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(Written by Geneva – gid617)

When I reviewed the #31203 LEGO Art World Map (see: LEGO Art World Map Mosaic Review), I mentioned that I thought this set had a lot of educational potential.  Today we’ll take a look at a few designs I came up with—and maybe I can inspire you to customize the set your way!

As a reminder, the World Map comes with instructions for a bathymetric design that looks like this:

But it also has a lot of extra tiles, especially coral and orange. Coral and orange really stand out though, and I definitely wanted to get rid of them before I started adding stuff.  There were almost enough extra greens and blues to replace all the orange and coral.  Greenland grew a little.

For my first customization, I traced Ferdinand Magellan’s route around the globe. Magellan was the first to circumnavigate the globe in recorded history—although he didn’t personally make it all the way around.  In fact, only twenty-nine of his men made it back home.

Besides removing the coral and orange in order to make the red line stand out more, I also had fun adding a mosaic ship. You could easily do this same kind of thing for other voyages of discovery!

Next I wanted to trace a world empire. The Roman Empire came to mind.  But the Roman Empire was actually very small!

So I tossed that idea and did some research to find a larger Empire. Turns out, the British Empire was the largest ever.  Depending on how exactly you define areas of control/conquest, the British Empire covered about 25% of the world.

I outlined the British Empire in gold… and ran out of gold, so I went for red plates inside. This would have looked better with a less multi-colored ocean I’m sure.

Besides tracing empires, this technique would be useful for highlighting any country you might be studying.

Now for a third version of the map – which was actually the one I thought of first – I built micro versions of a few famous landmarks and attached them in the right places (more or less).  You could get a lot more in depth on this, but since my oceans are still colorful, I wanted to keep the landmarks fairly uncluttered.

If you really wanted landmarks to stand out (you could also try animals, minifigures in different cultural themes, foods from different cultures, what have you), the best thing to do would be to get some extra blue dots and make the oceans less colorful.

After all the scholarly research I had to do for those maps, I couldn’t resist trying something a little more whimsical for my last customization. Arr, me hearties—I built a pirate map!

My line of thought here was: “There’s nothing like enough blue and green, so I’m going to need to use the tan and yellow… hmm… tan and yellow… a parchment border?  Pirate map!”

Of course, taking all those dots off and putting them all back down was about as much fun as it sounds. But I went one better and moved the continents down by six studs.  Hey, if you’re going to do it, you might as well do it right!

You may also have noticed that I switched the dark blue shadow for a silver shadow. I got that idea from Elspeth de Montes’ map (a great example of an all-blue version of the World Map).  I had lots of silver dots, and I wanted to keep the dark-blue in case I needed them for the oceans.

Then I added a few fun things to make the blue and green dots go farther (getting rid of Antarctica meant I had a lot more ocean to cover!). A few of my landmarks stayed, too, and I also hid my initials in the bottom right corner.  And I live in South America, so that’s where the X had to go!

If you’re feeling inspired to customize the #31201 LEGO Art World Map, you can find it, along with the other LEGO Art mosaics, at the LEGO Art section of the Online LEGO Shop.

What do you think? Do you agree that the World Map could be a fun way to teach kids some geography and history?  Does the map look better to you without the orange and coral?  Which of my customizations would you leave on the wall if you were me?  Let me know what you think in the comment section below!

And you might also like to check out the following related posts:

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(Written by William)

As I was just recently reviewing the three LEGO BrickHeadz Disney Ducks sets (see links at the end of this post), I kept thinking of the #40479 LEGO BrickHeadz Dalmatians as the 101 Dalmatians, another Disney film. But this set is not part of any intellectual property, and simply belongs to the LEGO BrickHeadz Pets collection.

You might remember that we reviewed several other LEGO BrickHeadz Pets sets (see links at the end of this post). Conceptually, LEGO had three options when it came to this collection. They could end the line with the initial four sets (we’ve seen plenty of lines that just have four characters). They could introduce more unusual pets. Or, they could get into the thick of it with offering different breeds. I’m so glad they chose the latter!

Pet owners are passionate about the animals they love. And they are willing to spend large amounts of money on them. And that only really applies to the breed of cat, dog, fish, or bird they have. They won’t settle for generic. How can LEGO solve this possible issue? Let’s take a closer look at the #40479 LEGO BrickHeadz Dalmatians and see if there is an answer.

If you’ve built either the #41441 LEGO BrickHeadz Shorthaired Cats or #40440 LEGO BrickHeadz German Shepherd, then you know exactly what to expect in this set. LEGO designers were not going for innovation with the overall design structure of the characters. For those unfamiliar, the BrickHeadz Pets line solidified the shape of a dog or cat sitting on their hind quarters. It’s a very good design, so I can see why they didn’t want to mess with it.

This begs the question, if this is just like those previous LEGO BrickHeadz Pets sets, why do I need this one? Apart from the fact that these little guys are adorable, you might be interested by all the printed elements! That’s right, LEGO designers didn’t try brick-building the spots on this iconic dog breed, but they used printed elements. What’s more is that they included printing on not one, not two, but three types of parts.

The first printed part is the 1×2 brick, with printing on its long side. The larger dog has two of these; one at its left breast, and the other at its back on the ride side. The next printed element is the spotted 2×2 curved slope. Again, only the large dog has this one. You see it on its lower stomach, back, and on two sections on the top of its head. And then there is the best one of all. The last printed part is an off-centered spot on a 1×1 tile. Both the larger dog and the puppy feature this tile on several places. Every spot that needs a stud to be filled in gets one of these tiles. And since the spot is off-centered, you can rotate the piece and end up with four potential orientations of the print.

This means that with minimal effort, you can assemble multiple copies of this set and make the spots appear in different locations thus giving you a whole litter of Dalmatians! In fact, if you’re a Disney fan, this might even be a nice way to represent 101 Dalmatians.

As for the rest of the set, you get the standard pet bed as seen in previous LEGO BrickHeadz Pets sets. This one is blue and it also features a curved slope like the other sets that you still have to put a sticker on. Just like with previous iterations, you get two slopes and two stickers featuring either bones or paws. And as I pointed out before, in my first LEGO BrickHeadz Pets review, if you don’t care for the pet bed, you can remove the 6×6 plate and just have a standard LEGO BrickHeadz base.

When I initially built the first LEGO BrickHeadz Pets set, I was concerned with how LEGO would continue the line. Do they go with more and more unusual pets? What if the breeds of pets they choose aren’t reflective of the pets people own? This set gives us a little more of an idea of how LEGO plans to proceed in the short term. By introducing different breeds, eventually you’ll get a pet that looks just like your most beloved baby. In the video below, I will share some additional thoughts about the set.

LEGO has also put me at ease in regards to creating new breeds. I felt that if they went down the path of introducing new breeds, things could get rather stale. Fans could see them and brush them off as just another dog or cat and they can wait for the one that is right for them. Problem is, if the sets aren’t popular, LEGO would more than likely end the line and never get to the one you really want. So, they solved this with parts.

If a set has desirable parts, it opens up to the larger building community that might want to buy these sets en masse. I’m sure we’ll see some interesting cowhide designs or perhaps something involving a Rorschach ink blot. I know the builder in me is excited about these parts, which makes me definitely think that this is the best LEGO BrickHeadz Pets set to date! If you want to check it out, visit the LEGO BrickHeadz section of the Online LEGO Shop.

What do you think? How do you like the LEGO BrickHeadz Pets collection? Do you have any of the sets already? Which one is your favorite? What other pets and pet breeds would you like to see LEGO add in the future? Feel free to share your thoughts and discuss in the comment section below!

And you might also like to check out the following related posts:

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