How to design your own LEGO Art MOC
The new craze for adults seeking solace, peace and meditation in worldwide lockdown is puzzles. And LEGO — forever trying to capitalize on the latest craze — has released their very own line of LEGO Art. With four different mosaics, replicating or depicting famous musicians, art pieces or movie characters, the LEGO Corporation tries to find a middle ground between their own brand of ‘play well’ with the mental exersize of puzzles.
Their four current lines (Star Wars sith, Iron Man, The Beatles and Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe) all hit on a broad spectrum of interests, but what if you want to make your very own LEGO Art piece? After all the LEGO brand is all about creativity and rebuilding, with fans dubbing their own brick creations ‘MOCs’ (My Own Creation).
So how would you make your very own LEGO Art MOC? Here’s how I did it from brainstorming to finished product. Let’s start from the top!
1. What to build?
First off we need to have an idea of what to build. My first LEGO Art set was the Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe set, which I absolutely loved. So I wanted to make something similar, and looked straight into Warhol’s other celebrity portraits. I found two portraits which I really liked: Elizabeth Taylor and Michael Jackson
While I think the Elizabeth Taylor image is closer to the Marilyn original, I’m a huge Michael Jackson fan, and therefore chose the latter as my art subject.
2. Size and color palette.
There’s many choices to make from here. As I chose an Andy Warhol portrait, I have multiple choice regarding color. Do I go with one of the original color palettes (Warhol more often than not made several color variations of his portraits)? Do I use colors similar to the Marilyn set? Or do I go completely custom with my own colors.
Also important to know: LEGO parts don’t come with unlimited color palettes, and some colors in bricks are more expensive to buy than others (they may be a color no longer in production or only come in small batches — and we need quite a lot!).
As for size, you don’t want to go too small. In fact I recommend going no smaller than the 48x48 stud size the original LEGO Art projects have, since you may not be able to discern the subject on the studded canvas, if the “resolution” is too low. Imagine trying to make a portrait at 16x16 studs. I reckon it would be hard to tell who anyone is, at that size!
For my project, I’m going for the original 48x48 stud size. You can certainly go larger as well. For this guide, we are using the same base as the LEGO Art projects, which are 16x16 base plates with technic holes on the sides to connect to each other, so I would recommend using these plates, when increasing in size. This means if you want to go larger than 48x48, you can go 64, 80, 96 and so on. You don’t have to go in a perfect square either, and can choose to go rectangular, as long as you have a size dividable by sixteen.
3. Mosaic-ize your photo
There are several options to make a mosaic from your chosen painting or photo. Some are software used for knitting patterns, some are for bead projects. My favorite is web based, free and simple to use. It’s called Pixel-beads, and it lets you upload a photo, which they make into a mosaic based on your instructions. The service is originally used for fused beads (the type you fuse together with an iron).
First open the web address https://www.pixel-beads.net/, then upload your chosen photo. This takes you to the main application, where to see your option. I’m going to take you through the most important ones:
Width (number of beads): This is an important one. This is where you choose the resolution of your project. In my project I am following the LEGO Art’s original resolution, which is 48. So in this field, I am putting in the number 48, which will give me an image which is 48 pixels across.
Number of colors: Equally an important one. As we know by now, LEGO colors aren’t unlimited. So we want to limit the color scheme to as few colors as possible.
This is true for the LEGO Art line as well, which are limited to seven or eight colors for each project. While I am going for the style of the Andy Warhol set, I am not opting for the same color scheme. So I will let Pixel-Beads do its magic. For now I will put in 8 colors.
Show grid: This is a yes or no option. I’d check it to say yes. This makes it easier to differentiate the specific pixels — that is to say, the specific bricks.
You can play around with the other options as you please, but these three are the most important. When you are happy with your options, press ‘Create Pattern’, and the app will generate an image for you. This is your mosaic. Don’t be afraid to try different options — you can always redo them. Try de-selecting colors you don’t want to use in ‘Color Selection’ or even play around in ‘Advanced Options’ until you get an image you like.
Once you get an image which is relatively close to what you want your final product to look like, press Save Pattern. This will get your chosen image in a PDF file, which you can print. In the file, there is also the amount of “beads” in each color. This is the amounts we use, when we need to order our LEGO tiles or plates we want for our MOC.
4. Perfect your pixelated mosaic.
There are several ways to perfect your mosaic to make the image look as close as possible to the original art. Because while a computer can make a great attempt at doing the perfect approximation, it simply does not compare to a human’s eye and mind. For instance have a look at Michael’s right eye. It doesn’t look quite right. And his smile isn’t very legible on the image. We can fix that several ways.
My preferred option is to open the image in Photoshop and select the pixels I want to change to other colors. You can do it one by one, see how it looks, change it back and so forth, until you get a result you like.
While many people might not have Photoshop or an image processing software available, there is also the much simpler option of printing out the image on your home printer, and paint on top of the paper with your desired colors. While it’s very low tech, it is also incredibly easy!
The left is how my Michael Jackson looks after I’ve fiddled with it a bit, and the right is some edits after a break. I made some changes around the nose and eyes to make it look less cartoonish. I changed the colors to look closer to the LEGO colors I know are available in 1x1 round tiles — the same type of brick used in the Marilyn Monroe set.
If you try several things and still aren’t happy, it might be wise to step away from the image, maybe take a break, so you can get a fresh look at the image.
Remember you can also change things while you build, if you are not entirely happy once you build the set.
5. Buy the bricks
Now it’s finally time to purchase your parts! We’re getting close now!
You can purchase LEGO parts several ways. If you chose colors similar to the Marilyn Monroe original, it might be cheaper to simply buy that set and build from there.
You can also buy parts from Bricklink (think of it as LEGO eBay for used and new bricks and sets) or directly from LEGO’s Brick and Pieces service.
Whichever service you opt for, it might also be wise to combine them. For me personally it was cheaper to buy the round 1x1 plates on Bricks and Pieces, and the rest of the bricks (16x16 bricks and bricks for the frame) on Bricklink.
To find out which bricks you need for the frame itself, you might as well copy the exact bricks from an original LEGO Art set — or more, if you’ve increased the size of the piece you’re building.
It is wise to purchase 10% more bricks for each of the colors than you think you need, in case you want to make some last minute changes while building. You don’t want to end up missing the all important piece to finish your creation!
When you have ordered all the bricks, all you have to do is wait. Which is the hard part indeed! If you’re like me, you might want to sweeten the wait with buying a LEGO set to put together in the meantime!
6. One, two, three, build!
Would you look at that? The bricks finally arrived! Now it’s time to build — and this is the fun and easy part! Print your finished design and get to work! If you’ve already built an original LEGO Art set, this part should be quite easy. If you haven’t, you can download the original building instructions on LEGO’s website.
I am still waiting for my parts, but I will update this article once they arrive, and I get to building. I’m sure you’re as excited as me to see the final result!
If you have enjoyed this guide and made some amazing creations, I’d love to see them! Tweet me @BigOleHomo or post a comment right here. Thank you for reading!