Hans Demol (hd_lego) made this mosaic in the spirit of the work of M.C. Escher, who experimented with "'Regular Division of the Plane' (a composition form depicting irregular shapes or combinations of shapes that interlock completely to cover a surface or plane)".
You can see it better in the larger sizes, which is where I noticed that in some areas Hans used square pieces and in other areas used round pieces on different colored backgrounds to try to achieve a gradation of color. There are also transparent pieces used for the same purpose, as you can see here:
Sorry for the blitz in posting, but I finished a project and am ready to catch up on my backlog of mosaic posts.
Eldert (evhh) made this very interesting bas-relief colors collage. I find myself staring at it for long stretches of time, admiring the pieces used and the color transitions.
Although it's not really of anything specific, I think it's one of my favorite mosaics that I've seen in awhile. If I had the right kind of house (you know, the kind that looks more like an art museum and less like a daycare), I would love to hang something like this up on my walls.
Mariann Asanuma (Model Gal) recently completed her first mosaic portrait of a real person. At the size of 1 square foot, it's pretty small, but still containing lots of detail:
Dave Shaddix also recently completed a mosaic of a person, which is, as he describes it, "A 20" x 20" mosaic commissioned by a very loving grandmother to commemorate her grandson's senior year of high school and amazing last season!"
This mosaic is a bit more stylized, but still gives me a great impression of a football player in action.
The Mayos came up with the idea of having a "Flash MOC". It's like a Flash Mob, but with LEGO models instead. A bunch of models would show up all at once, all following a similar theme. The theme was of a fantasy world filled with polar bear warriors. You can see the results of the group collaboration, including the story line, in the Urtican Blitz'ard group on flickr.
I made a model of a bear divining the future with bones.
It's no secret that my true love is geometric mosaics, and I put them in MOCs mostly just to show them off in a more interesting way (and to show that they could be useful for other builders, too, I suppose).
Here is the mosaic in a different picture all by itself:
I felt inspired to write up a step-by-step description of how I came up with this on flickr, and I would like to expand on it here just a little:
I started with the idea of using curved walls, straight walls, and hinges to make different shapes that could be filled with cheese slopes. Here are some of the shapes I tried first:
The first mosaic I made with one of these shapes was this flower petal study:
I tried it again, trying to blend the colors from white to black a bit more:
After that, I moved on to trying out another of those original shapes. I first tried the skinny petals all the way around to make a flower, and tried connecting it around the outside, too. However, the outside framing was too tight, and the whole frame came up on the outsides like a bowl.
So I took the outside frame off, and just concentrated on filling the center and the petals with cheeses and tiles. I probably found four ways to do the center (only one is pictured). Each petal was filled in a different way, to see which would turn out the best. Some turned out better than others. An ideal filling would not only have the space completely covered, but would also have some symmetry or interesting geometric shaping in the patterns of the cheese slopes, for making interesting color designs with.
I picked the designs I thought would work the best, and tried them out. Then I tried again to make an outer frame all the way around the petals. I found a way that you can see on the right side of the below picture, but I wanted to make it a little cooler looking. So I added little nubs that stuck out like a snowflake. But that new attempt was too tight, and after I got to about 9 of them done, the plates and hinges that make up the center circle couldn't handle the tension and one of them popped apart. The inner circle wasn't all connected together anymore, though you can't really tell from the photo:
I think at that point I started to take the nubs off, because they couldn't handle the tension. And then this happened:
The frame for the innermost circle burst apart at two places. Very clearly my frame was not working. So I went back to the simpler and less interesting frame, so that the tension on the inside of the mosaic remained at tolerable levels. And in the meantime, I had a good excuse to redo the middle circle to a colored design that I liked better.
(Sorry it's not the best photograph of the mosaic -- I didn't think
to take a better one, since I wasn't done with the whole MOC yet.)
You'll notice that the outside edges don't actually connect, but leave gaps. It's so tight that the cheese slopes stay put anyway. Filling in the outermost shapes was very hard by the end. I had to put the pieces into each shape in a specific order, so that some of the pieces would help to hold the shape more open so that I could cram in the rest of the pieces. The last ones were very difficult.
Then I started working with lights. My kids have little lamps with red and blue lightbulbs, and we have 4 blacklights (which make the trans-medium blue cheese slopes glow).
For the final MOC I did a lot of work on the walls, putting double layers of black and double layers of trans for the windows, so that gaps wouldn't show through. It was also tricky to do the walls because the corners of the design were too tight, so I couldn't connect the sections at the bottom, but interlaced them. I layered tiles at the junctions, kind of like interlacing your fingers. By the time I got to the top there was enough give that I could connect all the wall panels together. That really helped with the stability.
For the final lighting, I had two black lights underneath, one on each side right next to the MOC, a blue light in the back, a reddish light sort of shining in the vicinity, a light on in the nearby closet, and then waved a flashlight on the bear's head to try to fill it in with light. It was hard to hold the camera still for the long exposure while holding the flashlight. It took forever to get something passable, and I'm not sure it's as good as I was hoping for, but it works, I guess:
I took some photos with more red in them, which I liked, but it didn't feel as cold as a mystical polar bear place should feel.
(I realize there is a slight inconsistency with this story versus the one I told on flickr. I thought more about how I did the outside frame and made some changes to the order of events. Don't hold it against me in a court of law, please!)
It was fun to work on a project with friends, and it's always great to have a reason to make another cheesy mosaic. ;-D
Daniel Stoeffler (Dan_Sto) developed a way to make a self-standing mosaic by using hinges to open the panels of the mosaic.
As Daniel says, it is a "self-standing 128x70 mosaic representing the scene of the Star Wars, A New Hope movie where Princess Leia records her help call for Obiwan. The mosaic consists of 4 panels connected with hinges so that the panels make an angle of 22.5 degrees."
Here is a view of the back:
I never thought I'd make a large mosaic, if only for the fact that I wouldn't know how to mount it and didn't care enough to try to figure it out. But this makes it look easy and do-able.
Bart De Dobbelaer (Flickr user) just recently posted his third entry for the Iron Builder competition against our own authoring team Sean and Steph Mayo. The entry was titled "Fiery Lips" and is using what I'm hearing is called the "scattered mosaic" or "scattered brick technique". It includes (but is not limited to) using a random assortment of piece types in the same color to create shapes.
The above mosaic utilizes the technique found in the previously blogged (by Katie) Spiderman mosaic by Xenomurphy in December (Seen below). (Check out the original post here )
Bricko also made a superhero scatter mosaic after seeing Xenomurphy's. This one, is a interpretation of the Dark Knight himself, Batman.
I think this new form of mosaic has a lot of potential, but one must be very precise about how they make the shapes or it could look...odd. It's all about the fine details of curves and shapes. For me, I think it's a great new building style, but is not even a real creation as little to no bricks are connected. You can't transport them anywhere. ;-(
What do you think of them? Let us know in the comments.
tapestry [tap-uh-stree] - n. a fabric consisting of a warp upon which colored threads are woven by hand to produce a design, often pictorial, used for wall hangings, furniture coverings, etc.
The first is of a unicorn by Flickr user, jackiebritton. My favorite parts of this one include the shading of the back legs and the slope parts used to insert the unicorn horn.
Here's a mosaic found in Legoland, Windsor taken by Flickr user, Derringdos. I like the use of only five colors.
Majita Grguric made this Black Falcon mosaic, but unlike the tapestries here, this one is studs up, opposed to SNOT. The shading in the grey is just superb, though.
NewRight made this smaller tapestry of a castle. This one is probably my favorite out of the lot as the mist and clouds are really a great touch, as well as the color of the trees and the slopes at the top of the castle.
Flickr user, Daniel Z "DNL", created a hunting scene. This one is interesting by its use of multiple perspectives (with the tower and people). Once again, you can notice the little shading of the side of the tower and further away legs of the horse that make the mosaic great, as well as that he used both sideways and right side up SNOT techniques. It is a bit odd that the tower's top is not included inside the tapestry, though.
Bluesecrets made both of these tapestries, of which the one on the bottom won the category of best tapestry in the 2008 Colossal Castle Contest VI on Classic-Castle. The first is a recreation of her avatar, which is very smll, but effective. The second is of a knight. The scattering of colors the is really great, and the clouds are really spectacular too.
Oliver Kude (HanSolo089) recently posted these Star Wars character mosaics.
The first, of General Grievous, was built with 3595 plates on 3 x 2 48x48 Baseplates. He looks very menacing:
My favorite is the second, of Aayla Secura. She was built with 5377 plates on 3 x 2 48x48 baseplates.
Oliver has several other mosaics in his photostream, too, including this lovely mosaic of Neuschwanstein Castle built by visitors to Bricking Bavaria 2011:
Stefan JohannesKubin (lord_tarris) is working on building a cathedral, filled with lots of gorgeous mosaics. Check 'em out!
Aren't they gorgeous? I especially love that first photo; the colors are so rich. It will be fun to watch the rest of the cathedral come together as Stefan builds it.
