A little while ago, Alyse Middleton and I (Chris Doyle) shared the process behind our Wonder Woman LEGO Art mosaic. We didn’t have the time (or parts) to finish our vision then, but as promised we’ve returned to share the completed project – a 48 x 144 stud tribute to Lynda Carter. Consuming over 7000 pieces, (6,912 of them 1×1 round plate/tile), this has the same form-factor as the giant Darth Vader and Iron Man “Ultimate” builds.
Picking up where we left off, the first thing we did was to make a few tweaks to the upper portion of the mosaic. A few plates were swapped out to improve coloring or to make some curves a little less hard-edged. But, in general, we remained pretty pleased with the results we got the first time around. Adding one more row of 16×16 squares to complete her neck and shoulders really improves the stand-alone image. Too bad we didn’t have the parts on hand last time to get things to this stage.
The skin tones in the center of the build were the most challenging portion of this project for us. As we talked about previously, we had a few runs from the LEGO Remix program to work with, but we just didn’t like the hard edges that the software identified in the shading. In the end, almost all of the center section was hand-built. We focused on using large regions of color, and on removing as many 1-stud wide “dividing lines” as feasible.
The final section of the build was a solid combination of Remix and hand-crafting. The gold in Wonder Woman’s eagle only needed a few color replacements, but we had to really up the contrast along the top edge to get it to not blend in with her bust. We also added quite a bit of light grey and silver to echo the colors in the tiara and make things read a bit more metallic.
The red of her top was another area where we found we needed to step in – the “fingers” between the gold had to be heavily enhanced with reds. They’re small sections of color, and the gold tones had overwhelmed them in the Remix runs we did. The bottom portion was initially solid red, but we went back in and added details from the source photo to darken it up and and add some needed texture. Luckily we had enough dark red and reddish-brown on hand to not have to order even more parts. This was an expensive enough project already!
All in all, we’re super stoked with the way this turned out. It was a great project to work on, and we’re looking forward to what we can make together in the future. The big lessons we learned were “be ready to try something just to see if it’ll work” and “be ready to rip out large sections that didn’t work the first, second, or third time you tried something.” At least LEGO is a forgiving medium for that sort of iterative work. As Alyse pointed out to me, you don’t get that sort of leeway when you’re making soap or dying fiber. So…yay LEGO!
Hopefully, this project has also inspired some of you to go out and create your own mosaic builds. If you’re looking for ideas, check out our archives for more great creations.
In case you missed it:
Here’s the first part of the creation of the Wonder Woman Portrait journey
Idea to actual: How we made some Wonder Woman LEGO Art [Feature]
Read about the official set review of the Iron Man Mosaic
LEGO Art 31199 Marvel Studios Iron Man mosaic + 7,000-piece Ultimate Build [Review]
Learn how to create your own mosaics
Create your own mosaic masterpiece with Lego Art Remix [Review & Interview]
Good job I think Lego should consider making this an official product in wave 2.
@Chris Adams – Thank you! I’d love to see the Art line continue, too. I have a feeling that DC would probably push for a Gal Gadot version of WW, but it would be stellar to have that hanging near this one.
You’re welcome. That’s a good point about DC probably wanting a Gal Gadot version but, allowing for the colour scheme, they could bring out a Wonder Woman mosaic that could be built as either Lynda Carter or Wonder Gal, rather like the Beatles edition.
That outfit looks uncomfortable, but I imagine it kept things from moving around too much for broadcast TV in those days.
Anyways, Rit’s line of dye does include a color remover, which can supposedly remove any color produced by Rit dye. I’ve worked with the dye just a couple times, but I don’t think I’ve ever tried using the color remover so I don’t really know how well it works.
@Purple Dave,
The kind of dyeing I do uses acid type dyes on natural protein fibers. Once you get the dye on there and set it, its pretty well fixed. You *could* bleach it, but then you’d likely be permanently and negatively affecting the texture of the fiber. You can also over dye it to blend and cover up the original dye job. But there is no going back to a virgin medium.
Acid-based, huh? So you probably either do this professionally, or this is a serious hobby for you. I…will stick to Rit, thankyouverymuch. I think I’ve had limited involvement with a total of three dye projects. The first was when a local sorority was running a tie-dye night and I took my chem lab coat over, but they set everything up and you just had to follow their instructions. The other two just involved tracking down Rit dye at the store for someone else to actually use. The next time it comes up, though, I’m probably on my own, as the most recent project was dying a replacement for my purple Levi’s jacket that I bought from someone in the UK close to 20 years ago. My mom offered to buy me a new jacket and dye it for Christmas last year, but she’s nearly 80, so whatever fate has in store for her, I think I can rule out a repeat offer next time.
Re Lynda Carter’s outfit: I think there is an episode where Wonder Woman is hanging upside down by looping her lasso around her ankle, and the outfit is what we in the UK would call harvest festivals (“All is safely gathered in”).