There is an interesting LEGO related project that is looking for funding on Kickstarter right now that I thought to share with you. The project is called Brick-A-Pic, created by LEGO fan Jake Olefsky and his team. They are planning to start an online service that allows you to convert your photo, logo, icon or other image into a LEGO mosaic kit. You will be able to design, order, build, and hang your mosaic on your wall in just a few easy steps. 🙂
LEGO mosaics are a great way of using LEGO elements in practical ways; you can recreate family photos, portrays, all kinds of pictures, wall-decorations, company logos, and more. They also make great gifts that people really appreciate because of their unique nature.
Creating a LEGO mosaic is actually not that complicated; you just have to pixelize the image then rebuild it with LEGO elements, which are kind of like pixels in the first place. What is complicated with LEGO is to find LEGO colors that matches the original image, and also finding third-party sellers who carry LEGO elements in those colors in the quantities you need. There is an excellent – although a bit dated – software that can help you with the process to convert an image into a LEGO mosaic and we have talked about it before (see links at the end of this post).
What is unique about this new project on Kickstarter is that they don’t just provide a tool that helps you convert an image into a LEGO mosaic, but you can also purchase all the elements needed for the mosaic right there. You won’t end up having to buy parts from different sellers, pay postage on each order separately, and waiting for all the shipments to arrive before you can begin to build your mosaic. So to summarize Brick-A-Pic is planning to provide the following:
- Software that correctly converts images into the LEGO palette of colors, optimally places the bricks in the right colors for your LEGO mosaic, and produces a part-list with detailed assembly instructions.
- LEGO bricks to take the pain out of ordering everything yourself from various vendors. Brick-A-Pic plans to stock all the LEGO bricks in all the available colors (current and retired), so that you can get the entire mosaic kit from them with one simple step.
As I have mentioned Brick-A-Pic is still in its development stage. They have done some work on the software already, but it will take a designer and a developer an estimated additional 2-3 months to finish. In addition, the Brick-A-Pic team will have to stock up on LEGO elements to be able to provide the kits for the mosaics their customers order.
If you are interested in this project you can help fund it at their Kickstarter page. They are looking to raise $50,000 by mid-August. As you probably know already, Kickstarter is set up in such a way that if a project doesn’t meets its goal by the deadline it won’t be funded at all. If it does meet the minimum then those who backed the project with their pledges will get some perks in the form of being the first to use the LEGO mosaic software when it is fully ready, and also get kits to make their own LEGO mosaic (depending on their level of contribution). You can try out a preliminary version of the software here: Try Brick-A-Pic. And to read further details and help fund the project go here: Brick-A-Pick Kickstarter Page.
So what do you think? How do you like this LEGO mosaic project? Did you ever build a LEGO mosaic? Or would you like to? Feel free to share and discuss in the comment section below! 😉
And you might also like to check out the LEGO mosaics section for more tips, tricks and useful resources or select from the following posts:
This is unrelated but does anyone know of current sets that contain monster like mini figs other than chima .
Robin, it depends on what type of monsters you want. There are non-humanoid minifigs in Ninjago, Star Wars, TMNT, LEGO Space, etc. If you look under the modified heads section on BrickLink, you get an idea: http://www.bricklink.com/catalogList.asp?catType=P&catString=606
Thank you for the help.
This will never work. LEGO doesn’t allow the public to purchase that many individual bricks, and otherwise the brick a pic team will just have to buy everything on their own from Bricklink, increasing their cost and the time it takes to ship everything. What if they get 10,000 backers, and promise them all a mosaic kit? How are they even going to fulfill that? It’s a nice thought, but it’s dead in the water unless they actually have a partnership with LEGO.
That’s a good point, and in fact that is exactly what they mentioned under the challenges section of the campaign.