Tag Archives: Mosaic

Create your own mosaic masterpiece with Lego Art Remix [Review & Interview]

Recently TBB’s Chris Doyle shared with us his journey of creating a custom LEGO Art mosaic. One of the tools Chris used, LEGO Art Remix, was an essential step towards getting to the finished product. We took some time to talk to Creator Deb Banerji about the project. With his background in Computer Science, Deb coded the foundation of the LEGO Art Remix tool in about 5 hours, though he’s spent a bit more time refining it since then. I’ve had some hands-on time with it from the first release and to its current final form, and it’s only gotten better. The latest results output close to a finished mosaic design that you can immediately start building within minutes if you had the parts on hand.

Click to read the review and interview with Deb

When science and (LEGO) art collide.

In this rather solemn LEGO mosaic by Jaap Bijl titled “Einstein’s One Great Mistake”; a more serious topic is explored – Albert Einstein and his role in the Manhattan Project. If we’re going to get artsy here, I would even say that the color palette and aesthetic of this build are reminiscent of Picasso’s “Blue Period.”

Einstein's 'One great mistake'

The 4×4 petaled flower element is back in multiples, this time in an ominous arrangement forming a mushroom cloud – the shape generally synonymous with nuclear explosions. The rest of the scene in the right panel is formed with various sized plates and tiles in dark hues with white 1×1 round bricks and cones creating the stem of the cloud. A portrait of Einstein is presented in the left panel; his face is carved out of various bricks, slopes, and tiles, for the most part utilizing the SNOT (studs not on top) technique. Einstein’s notoriously unruly and spiky hair is rendered by a synergy of the white 4×4 petaled flower pieces and white dinosaur tails. In terms of composition, although this work could be called a mosaic, it differs significantly from the new LEGO Art mosaics which are comprised mostly out of 1×1 studs. For me, Einstein’s hair and the mushroom cloud both being heavily composed of the petaled flower elements represents a kind of mirroring effect, but I could be looking too deep into this. Either way, I think it could be said that this build is genuinely thought-provoking.

Idea to actual: How we made some Wonder Woman LEGO Art [Feature]

Once a year, my long-distance partner Alyse Middleton and I, Chris Doyle, try to take a week of vacation together. With the realities of life in the USA in 2020 limiting the potential destinations, this time we opted for a “Quarencation” at my place. Kind of a bummer, but staying here kept us within easy reach of my LEGO workspace…and that paid out some nifty results. We were able to take an idea we had been kicking around all the way from concept to physical model. Working in the style of the new LEGO Art sets, we created a mosaic of Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman.

Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman - LEGO Art Style

I’d built a number of mosaics in the past, so I had a few ideas on how we could approach making a new one. And while that experience was helpful, we ended up taking a very different route to reach our goal. Come along with us on our journey of highs, lows, seemingly endless moments of “I guess we’re starting over again“, and, yes, eventual triumph.

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LEGO Art 31199 Marvel Studios Iron Man mosaic + 7,000-piece Ultimate Build [Review]

A few months ago we reported that LEGO was discontinuing its Creator Expert branding in favor of a broader array of adult-targeted LEGO sets. There’s no longer a handy moniker to round up these sets, but most of them bear the new 18+ age recommendation, which simply denotes their focus on adults rather than signifying anything about the difficulty of the set, as the age bracket has traditionally done. However, most of the sets that have come out of the new initiative fall neatly within the familiar styles from previous years, such as the Star Wars UCS A-wing, Crocodile Locomotive, or the Haunted House. One new assortment stands out, though, with the LEGO Art line featuring a series of four sets that let you assemble your own wall decor mosaic-style. Today we’re taking a look at 31199 Marvel Studios Iron Man, which is available now for US $119.99 | CAN $149.99 | UK £114.99. It has 3,167 pieces, and includes instructions to assemble one of three different portraits of various Iron Man suits. Alternatively, if you purchase three copies of the sets, you can build a huge Iron Man image that’s three times the size. So let’s take a look at the new mosaic set and see if it lives up to expectations.

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Stop scrolling and look at this LEGO dragon scroll

Thanks to an ongoing round of Iron Builder, which sees two contestants pitted against each other to build a variety of LEGO models using a specific element, we’ve been seeing an explosion of builds employing the dynamite bundle, from arcade machines to detailed kitchens. Cecilie Fritzvold, in particular, has been on a roll, sticking that dynamite piece into builds anywhere she can fit it, including into this amazing dragon scroll, where nearly 50 of the bundles make up the twisting body of the beast.

Shenlong

And lest you think Cecilie is cheating by just neatly arranging a bunch of pieces on a tiled baseplate, look very closely and you’ll see that each piece is attached with a clip, meaning you could actually hang this on your wall. Well, except for that brick-built hangar, maybe. The two long black Technic axles that stand in for the string might not be up for the task.

Check out more of Cecilie’s dynamite escapades in our archives: Cecilie Fritzvold LEGO creations

LEGO Art revealed as mosaic sets of The Beatles, Marilyn Monroe, Star Wars Sith and Iron Man [News]

LEGO has revealed an entirely new product line of mosaic sets featuring pop culture portraits called LEGO Art. The four initial sets revealed include Iron Man, Marilyn Monroe, The Beatles, and Star Wars Sith. Each of the adult-targeted sets contains an average of 3,250 pieces, a new brick separator, several new elements, an exclusive signature tile, and instructions and extra parts to build 3 or 4 different designs per set. Each set comes with a curated building soundtrack, and as an added bonus, three copies of either the Iron Man or Star Wars sets can be combined to make an “ultimate piece” triple the size of a single portrait.

Each LEGO Art set comes in a box the size of a pizza and will retail for US $119.99 | CAN $149.99 | UK £114.99. The Iron Man portrait will be available globally (including the US) exclusively from LEGO on August 1st. The other three portraits will be available globally from LEGO and various retailers starting August 1st, except in the US which will have to wait a month until September 1st.

Get a close up look at each new LEGO Art portrait and see the ultimate versions from combining sets

My world’s on fire, how ’bout yours?

While the societal unrest recently has made it seem like everything is on fire, it’s not quite true. Lots of things are not burning, like the bread in my toaster. Oh wait, that’s burning, too. Well, shoot. Josiah Durand, currently using the Flickr alias of General 尓àvarre, seems to have a similar problem with fire in this LEGO build. While it might be rather flat and mosaic-like, the build is particularly stunning in its flame effects, with the lit-up trans-orange making a beautiful contrast with the tattered black flag. It looks like Josiah used every type of black element in his collection for the flag, too, expertly creating the ragged fringe. But that uneven warm glow, just like the embers in a fire, is what make this great. Now that’s what I call playing with fire!

The Dark Angel: 核 子力

Black lives matter, even among privileged LEGO builders [Editorial]

Here at The Brothers Brick, we’ve taken “political” stands on matters of peace and justice for as long as the LEGO building community has created LEGO art that communicates an important message, whether that message was in support of marriage equality way back in 2006 or freedom of discourse in response to the Charlie Hebdo massacre in 2015. Dave Kaleta joins a chorus of people around the world who choose not to remain silent in these excruciating, infuriating times.

Black Lives Matter

From a LEGO build perspective, Dave uses largely disconnected white slopes, tiles, and plates to surround solidly attached black bricks. Dave also leverages the new range of small curved tiles to create the lettering along the bottom of the mosaic. But the build and its techniques are hardly what grab my attention.

A few thoughts on the intersection of LEGO, art, politics, and privilege

LEGO SPOTS for boys revealed as new extension of LEGO DOTS [April Fools]

LEGO has revealed SPOTS, a new extension of the DOTS product line targeted at boys. The initial wave of the 2D tile-based crafting theme features armbands, expressive emoji picture holders, a flaming skull pencil pot, and the first in a series of “Extra SPOTS” emoji booster packs surrounding space exploration. Prices vary from US $4.99 to $19.99 with availability beginning April 1st.

The creation of SPOTS is partially due to feedback on LEGO’s successful DOTS product line for exclusively targeting girls with bright colors, pastel packaging and glitter. The SPOTS theme again features building with 1×1 tiles (square, round, and quarter-circle tiles), but this time uses more black, white, red and blue colors along with unique prints of bugs, fire, road signs, grotesque emojis and space artifacts that more easily align with boys’ interests.

Take a closer look at the new LEGO SPOTS product line

Baby Yoda is back – in flat form

Now that LEGO has finally gotten with the times and released official versions of Baby Yoda – in both BrickHeadz and minifigure form, LEGO fans can focus on building him in new formats. A devout follower of the Church of Baby Yoda, Neil Snowball, jumped at the chance to build our lord and savior in mosaic form. The likeness is uncanny and the thick black borders give it the stylized appearance of a cartoon or 8-bit video character. One thing is for sure, he’s just as cute in two dimensions as he is in three.

If you’ve read this far, you may be waiting for me to acknowledge that officially, the character is named “The Child”. Listen, I know that. You know that. I know you know that. He may be The Child in official labels, but in my heart, he’ll always be Baby Yoda. Unless he decides to fist bump me, and I try to be cool and call him “Yode”.

LEGO Dots revealed: New arts and crafts theme puts emoji tiles front and center [News]

LEGO has officially revealed its long-rumored new product line, LEGO Dots. The initial wave of the 2D tile-based arts and crafts theme features bracelets, picture holders, a jewelry stand, a pencil pot, and the first in a series of “Extra Dots” emoji booster packs. Prices vary from US $3.99 to 19.99 with availability beginning on March 1st.

The spiritual successor to LEGO’s previous Clikits play-jewelry product line, the Dots theme centers on colorful 1×1 tiles (square, round, quarter-circle and new gem tiles) with bright colors and expressive prints including emojis, rainbows, glitter, animals, space, music, and more. (Keen-eyed readers will also note that several of the tiles have appeared previously in 21045 Trafalgar Square’s hidden art gallery.)

Take a closer look at the new LEGO Dots product line

A smorgasbord of patterns

LEGO builder Peter Ilmrud takes us on a journey to very well appointed baths somewhere along the Mediterranean seaside. Although the model is adorned with all a trove of repeating patterns, the first one to draw the eye is the inlaid tiling in the new coral color, making use of the Friends marine life creatures, which come packaged together in a variety of Friends sets. The tablecloth is also worth noting, with its ornate pattern drawn from Bruce Wayne’s manor. And how many of you recognize the perfume bottle on the table — or for that matter, its light green color?