint: Instead of “Brothers-Brick.com”, it said “BrothersBrick.com”, which goes to a paving company in Florida.)
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Yes I am going to continue to engrave–but the printing is really cool also.The costs of printing once set up is much lower than that of engraving because much faster and not much work to be done to the piece after it has been pernsonalized. And you can get full color with it with infinite gradations. Engraving is more permanent but am looking into some pretty high-tech coatings to make the printing more durable. Really two separate mediums. With engraving have to paint and clean. But can engrave on all colors. The figs done for BrickFair were the ones I actually made while at the printer factory checking out the quality of the machine. They were my first attempt.
I am interested to see how it will print onto my wood veneered bricks–lol.
Should be able to do fonts of letters and symbols, signs of all kinds, and one thing that I really think is kewl is to print a picture onto a 1x6x5 wall panel or over multiple bricks thus making a puzzle. Always wanted to do that with engraving but really a hassle.
Tiling patterns are also one thing I would like to explore as I have always been fascinated with tiles. Wish LEGO made a pentagonal and hexagonal tile.
I am pretty excited about what can be done and am sure that AFOLs will come up with plenty of other ideas. Give a person a tool and he will learn how to make all kinds of things! Barcodes, DNA sequences, all kinds of things.
And I can print onto heads also. In fact did one of a Jarad Burks design (with permission of course) and was very impressed. Next thing is to see if can print an actual face onto a white head. lol
Sorry about the mistake Andrew and will get you out some corrected ones. And yes, have to be real careful about permissions.
^ No worries Tommy! (And sorry about the belated moderation on your comment — it got lost in the hyperactive spam queue for some reason.)
Keep up the fantastic work!!!