Hi Everyone, I'd like to present my mosaic artwork titled "Old Friends" 

 

First off a couple of disclaimers! #1 I know mosaics are not everyone's cup of tea, so if you've made it this far thank you! #2 You may have already seen this on my Flickr or Instagram pages, if so I apologize. I'm pretty proud of the way this one turned out so I want to share it with as many people as possible!

The piece consists of 3911 parts and sits on a 4x4 base of 16 x 16 technic base plates (or bricks if you prefer). I worked hard to eliminate as many rare parts as possible. I managed to source most of the pieces from used art sets and LEGO bricks and pieces. I only used BL to acquire the 4 x 4 curved macaroni tile in yellow, 3 1/2 round stadium tiles in orange and some of the frame elements which are far less expensive there. If one was so inclined it would be possible to replace the technic baseplates with flat 32 x 32 baseplates and forgo the frame for a decent savings.

Like my Boba Fett mosaic, this one comprises 3 layers of plates and tiles over baseplates. This is to give more definition to the shapes, allow for some more subtle color through layering round tiles and square plates and to add a bit of dimensionality to the image.

I've been enjoying trying to get better photos of my mosaics and trying to capture what they are actually like to see in person (as opposed to the original renderings, or a straight-on shot). the frame follows the typical LEGO art technique with an integrated frame using modified 1 x 2 bricks with pin to connect the frame to the technic base plates. It also includes the technic pin connectors that acts as picture hangers to hang on the wall, though I quite like the leaning look.

 

Instructions are available on Rebrickable. I enjoy the unique challenge of creating instructions for these mosaics. The options in stud.io aren't quite flexible enough to create user-friendly instructions so I spent a long time thinking about the hurdles and designing a solution that would work within the format we are familiar with. In the end, I came up with a simple looking matrix of part/color however accurately transcribing the data (number of pieces, style of piece, and color) was incredibly time-consuming and tedious, which involved outputting a separate model of each mosaic step, creating a parts list .xls and entering that data by hand into thee page template. I have included an example below so you can get an idea.  In the future, I hope to have my wife help me code a script to do this automatically.

 

I'm always open to constructive feedback so please do let me know what you think!

 

Edited March 11, 20222 yr by Themiddlebrick
typo

Wow, that mosaic looks spectacular Great moc! I like the combination of studs and tiles and also the 3d effect.

Nice creation!  I think it looks great, thanks for sharing it.

Looks great! I purchased the instructions so look forward to building it in the future, thanks!

Awesome mosaic! I love the textured variety of different pieces, not just the tiles, but the studs and the plates too! (sorry I had to make that joke, I’m not the Jedi I should be )

  On 3/11/2022 at 5:03 PM, Yperio_Bricks said:

Wow, that mosaic looks spectacular Great moc! I like the combination of studs and tiles and also the 3d effect.

 

  On 3/11/2022 at 5:18 PM, eric_son_of_joseph said:

Nice creation!  I think it looks great, thanks for sharing it.

Thank you so much! I'm happy you enjoyed it!

  On 3/11/2022 at 11:08 PM, karmajay said:

Looks great! I purchased the instructions so look forward to building it in the future, thanks!

Wow! You have my humbpe gratitude! I really.tried to make the build process as easy as possible but if you have suggestions after you build it feel free to let me know!

  On 3/12/2022 at 1:34 AM, Wolfpackfan99 said:

Awesome mosaic! I love the textured variety of different pieces, not just the tiles, but the studs and the plates too! (sorry I had to make that joke, I’m not the Jedi I should be )

This is the type of quality comment you will only find on a forum of Star.Wars and LEGO fans! Thanks for making me chuckle!

@Themiddlebrick How do you feel this would handle being hung on the wall? I have not built any of the official Lego mosaics yet and I know those are hangable. Thanks!

  On 3/31/2022 at 1:32 AM, karmajay said:

@Themiddlebrick How do you feel this would handle being hung on the wall? I have not built any of the official Lego mosaics yet and I know those are hangable. Thanks!

It uses the same frame building technique and slotted technic panels as the official Lego mosaics, and can be hung on the wall pretty easily!

I completed mine - thanks again! It was a challenging build with all those colors. I definitely had a challenge on some of the steps trying to determine which color was which especially on that last step!

Here are some corrections for the instructions you may want to check - I usually defaulted to the picture which helped me catch some errors.

Step 14 - should be 14 1x8 blue vice dark azure

Step 21 - Part counts mixed up between DKR. RBR and DKBR

Step 23 - I could only see one LBG 1x1 on picture but count calls for 2

Step 36 count calls for 2 DBG 1x1 rounds with stud but the picture shows them as flat rounds

Step 38 - some of the placed pieces are actually greyed out in the picture

The 3rd layer actually had a few pieces that look greyed out on the pictures which luckily when I had leftovers for a step i would just glare at the picture for a bit!

Step 44 is probably the most challenging example but it was very hard to tell white, YGR and LTNG apart on the picture :)

 

  On 4/5/2022 at 3:09 AM, karmajay said:

I completed mine - thanks again! It was a challenging build with all those colors. I definitely had a challenge on some of the steps trying to determine which color was which especially on that last step!

Here are some corrections for the instructions you may want to check - I usually defaulted to the picture which helped me catch some errors.

Step 14 - should be 14 1x8 blue vice dark azure

Step 21 - Part counts mixed up between DKR. RBR and DKBR

Step 23 - I could only see one LBG 1x1 on picture but count calls for 2

Step 36 count calls for 2 DBG 1x1 rounds with stud but the picture shows them as flat rounds

Step 38 - some of the placed pieces are actually greyed out in the picture

The 3rd layer actually had a few pieces that look greyed out on the pictures which luckily when I had leftovers for a step i would just glare at the picture for a bit!

Step 44 is probably the most challenging example but it was very hard to tell white, YGR and LTNG apart on the picture :)

Thank you for this detailed feedback! As many times as I went through the instructions it is hard to believe I missed some of these but then again there is nothing like another pair of eyes to find errors in one’s work! 

I will check these steps and make any corrections asap and update the file.

For the last step I could do color call outs (like I did for the single yellowish green pieces in some steps), I considered this but it got very cluttered and difficult to read fast. I will go back and explore this option again. I did edit some of the colors to help better differentiate them but with the lighter ones it is very difficult to do without altering the color beyond recognition. Of course It is also very dependent on your screen, on my color calibrated desktop monitor it is fairly easy to tell the difference but on my phone it is harder (the size of display makes a difference too). That is the advantage of printed instructions, they can be color proofed for accuracy! But I don’t think many people would want to pay $60 for them!

It is great seeing your build. Thank you for sharing the pictures!

Edited April 6, 20222 yr by Themiddlebrick
Further clarification