“I like the Basset you built out of LEGO. Could you make one for a Wedding Cake Topper?” That was the question posed to me by a client recently.

The client had seen my previous LEGO basset sculpture, (a quarter of life-size), and was engaged to a man who is really into LEGO toys and has a Basset. She wanted to surprise him with a cake topper that combined some of his favorite things.

Since the previous sculpture I’d built was a little too big to fit on top of a (normal-sized) wedding cake, I pretty much went back to the drawing board on scale and shapes.  Fun challenge!

DuckJournal Magazine: For LEGO Duck enthusiasts everywhere!

All good AFOLs (Adult fans of LEGO) know about BrickJournal magazine. After I built my Mime Magazine mosaic, I started brainstorming about other magazine titles that would be fun to cover as LEGO. BrickJournal seemed to be an obvious choice, and mixing it up with a Duck followed pretty quickly.

It’s not always easy to get an idea of the size of LEGO mosaics when all I do is include a photo of just the mosaic, so I got a little help from some of the little girls in my life (above) to give you a better idea.

Here is DuckJournal on display with my Mime Magazine mosaic at BrickWorld 2011:

Building a LEGO magazine cover

Mime Magazine is the first in a series of 3 LEGO mosaics I built and displayed for BrickMagic 2011. Each of the 3 mosaics is a parody of a popular magazine. Playing on the popularity of the new LEGO Mime minifig, I thought it appropriate to announce a “Mime of the Year” in Mime magazine, complete with the red-bordered representation of the original magazine, Time.

Facts about LEGO Mime Magazine

Built: February 2011
Size: 35″ x 45″
5 Colors: Black, Red, White, Lt. Grey (Bley), Dk. Grey (Bley)
4500 pieces

The HTML 5 Logo (Grayscale) built with LEGO bricks

The specification for HTML is one of those rare things that is the successful result of being run by committee. Or two. Considering the tens of thousands (if not millions) of HTML coders worldwide, we accept that a committee (or two) is superior than a democracy.

But, as something being run by a committee (or two), we still get iffy things like the occurrence this week of the announcement of a logo for the up and coming HTML 5 standard as well as another announcement that HTML 5 will not be known as such, but as simply HTML, which completely obliterates the logo.

But, since the whole thing is still run by a committee (or two), it is not clear at this time with the life and/or death of the HTML 5 logo will be.

In the meantime, fresh after the first announcement, I commenced upon my own personal interpretation of the logo in LEGO bricks. And post it here for posterity, regardless of the outcome.

The HTML 5 Logo (Grayscale) built with LEGO bricks with Builder and Builder Jr.

LEGO Dog Sculptures: Basset Hounds

These LEGO Basset Hounds were a recent commission I did for someone who really likes Basset Hounds and was looking for a unique gift for his wife (who also really likes Bassets). He was looking for something similar to the Basset out in front of the LEGO Store in Orlando, but not as costly to build. They are one-quarter the size of a real full-grown Basset.

I’ve seen the display at the LEGO store; I’ve also seen the miniature version Dan Steininger made of those dogs (since he had several on display at the LEGO R2-D2 Store Event in Lawrenceville a couple years ago). Dan had a miniature Basset there, and I had taken 1 or 2 not very good pictures.

After spending a great deal of time poring over those pictures and comparing to pictures of the larger model (I don’t have any Bassets I know personally that I can work from  ) I was able to build something similar.

I was a little short on plates up front, esp. in brown, since most of my work to date has been exclusively with bricks, so I built my prototype in blue with old brick. Once I was satisfied with a solid design, I ordered the remaining parts I needed to finish a brown Basset, then took pictures of the new one, with the original prototype. Well, the client loved both of them, so I had to scramble to put a new blue one together. The images here are of the finalized bassets made of new brick, glued, and ready to ship.

The Duckingham Logo, a LEGO portrait

Okay, so I’ve built the Duckingham Logo out of LEGO before. But that one only fit on one large grey baseplate — measured at 15″x15″. I wanted something bigger for BrickMagic.

So I went a size up—used 4 green baseplates, so I’m measuring 20″x20″ for this one. I was very satisfied at the improved resolution.

Would you believe I spent Thursday evening before BrickMagic putting this one together? That would explain why I was so tired that morning…;)

LEGO Chocolate Chip Cookies & Milk

I’ve made LEGO Chocolate Chip Cookies before, but this task was a bit different: build life-size cookies and a corresponding glass of LEGO milk.

It was a pretty straightforward matter to draw a cookie shape on a piece of LEGO graph paper, and generally determine color and where chocolate chips could go. I also attempted to design the cookies  in such a way as to be simple and cost-effective for school-kids to build. Not that they ended up being as cost-effective as I’d have liked — and the build took longer than I thought when tested on family members. Hmm. So I ended up just showing them  to school kids. And they liked ‘em.

This is a brief follow-up to my previous post on using graph paper as a tool for LEGO building. That article talked about the top-down view paper. This is side-view paper, depicting the height of bricks, but also helpfully broken down into individual plates, as well.

This graph paper measures 24 studs by 24 bricks and is numbered on all 4 sides, in different directions so that you can get just about whatever count you want. I’ve also made heavier lines depicting bricks, so it’s easier to find your place and count.

I’ve also made the document a pdf so it is extra easy for anyone to download and print. Enjoy!

Design Grid – 1:1 Scale [24x24 Side View]

Christopher’s teacher had asked for parents to volunteer to come in and tell about their jobs. While my LEGO freelance artist thing is nothing like a full-time job right now, I thought it would be something that the kids could relate to.

When I asked the kids if any of them had ever built anything with LEGO I was practically knocked over by the verberations in the air from 20+ hands shooting straight into the air. Okay, so I wasn’t really knocked over, but I don’t think I’d ever seen that many hands go up that fast. And you want to talk about an engaged audience? I was blown away (again, not literally) by how into it these kids were.

Christopher was my helper and we showed his classmates LEGO Green Eggs and Ham, a life-size batch of Chocolate Chip Cookies and Milk — something my wife and both boys had fun helping me put together. Then we showed them the giant LEGO chocolate chip cookie. And finally the jigsaw portrait puzzle I had built of Christopher’s face. That one I pulled out in the six individual pieces first and let the kids guess what it was. Several of them could see his face in it before I had the last two pieces on, so that was really neat.

So that was my ten minutes of Friday fame. Lots of fun. For a sneak peak into the future, here’s a picture of a new LEGO portrait I’m working on of our second-born, Patrick. Stay tuned for updates!

There are 731 LEGO bricks in the mosaic: 46 pink, 303 blue, and 382 white.

I discovered that having all that white in there makes it really tricky to get a decent photo. So I had to add some props into the background. Here are a couple more shots. Tried to give a close up perspective in the first one, and then an angled shot in the next.