31200 Star Wars The Sith leftover pieces
Posted by CapnRex101,
Following the announcement of LEGO Art and the confirmation that each set would include alternative models, speculation has surrounded which elements will be left over from each creation.
Depending on the answer, it might be possible to purchase two packs and have sufficient parts remaining to build the third. We have therefore counted how many pieces comprise each model from 31200 Star Wars The Sith, thereby revealing the quantities of leftover elements.
Each mosaic only contains the required number of 16x16 mosaic panels and elements for the frames. I have therefore only counted the numbers of 1x1 round plates in each colour. Spares have not been taken into consideration, although the sets do include spare 1x1 round plates.
The first number in the following lists shows how many pieces are necessary to construct that design while the second number shows the total quantity included.
Darth Maul
- Black - 877/877
- Orange - 125/125
- Sand blue - 31/139
- Dark blue - 279/447
- Dark red - 328/328
- Light bluish grey - 2/110
- Dark bluish grey - 0/151
- Bright light yellow - 77/92
- Dark brown - 195/200
- Pearl dark grey - 23/271
- White - 82/187
- Red - 285/286
Darth Vader
- Black - 661/877
- Orange - 10/125
- Sand blue - 139/139
- Dark blue - 447/447
- Dark red - 160/328
- Light bluish grey - 87/110
- Dark bluish grey - 110/151
- Bright light yellow - 31/92
- Dark brown - 200/200
- Pearl dark grey - 271/271
- White - 64/187
- Red - 124/286
Kylo Ren
- Black - 746/877
- Orange - 10/125
- Sand blue - 51/139
- Dark blue - 147/447
- Dark red - 208/328
- Light bluish grey - 110/110
- Dark bluish grey - 151/151
- Bright light yellow - 92/92
- Dark brown - 149/200
- Pearl dark grey - 167/271
- White - 187/187
- Red - 286/286
Black and dark brown elements are extremely prominent across all three mosaics and you would always need to purchase more of those to construct another design. Fortunately, black 1x1 round plates are exceptionally inexpensive online but dark brown is rather costly because that colour only appears with 31199 Marvel Studios Iron Man and 31200 Star Wars The Sith at the moment.
However, other colours, such as orange, sand blue and white appear relatively sparse on two mosaics and are prominent on the other. The overlap between pieces required for Darth Maul and Kylo Ren, for example, is fairly limited and it might be sensible to purchase the 1x1 round plates which are required separately.
Darth Vader combination mosaic
Three sets are necessary to assemble the Darth Vader combination mosaic that we reviewed recently. However, certain elements are rarely used across this mosaic so many elements are left over when construction is complete.
Unlike the previous lists, this one displays the number of pieces remaining beside the quantity included with one set.
- Black - 120/877
- Orange - 310/125
- Sand blue - 277/139
- Dark blue - 715/447
- Dark red - 517/328
- Light bluish grey - 43/110
- Dark bluish grey - 121/151
- Bright light yellow - 108/92
- Dark brown - 124/200
- Pearl dark grey - 44/271
- White - 119/187
- Red - 400/286
Once again, relatively few black or dark brown pieces remain and pearl dark grey is employed extensively as well. Nevertheless, I have noticed that the pieces necessary to build Darth Maul remain in fairly large quantities so you could assemble the Sith Lord using pieces left over from the Darth Vader combination model, with the addition of 757 black plates and 72 dark brown 1x1 round plates.
We only possess enough copies of 31200 Star Wars The Sith to perform this analysis but we would love to hear from anybody who owns multiple copies of the other LEGO Art sets.
105 likes
30 comments on this article
Thank you for the information and research! Even with all those spares you’re still over 800 pieces short!
On the Darth Vader combination totals is the black value correct?
This would be an interesting investigation to do with The Beatles art sets. For example, could you have enough round tiles leftover to make a fourth Beatle (let's say, Ringo) if you already bought the other three?
Thank you, this is quite useful! Just ordered a single 31200 yesterday, but also working on a cross-stich version, and wasn't sure what additional supplies would be needed to complete the big Darth Vader.
Anyone else agree that Darth Maul looks more like Darth Stryfe from the Star Wars Legacy comics?
@Lego_Lord_Mayorca said:
"This would be an interesting investigation to do with The Beatles art sets. For example, could you have enough round tiles leftover to make a fourth Beatle (let's say, Ringo) if you already bought the other three?"
That’s what I’m wondering as well. I want to build all four but after getting some of the other sets that were released recently I can’t justify spending that much on Lego.
I had a dream the other day that these mosiacs were being sold for $20. It was a pleasant fantasy. :P
Think your counts are slightly off here as with it being nine 16x16 panels, or 48x48 overall, that should equal 2304 peices... but your count for Darth Maul only adds up to 2284, and your count for Kylo Ren is 2314.
That said... given you get 3213 pieces total thats 909 peices spare per mosaic... Or, by my math, since the set works out at 3.4ppp, they could have made 3 seperate sets and produced these for nearly £31 cheaper a set.
I just finished building the Marilyn Monroe art set in parallel with my nieces over FaceTime and have to say it was quite an enjoyable build very ‘hygge’. I’m hoping they release a Lego Art Studio like the Architecture studio set.
@GrizBe said:
"Think your counts are slightly off here as with it being nine 16x16 panels, or 48x48 overall, that should equal 2304 peices... but your count for Darth Maul only adds up to 2284, and your count for Kylo Ren is 2314.
That said... given you get 3213 pieces total thats 909 peices spare per mosaic... Or, by my math, since the set works out at 3.4ppp, they could have made 3 seperate sets and produced these for nearly £31 cheaper a set. "
The counts are correct. They were checked thoroughly before publication and I counted each mosaic panel separately to ensure that each one totaled 256 pieces. This made finding errors in counting much easier.
With regard to LEGO producing unique sets for each character and therefore excluding any unused pieces, I think the price difference would be quite small. Almost every mosaic would still require the whole range of colours and the additional cost of creating unique packaging and instructions for each design would probably be reflected in the retail price.
If the background plates are already black, could you not use all of the black 1x1 plates and instead use this somewhat negative space, thus saving hundreds of black plates? Granted there will be an unevenness to the final image but could that not be an interesting effect?
@CapnRex101 said:
" The counts are correct. They were checked thoroughly before publication and I counted each mosaic panel separately to ensure that each one totaled 256 pieces. This made finding errors in counting much easier.
With regard to LEGO producing unique sets for each character and therefore excluding any unused pieces, I think the price difference would be quite small. Almost every mosaic would still require the whole range of colours and the additional cost of creating unique packaging and instructions for each design would probably be reflected in the retail price."
Hmm.. Odd.. I ran the numbers twice before posting to make sure I'd not gotten a mistake in my count yet still got 2284 and 2314. Though counting again, they do come out out 2304 now.... Which is still odd even if you factor in the 2x4 nameplates means that with round tiles, it should only be 2296 tiles per complete image (2304 total studs - 8)... Soo, either you made them without the name plate if you are getting 2304 total tiles... Or as said, your count is off somewhere.
Admittedly my original math could have been out due to lack of caffeine.
As for 'Unique Packaging', Its not that hard to switch in a different picture on the box while keeping the same format, and the instructions would be cheaper as you'd have about the 3rd the number of pages to print for a single booklet.
@micano said:
"If the background plates are already black, could you not use all of the black 1x1 plates and instead use this somewhat negative space, thus saving hundreds of black plates? Granted there will be an unevenness to the final image but could that not be an interesting effect?"
I wonder what it would be like to build a 3D image, by adding more 1x1 round plates on the initial flat layer - could be an interesting effect, as from some angles you would be aware of the colours showing through.
These calculations are fascinating to see! I was doing something similar with Iron Man, trying to figure out the cheapest way of building its three panel picture. I was very surprised to find that in this case, buying three copies of the set is actually the most cost-effective method!
I figured that the best option would be 2 sets plus additional 1x1 plates, but due to the hefty number of parts needed in the new colours (e.g. earth blue, dark red, dark brown) it only works out about £10 cheaper. That's at Bricks & Pieces prices, as bricklink is definitely *not* cheaper for the new colours! The even bigger irony is that with three sets, you have £63 worth of 1x1 round plates left over at the end (Bricks and Pieces prices, worth a lot more if you sell at bricklink's rates).
Of course, this is all academic as having built Iron Man, I realise I don't have enough wall space to hang the three panel picture, or a big enough room to step back away from it enough to see it as anything other than a mishmash of dots.
" @CapnRex101 said:
We only possess enough copies of 31200 Star Wars The Sith to perform this analysis but we would love to hear from anybody who owns multiple copies of the other LEGO Art sets. "
Very interesting, but out of interest why do you need to own multiple copies to count the number of pieces in a set? In fact, don't you just need the instructions? I see the total piece counts match those given above, so I presume the actual set has 1 extra of each colour?
In fact, you can just open the PDF in Acrobat, select anything on each mosaic page, hit CTRL+A and then paste into a text editor, to get a list of all the colour numbers used on each page. I just tried it and it took me 15 seconds to get the colour counts for the first panel in this set. You can then paste into Excel to sum the count of each, or write a short script to do it.
...
I just used the above technique to check the Darth Maul picture and can confirm the counts in the article for that picture are exactly correct.
After purchasing five of the Sith sets, I was able to make all three options plus the triple size Vader and only be short a few dark brown studs, which were very easy to get on bricks and pieces for a few cents each. The same was true with the Iron Man mosaics, but for black studs (and I think I was able to use the black studs from the Sith set to supplement it). That being said, if you don’t care about the baseplates, it’s far cheaper to order the parts for a specific mosaic if you have black plates and bricks lying around at home, which I’ve done for custom mosaics, or even just purchase a combination of bricks and technic beams on Bricks and Pieces to exactly match the rough shape of the new baseplate. There’s definitely a way to optimize it
@GrizBe - Several unique boxes and instructions occupy additional production capacity and would require considerable shelf space in stores. Such considerations seem unimportant but discussions with LEGO designers, sales and marketing staff have revealed all kinds of strange factors which influence LEGO products.
@GarethMoore - I was thinking primarily of the combination mosaics but those instructions are also available online so that would only necessitate one extra step.
@NathanR2015 said:
" @micano said:
"If the background plates are already black, could you not use all of the black 1x1 plates and instead use this somewhat negative space, thus saving hundreds of black plates? Granted there will be an unevenness to the final image but could that not be an interesting effect?"
I wonder what it would be like to build a 3D image, by adding more 1x1 round plates on the initial flat layer - could be an interesting effect, as from some angles you would be aware of the colours showing through.
I have experimented with this on the Iron Man ultimate build the best way to do it To step black bricks and plates to the right shape and then add the studs I am short of enough parts to complete this but it works well with the “bicep“ As a test of concept.
"
So, if buying 5 doesn’t give you 6....it looks like just buying sets is most economical!
The cost of a couple bucks of extra plastic in each is peanuts compared to the massive expense of selling three SKUs instead of one. Especially because it's actually 10 more (assuming they did all the mosaics that way, 4 SKUs would become 14).
The biggest expense is needing to run 10 (!) additional manufacturing lines, all needing to be individually designed and set up. Plus they'd hog an absolute ton of shelf space in the stores, crowding out other sets. Then there's the separate art and packaging and instructions and marketing and promotion. Plus being a headache with distribution and warehousing and shipping. I could keep going but you get the idea.
With the type of business model LEGO has, fewer SKUs = massive cost savings. Managing to streamline these that much with *zero* downside to unit sales or revenue is a real stroke of genius. I'm impressed.
I'm not interested in buying any of these mosaics. Now, if they did lenticulars using cheese slopes...! Imagine Anakin/Darth Vader, R2-D2/C-3P0, or beyond characters: how about X-wing/TIE fighter?
Thinking there should be a green lightsaber set next. Yoda, Qui Gon and Luke.
@polyester said:
"The cost of a couple bucks of extra plastic in each is peanuts compared to the massive expense of selling three SKUs instead of one...
...I'm impressed."
Thanks! Great to see someone with business sense!
@GrizBe:
The 2x4 nameplate tile is optional, and there are instructions in every mosaic to finish it off with either 1x1's or the nameplate tile. In the case of the Sith+Groupie and Ironman mosaics, you could even just slap that tile on over the 1x1 round plates.
@NathanR2015:
I've been saying as much all along. Everyone was all, "Oh, but look at how cheap black 1x1 rounds are," and nobody was paying attention to just how much of each of these sets was going to involve parts that are unique to these mosaics, or the fact that anyone trying to make money by parting out mosaic sets would absolutely need to rake you over the coals on those exclusive parts because they're going to have to sell the 1x1 round black plates at a lost just to get them out the door.
@polyester:
Oh, it's worse than that. To build all of the single-panel mosaics, yes, you'd need to buy 14 kits. But there's also the triple-panel Ironman and Vader designs, so your final count would be 20 kits if you want to build _everything_. And yeah, it can get insane. Before they ended up initiating the B&P and online PAB, people used to commonly voice their desire to be able to order any individual part like they would regular sets, not realizing just how catastrophic that would be to their inventorying system. That they figure out not one, but two different options (and put both in use) is shocking, frankly.
@560heliport said:
"I'm not interested in buying any of these mosaics. Now, if they did lenticulars using cheese slopes...! Imagine Anakin/Darth Vader, R2-D2/C-3P0, or beyond characters: how about X-wing/TIE fighter?"
Now that is a brilliant idea! There are also those technic bricks that have lots of ridges so that gears can roll over and move them. But there are also many other ways of creating lenticular vision. Perhaps this is something that Lego needs to explore more of. How cool would it be if these flat mosaics actually produced 3-D images!
Similar to fulcrumbop, I would be more interested in a set with earth colours for Chewbacca, Yodi, Ewok and Boba Fett.
@GrizBe said:
"Think your counts are slightly off here as with it being nine 16x16 panels, or 48x48 overall, that should equal 2304 peices... but your count for Darth Maul only adds up to 2284, and your count for Kylo Ren is 2314.
That said... given you get 3213 pieces total thats 909 peices spare per mosaic... Or, by my math, since the set works out at 3.4ppp, they could have made 3 seperate sets and produced these for nearly £31 cheaper a set. "
Could the discrepancy be accounted for by the buildable frame around the design which is maybe 2 or 3 studs wide?
I would be especially interested in a similar analysis for the Andy Warhol's Marilyn Monroe set, 31197, since it appears as though the dominant colour radically changes between the version. For example, it appears that it would take only handful of additional bright yellow tiles to make both the medium azure and the light purple (pink) variants.
@andyh1984:
You can count the "pixels" on a closeup of a framed image and see that the frame does not actually cover any part of the image. Since the 16x16 bricks have Technic pin holes in their sides, the frame just clips on to the outside edge.
@Lego_Lord_Mayorca said:
"This would be an interesting investigation to do with The Beatles art sets. For example, could you have enough round tiles leftover to make a fourth Beatle (let's say, Ringo) if you already bought the other three?"
More importantly, if you bought four Beatles sets, could you make a Pete Best or a George Martin as a fifth?
:D
@Jena:
Oof. Now you're getting into dangerous territory. Wikipedia cites no less than 20 individuals who have, at one point or another, been dubbed The Fifth Beatle. Lennon disparaged the term, McCartney credited two individuals, 19 years apart, as being the Fifth. Harrison stated that only two people were the Fifth on one occasion, but he'd previously backed up a third person's claim.
Pete Best once pointed out that he was actually the _fourth_ Beatle, although even that gets murky, as the original lineup when they changed their name from The Quarrymen to The Beatles was Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, Best, and Stuart Sutcliffe. Sutcliffe quit (and died soon after) when they left Hamburg, which is when McCartney took over playing bass, so Best was legitimately a member of the first four-person Beatles lineup.
In my opinion, while maybe not the most instrumental in their rise to success, the person with the most legitimate claim to being The Fifth Beatle was Murray the K. Why? Because he coined the term when he applied it to himself back in 1964. And he got the first endorsement of that claim by a member of the Beatles, when Harrison was asked why Murray got to travel around and hang with the band back in 1964. By the time anyone else was being touted as the Fifth Beatle, Murray had been pushed off the air by rigid formatting of radio stations that ran completely counter to his style, and his actions that catapulted so many rock legends to stardom.
I’ve just finished building the first two 3x3 sections for the Darth Vader combination and it looks pretty good/complete as is. There’s unfortunately not quite enough in two boxes to go this route, but by my count it’s only short 60 pieces: 37 white, 12 light bluish grey, and 11 brown. Counts might be slightly off, but I haven’t opened the third bag of any other colors except those three. The first two colors are easily obtainable and I don’t think replacing some of the brown glow off the lightsaber with black would be noticeable.