Yin and Yang

Sharon Prue made this lovely Yin-Yang mosaic for BrickFair Alabama.



I really like the juxtaposition of the transparent colors against the dark black background.

(I found this posted at GodBricks, which is always worth a read.)

Happy New Year!

I don't know that much about Chinese New Year. I did once march in the Chinese New Year Parade in San Francisco, and it was wild and exciting, with lights and noise and masses of people, some of whom liked to throw fireworks practically under our feet. My best friend Google tells me that this year the Chinese New Year is January 23, and Rack911 uploaded these adorable characters to celebrate.



I found that the use of mosaics of Chinese characters in the background really added to the presentation.

King of the Squiddies.... and of the Mosaics

While I think of Dave Shaddix as the King of the Squiddies, he actually has completed a large amount of mosaics, too. His most recent one is a portrait of Albert Einstein:



He does, happily, also have a mosaic of Squidman:



One of my favorites is this mosaic of bowling pins on the wall of a bowling alley:



And then there is this Spock mosaic, which was autographed at the Phoenix ComicCon by Leonard Nimoy himself! How's that for combining two nerdy interests in one fell swoop?



You can find many more mosaics (including the "I Want You" mosaic that Casey previously blogged) in this set on flickr.

Forever Enshrined Behind Some Old Glass Pane

Barney Main (SlyOwl) made this scene for an entry in an Iron Builder competition. For the contest he was required to use the yellow triangle piece in each creation. The triangles made for very nice medals, but for me the highlight of the MOC was the mosaic portrait.



It uses bricks and plates heading in several directions in order to give the impression of a soldier in an old, tattered photograph. All together it makes for a rather poignant scene.

While on the topic of Barney, I should mention that he was featured extensively in the latest LEGO Ideas Book. I received this book for Christmas, and it is packed with wonderful models from several people I have "met" in the online LEGO community. It also includes an extensive mosaic section, which I will try to cover in a future post.

LEGO Logo Graffiti

Tyler Clites (Legohaulic) recently posted this little mosaic that he built ten years ago when he was 14. It is the LEGO logo done in graffiti style. When I first saw it, I expected it to be much larger than it actually is.



I found some other mosaics in his photostream too. The first one shows lettering on a Bible. I was particularly impressed with the gold he used, since that color is available in many fewer parts, which are generally much harder to work with.



I also notice that his buddy icon is a mosaic incorporating the L and the H from his user name.




Clever!

Sirens-Of-Titan's Castle Mosaics

I love to see bits of mosaics and patterns incorporated into larger LEGO creations. Alex P. (Sirens-Of-Titan) has been making some incredibly neat castle scenes over the past year, and my favorite parts are always the bits of mosaics that he incorporates into the design. These bits can be found on floors, walls, windows, and doors, and add lots of visual interest to the larger creation.

One of my favorite examples is in his Tower of the Arcane, where mosaics are used as pictoglyphs that hold secrets of magic:



Another one of my favorites is the City of Omurtag, which features mosaics running up, down, and all around its walls and floors.



The throne room for that Dwarven City is also covered with mosaicky goodness:



And finally, here is an image that shows mosaics used for a rug as well as for stained-glass windows:



Be sure to check out Alex's photostream for all sorts of fantastic castle MOCs. I also collected some of the best examples of his incorporations of mosaics into a flickr gallery, which you can see here.

31 Flavors of LEGO

Ryan H. (LDM) has been making copies of various album covers out of LEGO. His most recent one is a mosaic that incorporates 31 different LEGO colors. Here you can see his mosaic on the left, and the original album cover (Narrow Stairs by Death Cab For Cutie) on the right:



I'm not sure I could even give the names of 31 different LEGO colors, let alone use them all in a single mosaic. I have plans to write-up some techniques that different people have used to increase the palette of available colors for mosaics. Ryan here demonstrates one of the simplest: just make use of the wide variety of colors already available. There have been quite a few new colors introduced lately, which is great for potential creations (but not so great on the wallet!).