Lego Mosaic

[jleslie48]

I have no idea what made me think of this. Well I researched in online, and sure enough they do it. Only they cheat and its very expensive. they use the tiles and not the bricks! Even with that they were several hundreds of dollars for something quite small, 16x20.

So I decided to give it a try. Now I did cheat in several ways,

1) megablocks instead of lego,
2) instead of trying to collect batches of the colors I needed, since price was paramount, I went with the cheapest and spray painted in the 5 shades of grey that I needed.

So far the 1x2 bricks cost me $30, (for 3000 of them!!!) plus the paint. Using paint shop pro, I was able to drop the picture I wanted to 5 colors, and then pixelize it to an 80x80 grid. I might be a little short on the bricks, its gonna be close.

[Texman]

That is so cool!

[Gixergs]

Brilliant! I look forward to seeing the finished picture.I saw a picture of Spock done in Lego a while ago which was pretty amazing too,I wonder if you could work from a cross stitch pattern to make one.

[peter taft]

Great idea - and the suggestion Phil gave about the cross stitch pattern is also a way to go.

[jleslie48]

cross stich should work well I imagine. My challenge to myself was to do it from a photograph. Is there anything that will make a cross stitch pattern from a photograph out there?

[Darwin]

There are several such programs around. Unfortunately they are not free....however, I have one (PC Stitch Pro). PM me if you would want me to convert one of your image files to a x-stitch chart rather than springing for your own software (most programs range from about $30 up; the Adobe version is over a thou...very pricy, even for them). Just remember that the cross stitch is in squares, and legos are rectangles....though, since the rectangles are one unit by two units, you will have to do some thinking while making the mosaic.

[peter taft]

Originally Posted by jleslie48

cross stich should work well I imagine. My challenge to myself was to do it from a photograph. Is there anything that will make a cross stitch pattern from a photograph out there?

I have the programme disk and manual for this somewhere in the deep piles of "AL SORTS " if i find it, you are most welcome to it. The programme will allow you to scan any image into your computer - you decide how many colours and how fine the detail level you want to output, the clever programme works all the rest out, then all that you do is print it out I just hope that i can find it now i have said all this

In the meantime.... i found these FREE DOWNLOADS, can't say how good or bad they are, but give them a try - you have nothing to lose.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/art..._software.html

[jleslie48]

Originally Posted by Darwin

and legos are rectangles....though, since the rectangles are one unit by two units, you will have to do some thinking while making the mosaic.

Actually thats been the interesting part as I put the mosaic together. about 1/3 of the pieces I turn on their side so the short side of the brick is picture forward, so by buying 1x2 bricks I effectively have 1x1 bricks as well. The resulting effect is also very nice: the mosaic is standing off the backing. as the 1x2 turned sideways are effectively "feet" lifting the mosaic.

[Ron Caudillo]

Hey John,
That is probably the coolest thing I have ever seen!

Remember waaaaaay back when you could go to the mall and get a dot matrix printout of you (and/or someone else)? I had almost the same idea then, but wanted to use seed beeds and make a sort of like beaded bracelet, only on a larger scale to hang on the wall. The only problem was, seed beeds are shorter than they are wide and the beaded hanging would be distorted.

Even with seed beeds, it would have been HUGE (and heavy).

Cross stitch was a considered option and I ran across a commercial program called 'Pattern Maker'. It will take any image file and convert it to a cross stitch pattern. I have a VERY old version that can convert pretty nicely. The program has been updated and I think you can download a demo of it.

I see there is a free download of a program called 'Stitch Color' to create cross stitch patterns, just Google it.

I ran across another commercial program that converted image files to a true colored mosaic; it was for hobby plastic tiles that you could purchase (I guess at Michaels?) but the name escapes me. I downloaded their demo program but have to find it on a backup drive.

Best Regards,

[Ron Caudillo]

I found the free mosaic maker software, PixelHobby Designer software.
Software

It makes the mosaic from an image file and creates a parts list for the pieces. You can print out the mosaic though and get your own tiles though.

Best Regards,