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Hello everyone in mosaic land,
I've been lurking on these forums for many years and this is my first post! I
have been a Lego fanatic for 30-odd years and as a very busy adult, the time I
have been able to devote to Lego has declined quite a bit over the years. I
hadn't played with my Lego for a quite a while until I discovered Lego mosaics.
I have always loved mosaics and this mixed very well with my love for Lego. And,
a typical mosaic that I could do wouldn't take too long, so I set out to build
one of my own.
The first thing I noticed was that in order to get real nice mosaics, akin to
the professionals linked to on this newsgroup's main page, you either had to
have a very large mosaic (which required a lot of bricks, which I could do but
only in a few colors), or try to get a good number of colors. Being a Lego fan
for so long, I had tons of the regular Lego colors. But I knew that Lego was
finally starting to come out with bricks in all sorts of other colors. I
remember as a kid lusting after colors other than the standard red, blue,
yellow, black, white, grey, and (later) green. But I didn't want to have to buy
a whole set just to get the few bricks in a color I wanted (though I had been
doing that for years). Then I discovered BrickLink (http://www.bricklink.com)
and my prayers were answered! I found colors on that site I had no idea Lego
ever produced! All colors of the rainbow was to be had.
So I set out to get as many different colors as possible. I decided that my best
chance of maximizing the bricks I already had was to use 1x1 side brick
profiles. That way, I could use any 1 by X brick, the final mosaic would end up
smooth, and it would stack vertically. Keeping in mind the different prices for
bricks (the rarer colors are much more expensive), I ended up buying the
cheapest bricks of a color that had a 1x1 profile even if it were a brick like a
1x1x2 slope, which you normally wouldn't think of for a mosaic. As a result, I
spent probably about $100 and got about 20 different colors I didn't already
have. Very nice.
So now I had my colors. I did some research on the mosaic makers (I'll admit I
discovered this forum only afterwards) and ended up using Pixelego (the old
one). I chose a portrait of me and my wife, to see how faces come out with all
my newfound colors as well as a detailed image. The results are posted here:
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=112759
You will see pictures of the mosaic at various stages of development. It took me
pretty much three days over new years to finish it all. I chose the thickness of
6 studs because some of my bricks were 1x6 and I didn't want them sticking out
the back. I also wanted a smooth back so that it wouldn't fall apart and I could
lean it against a surface evenly. That ended up making it quite heavy in the end
(I'd say it weighs 20 pounds or so)! Its 64x64 bricks, and with 6 studs wide it
stands up on its own, but can easily be tipped over. I didn't realize just how
much Lego it would take to make this size a mosaic. In fact, if you look hard
(and I hope its not too noticeable), there were several substitutions I had to
do to make up for declining brick populations as I got to the top part. I ended
up using black bricks for my hair instead of dark grey since I had all but run
out of them. I had to use light grey in place of sand red because I ran out. I
had to play around with tings in the end without affecting too much the
placements of the contracts between light and dark areas. I wish for a mosaic
program that I could plug in my inventories, and if there is such a tool, please
let me know! Another thing I learned was that some colors are more useful than
others since the mosaic makers look for shading more than color itself. So I
ended up using dark green a lot but not as much light blue. It will help me make
decisions on which bricks to buy in the future.
Anyway, apologies for the long message. I really enjoyed this project and I
think it looks very cool. In fact, my birthday was recently, and got some more
cash, and so I am eyeing buying more bricks! Oh man, my obsession is starting to
come back!
On a separate note, I am a Java developer and while I don't have a ton of time,
I'd like to contribute to any Mosaic maker programs written in Java to add lots
of features I think mosaic makers require. If there are any ones out there, let
me know.
Hope you enjoy the pics,
Cheefachi (Elam)
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Bricksaic 0.1.5 released
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| Just a quick note to let you know that a Bricksaic 0.1.5 has just been released. some of the most notable new features include: - contrast and brightness controls - part total on the map - map can now be printed or saved you can grab it here: (URL) (...) (20 years ago, 21-Apr-05, to lugnet.build.mosaic, lugnet.announce, FTX) !!
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