Last spring Heather Braaten, a talented AFOL, passed away.  I didn't really know her, but I loved the doll house she brought to my first BrickCon.  She also founded the FFOL Brick Chick group on flickr, which was made to help encourage female builders in a predominantly male hobby.  It was nice to be able to connect with some other "Brick Chicks" through that group. 

Some of Heather's SEALUG friends are planning a mosaic to commemorate her.  The mosaic will be mostly built at BrickCon, and then given to her family.  Lino M. has a very descriptive post about the project on flickr, which I will copy here.  (Just realize that updates to the parts needed will be made on the flickr page, so be sure to check there if you are planning on donating anything.)

Here is Lino's post:

 

Heather Memorial Project

Hello friends.

 

As many of you may know, Heather Braaten had passed away this past March. She was a LEGO convention staple and a friend to many, both in and out of the LEGO community. Her loss was felt throughout the LEGO world as blogs, publications, and websites mourned her passing, including Brothers-Brick, Bricklink, Model Building Secrets, and Eurobricks. Even the LEGO Corporation paid their respects to such a vivacious and dynamic individual. She was a talented builder, a graphic designer, a wife and mother, a close friend...and, as I can personally attest, a formidable Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit player.

 

If you haven’t already, you may join the Heather Braaten Group here on flickr to post any Heather related photos you might have, engage in discussions, and to remember her as she lived.

Robert Frost and I are the founders of The Heather Memorial Project. Our goal is to present a large LEGO mosaic of the above image to Heather’s family at BrickCon 2012 this coming October, but we need your help. The mosaic dimensions measure 40x50 inches, using twenty 10x10in. baseplates or 20,480 studs. It will be an interactive project, allowing convention attendees the opportunity to actually participate in the building of this mosaic and to write personal sentiments to Heather and her family. While the brunt of the work will be done at BrickCon by the attendees, the mosaic mapping, planning and collection of funds and materials rests on our shoulders. BrickCon is just around the corner and while generous donations have already provided all twenty baseplates, most of the inner structure and all the pink plates we will need, there is still plenty left to do. More donations are needed to purchase project supplies. Any extra funding at the end of the project (and we hope for extra) will be donated to Heather’s family, or a charity of their choice, at BrickCon or shortly after. If you’d like to donate to help the project along, you may at our pay pal account: heather_memorial_project@comcast.net.

 

Another great way to help is to donate LEGO plates (not bricks), either from your own collection or through orders. Its been suggested that it might be fun to “sponsor a color”, and I wholeheartedly agree. The plates still needed are listed below and quantities will be changed or crossed out once these plates are acquired.

 

300 1x1 plates white
200 2x2 plates white
100 L-shaped plates white
40 1x1 plates tan
50 1x1 plates dark tan
50 L-shaped plates dark tan
500 1x1 plates medium blue
300 L-shaped plates medium blue
100 2x2 plates medium blue
50 2x4 plates medium blue
500 1x1 plates blue
300 L-shaped plates blue
300 2x2 plates blue
16 4x12 plates blue
100 2x3 plates blue
30 1x1 plates yellow
300 1x1 plates green
200 1x1 bricks dark green
200 1x2 plates dark green
200 1x3 plates dark green
100 2x2 plates dark green
500 1x1 plates light grey
200 L-shaped plates light grey
200 1x1 plates dark grey
200 1x2 plates dark grey
 

If you can donate any of these LEGO plates, please let us know either here or in our flickr inboxes and we will notify you where to send them. Whether you donate funds, plates, or both, of course anything you do will be greatly appreciated, but as BrickCon 2012 is quickly approaching the time to act is now. We will find a way to make your donations from you or your organization known...or you may request to donate anonymously as some have already done.

 

Thank you all, in advance, for helping us celebrate a creative builder and dearly missed friend.

 

Take care.

 

Lino Martins and Robert Frost
Heather Memorial Project

Level 42

Maarten Steurbaut (whose parrot mosaic we previously featured) recently posted a finished mosaic of his favorite band, Level 42:

 

 

 

He has a very extensive description of how he made this mosaic on his webpage, along with other LEGO mosaics and ministeck mosaics.  

A Host of Characters

A builder at BrickFête 2011 brought a large group of iconic characters in one great mosaic.

My favorite of this small mosaics is probably the Nemo one. His little derpy eyes are great. Found on Disneybricks.

Self-Portrait

Adam (AceBricks) was inspired by Blake Baer's gray-scale mosaic, and decided to make his own, using a SNOT (studs not on top) technique. 

I particularly like the eye and eyebrow in the center of the mosaic.  They have a very clean and crisp line that really makes for a nice focal point. 

Building under Piece Constraint and The Nightmare Before Christmas

Mocpages user, Mark B. , shows it's possible to construct a great looking mosaic without all the pieces in the world.

This small Darth Vader was made entirely out of pieces found at a Pick-a-Brick wall at a LEGO store. This helps though when you work at a Lego store, of which Mark does. How long it took and how he designed it is a mystery. ;-D

What's not a mystery is his admiration and obsession for The Nightmare Before Christmas movie by Tim Burton, as displayed by two of his creations. The first one is a humongous eight feet tall and four and a half feet wide mosaic of the characters.

Of which this mosaic certainly uses a greater variety in pieces than the Darth Vader one.

And second, we have the Night"mare" stand that features several mosaics and working parts.

If you'd like to see anymore of Mark's creations, check out his Flickr here, his Mocpage here, and the creations featured here, here, and here.

"And on a dark cold night, under full moonlight, he flies into the fog like a vulture in the sky! And they call him, Sandy... Clawssss...!" - Jack Skellington

Olympics Wrap-Up

Last week I posted about the LEGO creations at the Imagine Denmark hospitality house at the London Olympics.  The world map mosaic done by Bright Bricks was finished, complete with three-dimensional mountains:



Bruce found a photo (taken by Jim Walshe) of the mosaic of the Hip, Hip Hurra! painting:

For comparison, here is the original painting by Peder Kroyer:

Jim Walshe says about the mosaic:  "A mosaic build organised by Warren Elsmore as part of the Visit Denmark exhibition in St Katharine's Dock, London. The picture is by Peder Kroyer and it's in the Skagen Museum in Denmark. The mosaic is going to the museum to be displayed with the original.  The mosaic is made of 768 6x6 plates, making 27,648 studs in the picture."

I guess you really can call yourself a LEGO artist if you've got your art hanging in a museum!



Gugick does it again!

So all around known mosaic master Arthur Gugick has created a second lenticular/morphing mosaic. This time, he moved from Star Wars on over to comic books featuring the greatest hero/villain combination. Take a look below:

No pictures so far, but I'm sure they'll be photos to come. Check out his Flickr here, and if you'd like to see more lenticular mosaics, check out our previous post on them here.

"Never laugh at live dragons, Bilbo you fool!"

So over at Classic-Castle, moderator Bluesecrets created a contest in which contestants were to show how they believed dragons were created. Now the winners have already been announced here, but user rogue27 (also a moderator of C-C) included a very small, yet well done mosaic in his entry.

His description reads: 

"The exchange student always blew off his sculpture assignments so he could dream up new monsters. Nobody expected that his creations would find their way into legends."

- Source

The mosaic is only about 6 studs long and 3 and a third studs high, yet conveys the image nicely. I'm going to have to try and incorporate small mosaics like these into tapestries, graffiti, or something else into my creations and I invite you to do the same!

You can check out the his Brickshelf gallery here, and the gallery for the entry here.

Guess the quote in the post title above in the comments below! (No google seraches! XD ) I'll give you hint. It will be released as a motion picture in a few months. ;-)

UPDATE: The winner of our not-so-official contest is Martin! The quote for the headline of the post has been modified now. Thanks for guessing!

Until then, bye!

Official Lego Mosaic Sets: Part 3 - Other Dacta Kits

It's been quite a while since the last Official Lego Mosaic set post, so in an effort to wrap up the unfinished projects of past days we are now continuing!

So in between the latest mosaic sets and the illustrious #3443, Lego also released a few more Dacta sets, similar to the ones first seen in the 80s.

First up we have 9534 Mosaic Tiles from 2000.

And second we have 9546 Mosaics Set from 2005.

Now, the only difference I can gather from these two sets, is that 9534 Mosaic Tiles was only available in the U.S. and was $5 (USD) cheaper than 9546 Mosaics Set. So what I can gather, the latter set must have just been a re-release (with strangely, only two more pieces).

Now, even though this next set came out one year after the 2007 mosaic sets, I'm still going to include it in this post because it falls within the same vein.

Lastly we have 9531 Numbers and Mosaics Set (2008).

Again, this set is really similar to the previous two sets. This one obviously just has the addition of numbers. This one doesn't have as much information as to its pricing and availability.

Up next will be part four with system sets and part five will be other sets that aren't only mosaics, but have mosaics incorporated into them. Stay tuned!

Resources:
- Brickset.com
- Lego Wikia
- LUGNET

Beloved

Awhile back I wrote a post about how Doug Hill experimented with different ways of stacking transparent elements attempts to make gray-scale mosaics.  [Arthur Gugick has also beautifully demonstrated that similar stacking techniques work to expand a color palette.]  Now Blake Baer shows off another mosaic using this technique:

The different shades of gray that are achieved by stacking the transparent 1x1 plates make the portrait come alive with detail.  Blake says there are close to 4000 pieces in this mosaic.  Stacking pieces greatly increases the number of pieces necessary, but I suppose that is compensated by the higher resolution of the mosaic, which will then not need to be as large as it would have been otherwise. 

Here is a detail shot, showing the layering technique:



The mosaic is made from the engagement photo of two very talented LEGO builders, Sean and Steph Mayo.  Although it's not a mosaic, check out their finally-finished Faerie Forest -- it's magnificent!   Blake surprised Sean and Steph with this mosaic at BrickFair last week, where it won "Best Mosaic."  I'd say it was a well-deserved win.
---------------------------------

Addendum:  Actually, the above-mentioned Faerie Forest does contain at least one mosaic.  Here is one of stained-glass redwood tree, on the side of the Forestmen Guild:

Faster, Higher, Stronger.... Bigger?

At the Olympics in London going on now, different countries have "national hospitality houses", set up to entertain athletes and other visitors.  The Danish hospitality house is called "Imagine Denmark" and is at the St Katharine Docks.  Since Denmark is the home of the LEGO Group, it is not surprising that they have several LEGO-themed events and exhibits.  One that has received a lot of attention is a LEGO replica of the Olympic Park by Warren Elsmore. 

The Imagine Denmark information page also told how Aug. 4 and 5 would showcase "Danish Fun and Games", in which "Children of all ages are invited to two days of building fun with LEGO bricks, competitions, exhibitions of the stadiums in Stratford and a seven-metre tall LEGO wind turbine – the world's tallest Lego wind turbine. We are also welcoming visitors to help building the famous Danish Skagen painting "Hip Hip Hurra" in Lego mosaic bricks."  That sounds like a fun weekend!

I haven't yet seen a photo of the Hip Hip Hurra painting mosaic, but I did see photos of this almost-finished Olympic-sized mosaic of a world map done by Bright Bricks. 

Bright Bricks is a company run by the U.K.'s only LEGO Certified Professional, Duncan Titmarsh.  Brickset did an interview with him once, which you can read here. 

You can find photos of the world mosaic in various stages of completion at Bright Bricks' Facebook Page.  Some of the detail shots are really neat:

It's somewhat hard to believe that that is all LEGO.  The mosaic should be finished Friday, and will be on display until August 27th. 

Other Blog News!

Hello everyone,

A couple other announcements!

Just to let everyone know, we have received various amounts of notifications as to the builders of a couple mosaics from the Brickworld 2012 Mosaic Coverage post. To let everyone know, a few have been identified, so be sure to check out the builders!

Katie Walker's article that was previously posted on the site is in HispaBrick! Support our author and Hispabrick by downloading it here! The magazine article turned out even better than it did on MB. Congrats!

Also, some printed MosaicBricks bricks are in the works! ;-)  Stay tuned.

Anyway, thanks to everyone for letting us know about the BW12 builders and congrats to Katie!
Casey

Announcing MosaicBricks' Newest Author!

        Hear ye! Hear ye! With the success of adding Katie to the blog, MosaicBricks looks to the future yet again! MosaicBricks seeks more to add more diversity of creations and writing styles to the blog! To add more resources for builders! To inspire the next generation!

        I'm proud to announce that we are adding, Dave Ware, who has agreed to join the blog as an author! If you weren't aware, Dave has built some of the best mosaics around, bringing most of them to either conventions or expos in which he has received an abundance praise from audiences and throughout the community for his stunning work. If you'd like to learn a bit about Dave, we did an interview back in 2010 that you can read here. If you'd like to see some of his creations, check out his flickr stream here. There are also links to his creations in the interview article!

Thanks again to Dave!
Casey

Simple and Sweet

Mosaics don't always have to be big and complicated to make a nice image.  Bruce sent me a link to this one, made by Brickshelf user lego036, saying it was simple, but that he liked it.



I really like it too.  Upon closer inspection, I can see that the eye is made of a round brick, and I'm fairly sure that the beak is made with a headlight brick.  The stud on the side of the headlight brick sticks out a bit, to give the beak a slightly pointy look.  Very nice. 

lego036 had a few other similar mosaics, too.  I love how the bird is holding a leaf in this one:



And it's very easy to imagine these cute little fishies swimming around in a koi pond:




As an aside, I find it very limiting that I can't leave comments or really contact in any way the Brickshelf users that are featured here.  For that reason I usually stick to flickr and MOCpages as sources for blogging.  I'll try to make more of an effort to check out Brickshelf, though, in the future. 

Let's Be Bad Guys!

I've noticed a trend of making a mosaic of a famous person (often as a character portrayed by that actor), and then getting them to autograph the mosaic.  I've previously mentioned Josh Wedin's Pinky and the Brain and Dave Shaddix's Spock and now with a matching Kirk (check out the signing in action!) and McCoy (which will, of course, remain autographless). 

Earlier this spring, Dave Ware got in on the action, making a mosaic of the character Jayne (as played by Adam Baldwin) from the TV series Firefly.  Here's a photo of Dave, Adam, and the mosaic: