WARNING: The following post is rated: Arrrrgh!

Shannon Ocean made Guybrush Threepwood from the Monkey Island series of video games. I've personally never played them, but I hear they're quite entertaining.

Nothing like some pixel-y goodness!

IT'S MAGIC!!!...Well, not really...

In the mosaic world, it's now all the rage to do "morphing mosaics" where when you're looking at a mosaic from one angle, it appears to be just a single image, but as you shift to another side, the image morphs into another image.

This effect was first done with Chris Doyle's Portrait of Dorian Bley using "cheese slopes" put next to each other. Looking at the image strait on will make it look really weird, so using this, you get some very cool transforming creations. Now, it's been copied and re-done all across the community and I only suspect it to gain more traction:

Arthur Gugick's Darth Vader/Anakin mosaic.

Daniel Stoeffler's Lego Harry Potter/Lord Voldemort (he who must not be named!) mosaic.

Reasonably Clever Chris's original Dorian Bley featuring the original technique.

DuckJournal and Mime Magazine!

Chris Howard, (Duckingham) who we interviewed a year ago, created two hilarious and clever mosaics. DuckJournal (Parody of "Brickjournal") and Mime Magazine (Parody of "Time Magazine".)



Check out what he's done on his flickr stream to see all the great photos!

*** Note: I'm back from vacation. (obviously!)

Mosaics at the Legoland Discovery Center!

Ok, so I recently stopped by the Legoland Discovery Center for my fourth time because the attendees of Brickworld 2011 got free coupons (and get 10% off at the gift shop!)! Coming back with a mindset to snap photos, I got a lot of photos of mosaics! Enjoy. ;-D

So first up we have a lot of castle pictures...


These sheild heraldry mosaics were at the beginning of the dragon ride and were pretty sweet. Following with the dragon theme...



...these were mosaics that were found during the dragon ride. The first photo turned out really nicely while the other one is not so great, as you can tell. It was quite difficult to get them while riding. =) I think these were my favorite ones. The glowed quite nicely in the dark.

Continuing on...


We also found this cartoony mosaic and was pretty neat.

Moving on away from Castle...




All these mosaics were found by the bathrooms. There were 2 day camps eating lunch at this time I took them, so they didn't turn out exactly like I wanted them to, but I'm hoping they're still easy to look at.

Across from the bathrooms by the "Model Workshop" section, we had some more "artistic" mosaics.

Now I'm sure that second one is Van Gogh's Starry Night, but I can't tell what the first one is. (If anyone knows, leave a comment or email me at mosaicbricks@gmail.com). The one below is the Mona Lisa, but didn't turn out that great due to a TON of glare.

*** Note, thanks to Bruce N H and rjg173 for letting me know the first one is "The Scream" by Edvard Munch.


So, yeah! There you go! There was one extra mosaic, but it had even more glare so I figured it wasn't even worth it. The interview with Ben Caulkins is coming up soon. Thanks for reading!

Vvvrrroom! Vvvvvrooooom!!!

Still easing back into our regular posting...

Brickshelf member, mwv1970 (Bill Vollbrecht), built this great looking motorcycle. Flame on it looks great.



Bill also has some really amazing stuff in his Brickshelf folders so be sure to check all his cool models out.

The Superbowl #45!

Alas, the dust has settled, the threats of whose team is better are over, the reviews of that horrendous sad excuse for a halftime show are out!, and the actual National Anthem lyrics are being googled.

Apparently, Henchman #21 created a little series of mini mosaics on a 48x48 baseplate and posted it Saturday. Just in case you're not sure, it contains a NFC division, a AFC division, a Superbowl 45 logo, a Packers logo, and a Steelers logo.

Boo on the Packers! Go Bears!

Goooooooogle!

Lego certified professional and creator of Mocpages, Sean Kenney (The man. The myth. The legend!), was commission in 2007 to create a mosaic for Google Inc. for their NY offices. When looking at it normally, it appears to be a normal mosaic,



But when you get close and look at it from a different angle,



It is really just a bunch of random bricks, like doors and strange things all cobbled together to make a mosaic. Pretty neat huh? View the rest of the creation here.

Sean Kenney is one of my favorite builders, be sure to check out all his great creations and commissions by visiting his website: http://seankenney.com/

*** It should also be noted that Sean Kenney also made another Google Logo mosaic for Google Inc.'s Denmark office. Check it out here.

Campbells. Mmmm, mmmm, Good!

On the blog here, I have this little flickr stream down the page the has goes through all sorts of Lego mosaics on Flickr. One thing that I've seen come through there is this a mosaic of Campbell's Tomato Soup.

Created by TheWorldInBricks (or David Haliski), the mosaic is 30"x40" and is very impressive.

You can check out David's website here. Make sure you do so because he has some pretty sweet creations. In this one section you can interactively walk though a gallery. Incredible!

"The weather outside is frightful, but the mosaics are so delightful..."

Flickr user, eilonwy77 (a.k.a. Katie Walker), creates a beautiful Holiday mosaic 9-pack filled to the brim with Christmas cheer that would fill up even the biggest of stockings.



Check out our interview with her here, in case you have missed it.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I trust all of you are having a great time with your relatives eating plenty of great food (and scoping out the great Black Friday deals)!

Unfortunately, I have some bad news. I looked everywhere for a thanksgiving or turkey style Lego mosaic, but I couldn't find one! So instead, I found a very cool turkey mosaic (non-Lego). Enjoy!



Once again, Happy Thanksgiving!

Seperation of Day and Night

MOCpages user, alyska bailey peterson, creates an absolutely beautiful stained glass window.


Here's a description of the mosaic MOC via the post on MOCpages:

This trans Lego stained glass mosaic, measuring 15x28", is based on the stained glass window "Creation: Day Four" at the Church of the Sacred Heart in Bilton, Rugby, England. The original window was designed by artist Aidan McRae Thomson in 1998-9.

This is the first in a series of five panels based on the creation story that I'm working on, hopefully to exhibit as a pentych at Brickworld 2011 in Wheeling, Illinois. (I'm already halfway through the second panel as of this posting!)

View the MOC here.

"Got any kings? Go fish!"

Flickr user, Marin Stipkovic creates the King of Diamonds from a 52 card deck. The mosaic is incredible with great parts useage and excecution!



Be sure to check out Marin Stipkovic's flickr stream to see some of his other great creations (especially his scaled up ones).

** Thanks to Katie Walker and Bruce N H for sending me the link to the mosaic. If you have a mosaic you want to see featured, email me at mosaicbricks (at) gmail.com

"1.21 Gigawatts? 1.21 Gigawatts? Great Scott!"

November 10th, 2010! Today marks the 25th anniversary of the very first Back to the Future movie. I actually saw the whole trilogy a little earlier in the year (around May), and those were great movies (Although I didn't quite agree with the third movie's theology behind time travel and such).

Exactly a month ago, icgetaway built a mosaic of the famous DeLorean in the movie, going back to the future.



In BTTF 2, they go to the year 2010, and they have hover boards, but yet, We don't right now!! Man!...

** Thanks to Bruce N H for sending me the link to the mosaic. If you have a mosaic you want to see featured, email me at mosaicbricks (at) gmail.com

Interview: Dave Ware (Brickwares)

Dave Ware, a titan in the mosaic world, has built some awesome mosaics. Over the course of a few days, I was fortunate enough to interview him over the course of a few days about him, his "War of the Worlds" mosaic, and his experience at Brickcon.

Who are you?

"I’m Dave Ware (Brickwares). I’m an AFOL who specializes in LEGO Mosaics. I’m a husband and father. I live in Calgary, Canada, and I work in as a Business/Systems analyst in the Energy industry."

How long have you been into/playing with Lego? Have you ever had a dark age?

"I loved LEGO as a kid, my friend had all of the space sets, and I would play for hours, making mostly the interiors of ships etc. My dark age would be from the usual (13? 14?) until I was about 27, when I saw the Witch’s Windship, and bought it on impulse. Since then, I’ve been collecting sets. I started building mosaics in 2006, after a trip to the local science center with my almost 3 year old son. It was a LEGO Egypt exhibit, and I was fascinated with the map they had built, and wondered if I could make something like that. The answer is “yes”. I started experimenting with colors and designs, and have built around 20 mosaics in the last four years, and have been honored to win the Best Mosaic category at BrickCon in both 2009 and 2010. These days I’m looking at ways of expanding by mosaic building into a side business, trying to find art galleries to hang my pieces in, etc."

How and when did you find the online Lego community?
"I started searching on the web for other mosaics probably in 2006. Early on, I was using MOCpages a lot, but these days I pretty much post my works on my website (brickwares.com), as well as my facebook group and flickr. I’ve made a lot of friends through attending BrickCon the past 2 years, and most of them I stay in touch with through Flickr and facebook. Readingwise, I enjoy Brothers Brick and Eurobricks, and check in daily to see what other people are building. Seriously, the best thing about this hobby is the imagination and creativity that people show, with seemingly no limits."

What themes do you like to build in? (if any?)

"I like building Town stuff, mostly. I’ve been collecting the “Cafe Corner” style sets, and have a nice street made up. I’m trying to learn how to work in that style so that I can make my own buildings, as I’ve been taking a lot of pictures of wonderful style houses in my travels. I also have a soft spot in my heart for the Islanders theme (sub theme of pirates). I can’t explain it, I just really like them."

Ok, now let's move on to your mosaic, "The War of the Worlds."

Where did the inspiration for this mosaic come from?

"Apart from portrait style mosaics, I like to make mosaics of comic book covers, art deco style stuff, and generally iconic images. The important thing to remember about larger scale mosaic building is that you’re going to be working on, and staring at, the image for dozens of hours, so you HAVE to choose subject material that inspires you, something you’re excited about. I had done a classics illustrated comic book cover last year (“To The Stars”,), and found that the comic book covers really have a lot of style and big splashes of color, without being overly intricate. Often I’ll just randomly do Google Image Searches, and also on flickr, to find subjects I think are interesting, and save them to an “idea” folder. I’m a big sci fi fan, as well as a comic book reader, so War of the Worlds was a natural fit. The thing that really grabbed me after I started tinkering with the image was that there were big areas of bold color, which really stand out for me."

The mosaic is absolutely huge! It's one of the biggest I've ever seen. How did you go about designing such a large project?

"It’s big, for sure. I’ve made a couple that were bigger than this, but not many. This past summer for the opening of the first Canadian LEGO brand store, I built a Stampede Poster mosaic that was 7 feet tall by 5 feet wide . And to certain, there are bigger ones out there. The issue you run in to, quickly, is that more baseplates means more brick, and adding a row or column to the mosaic translates to a LOT of brick and time. When I’m trying to sort out how big something needs to be in order to pull the details I need, I always have to keep in mind that adding 1 baseplate in width could translate to an extra 4-5 baseplates worth of brick."

Once it was all designed, how does it stand right side up? Do the bricks connect to baseplates, or do you glue them, or something else?

"The baseplates (X-large) are drilled through, and attached with screws to a piece of 5/8 or ½ inch MDF. I tried plywood in the past, but it bends too easily. There’s a LOT of weight, and it tends to warp the wood quickly. Most people tend to use plate, which would be a lot lighter. I’ve never switched over, I work only in brick. I use everything from 1x1 up to 2x10. I’ve never glued, as that would easily double the time involved, and make the works permanent. That’s fine if it’s for a commission, but with stuff around the house, I generally want to build something else sooner or later, and use the bricks again. Also, it’s LEGO. It won’t fall off or loosen unless lots of people are touching it. For something really public where folks are touching, I’d consider glue."

Were there any other particular challenges that went along with building this mosaic?

"The biggest challenge was one of capacity. I built this for BrickCon 2010, and I wasn’t about to trust it to the airlines, so I knew I’d be driving it, which meant I had to keep the size down to something that would fit in my CR-V. Width-wise I was fine, but it was too tall. I had to remove the top row of16x32 baseplates, and mount those to a separate piece of MDF, and then assemble on site. Recently I installed this piece in a local comic book store, so I had to do it all again. Essentially, there’s a point where big mosaics become all about carpentry!

The other issue I ran into, is that skin color doesn’t translate well in LEGO, so while there is a tan color, it’s not quite right. So for the central gunner in the picture, who was wearing a tank top in the original, I added some camo sleeves to avoid this. Also, there’s a lot of fine detail towards the bottom, so there was some changing and new color choices involved in trying to keep some of the detail."

Next, we're on to Brickcon...

What was your experience at Brickcon 2010 like?

"I had a blast at BrickCon. It’s a great chance to meet other AFOLs, to get inspired about new things, and to see the brilliant creations that people come up with. I made a lot of new friends, and tried out a few new things, like the Speed and Master build challenges. I recommend going to BrickCon, or the other conventions to everyone. Because of the size of the mosaics, and the fragility of them, I end up driving down. It’s a two day trip, but I really enjoyed the whole experience."

Was there a large presence of mosaics there?

"I think there might have been fewer mosaics this year, but the quality was certainly there. There was a beautiful castle mosaic in a very classic style, an Obama “Hope” poster, and a few others."

You also mentioned that you won an award for the War of the World's mosaic which is also your second mosaic award from Brickcon. What was that like? Were you shocked to win again?

I was honored to win the award, it’s always thrilling to be recognized, especially by your peers. While I don’t build the mosaics for BrickCon for awards, it’s certainly a nice pat on the back. Hopefully we can encourage other people to create mosaics for next year.

Do you plan on going to Brickcon next year?

"I’m planning on going. It’s a long time from now till then, but unless something major comes up, I’ll be there."

And lastly...

What does the future hold for Dave Ware?

"Short term, I’m working on displaying my work in local shops and hopefully a gallery. Long term, I’d love to do this for a living. Until then, I’ll keep building things I like, and hopefully others will feel the same way."

Many thanks to Dave Ware for the interview! Even more thanks for your patience! ;-D View all kinds of things about Dave, below:

- Flickr - MOCpages - Website -
- TV Mini-Interview - Facebook Page -

'Tis the Season to visit Dentist!

Put on your Halloween costume and head out to collect succulent amounts of dentist drawing delights! It's that time of year for carving pumpkins and watching the Charlie Brown Halloween special! A time of Lego mosaics!

I've collected five great Halloween mosaics from across the web and assembled them for a very special MosaicBricks Halloween post.

First up, we have a double feature from eilonwy77 (Katie Walker). Two cheese slope mosaics, one a neat little spider on top, and a cool jack-o-lantern on the bottom.



Second, we have a scary face with a ton of different colors by DJ Baggadonuts.

Third, we have another mosaic by DJ Baggadonuts that will forever haunt me. ;-D



Fourth, we have a very creepy mosaic from the "Phantom Zone from the Superman I/Superman II films". Regardless, it's an awesome zombie looking mosaic built by Reasonably Clever Chris (Doyle)

Lastly we have our fifth, and final mosaic of the post. Frankenstein's monster, forever haunted by fire, is built beautifully in a cool technique in which you built SNOT vertically and horizontally at the same time. It looks awesome! Built by Legohaulic.



Happy Halloween! Have fun everyone! Try and beat my record of 30 lbs. worth of candy (2005)! :-)

~Casey~

"The White Lotus Tile is much more than just a game of Pai Sho!"

Flickr user, Crimson Wolf, creates a very intricate and unique mosaic of a white lotus flower breaking through the pavement (or at least that's what I thought it was. ;-D )



(If anyone knows what TV show the quote for this post's title is from, leave a comment saying what TV show it's from, and I'll give you a virtual cookie!)
- Casey

"Go Fish!"

Lugnet user, Robert Enloe, creates a great joker card. The size of the mosaic is huge compared to the table it's sitting on. I also think that it's SNOT (Studs not on top), as well.



Very cool, and possibly a little creepy??? Check out the gallery: here