Not that long ago, we talked about lettering with LEGO, taking advantage of the new tile shapes LEGO recently added to their parts-selection (see: Lettering with LEGO Using New Tile Shapes). I can’t over emphasize how exciting these new tiles are, and how much easier they make “writing” with LEGO. In the last article, we highlighted all the different font styles LEGO fans came up with during the LEGO Lettering Contest run by New Elementary. If you are working on a project, where you need to write out words with LEGO pieces, I highly recommend checking out the entries mentioned in the previous article. 🙂
Experimenting with these new tile pieces is quite fun, and LEGO fans continue to come up with interesting ways to use them in writing out letters and symbols. Today, I wanted to show you some designs by Chris McVeigh, to give you some further ideas. Chris particularly focused on symbols that can be very useful in your own LEGO creations.
Because these tiles pieces are so new, they are not available in all colors, but there is a decent variety already. The 2×2 Macaroni Round Corner Tile is available in blue, dark-red, light-bluish-gray, magenta, yellow and pearl gold. The 1×1 Half Circle Round Tile (often used for LEGO creatures as teeth) is available in green, light-bluish-gray, medium-blue, orange, white, trans-orange, and flat-silver. The 1×1 Quarter Circle Round Tile (also referred to as pizza slice or watermelon slice) is available in black, green, light-bluish-gray, medium-azure, orange, red, tan and white, plus a number of different prints (pie, pizza, watermelon). The 4×4 Macaroni Round Corner Tile is available in dark-blue, dark-pink, light-bluish-gray, and reddish-brown. And the 2×2 Modified Square Tile with Cut Corner is available in black, dark-azure, dark-blue, dark-bluish-gray, light-bluish-gray, lime, orange and white. And of course, the older straight and round tiles are available in a great variety of colors.
Notice all the great curvy shapes you can achieve with the new tiles! I especially like the “tail” of the treble clef. Also, even though the tiles are still limited in color, by using different color plates for background, you can greatly increase the possibilities. I don’t know how many more letters and symbols Chris is planning to make, but if you are interested, you can check his flickr gallery for updates.
What do you think? How do you like these LEGO lettering examples? Do you have some favorites? Have you experimented with the new tile pieces yet? Which parts do you find the most useful? Feel free to share in the comment section below! 😉
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These are some really nice examples. Lettering with tiles still has some limitation due to the size of the tiles, but it definitely makes lettering on larger projects easier and cheaper. Now I just hope that the new tiles will come in more colors.
I’m pretty sure that LEGO will expand the new tiles to include all of their colors. They are such vital part of building! 😀
What is the best way to get tiles in quantity? Are they available at the pab wall?
Possibly through Bits and Pieces, or what that online shop from Lego was called…
Or BrickLink…
I’m not sure if the PAB Wall carries them, but you can try the online Pick-A-Brick or Bricks-And-Pieces section, or just get them from BrickLink sellers. 🙂
This would be a great project for kids! I have to see if we have enough tiles to try with my son.
Sounds like a fun project! 😀
Hmmm, that “oh my!” color scheme seems to be Blue-Magenta-Yellow. Otherwise Cyan-Magenta-Yellow would make sense. I wonder which color would be closest to Cyan? Azure?
Hm… I’m looking at my color chart of 2×2 bricks, and I would say that medium-azure is the closest to cyan. 🙂
I really like the small pieces, like the dots, teeth, and pizza tiles. Always useful for adding details! And yes, they are great for lettering too.