Mosaic Maker now available online
Posted by Huw,
40179 Personalised Mosaic Portrait, which until now was only available in special photo booth-like machines in selected brand stores can now be purchased at LEGO.com in the USA.
The in-store machine takes a photo of you then generates instructions to enable construction of your portrait using the 4,500 greyscale and yellow 1x1 plates in the box. This step is accomplished online by uploading an image to the online mosaic maker, which produces a PDF of your image to enable you to build it.
To test it, I uploaded one of the images from my review of 40417 Year of the Ox and the result is quite reasonable, as you'll see after the break.
There's no word yet on wider availability but given that most brand stores in Europe are shut, I wouldn't be surprised if it turns up here soon, too.
Update: The box purchased in-store has 4502 pieces, 900 of each of the five colour plates, a baseplate and a brick separator. The image of the box at LEGO.com states 6002 pieces which suggests that there is now 1200 of each colour plate in it.
Thanks to akindu01 fo the news.
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37 comments on this article
It says 404 error
The links are affiliate geo-targeted links, so if you're not in the USA you'll see a 404. Use this one:
https://www.lego.com/en-us/mosaic-maker
@Huw how did you get that ox past the nudity filter?
@Huw said:
"The links are affiliate geo-targeted links, so if you're not in the USA you'll see a 404. Use this one:
https://www.lego.com/en-us/mosaic-maker "
Oh ok thanks
^ Yes, it's not exactly a new innovation, is it!
Thanks, Huw. The nose looks much more natural on Mosiac Ox than on Brick Built Ox. (I'll be using your solution for the nose when I get that set.)
Cool...but does anyone know of an online lego mosaic generator that could utilise my leftover pieces from 4x Beatles sets?
Not exactly, but this one lets you design alternatives using just pieces in the Art sets: https://jgassen.shinyapps.io/legoartmosaic/
"Mr Stark, I don't feel so good..."
That should have been specified in the article. I do not read (all of) the comments.
The bricklink entry says it has 4502 pieces, the box says it has 6002 pieces, @Huw
“Thanks to ......... fo the news”
Typo Huw ;)
Also, did you remove the ratings on the reviews? I can’t see them anymore....
Why do they need to give you so many pieces if the 48x48 baseplate can only hold 2784? Surely rather than the same generic box for everyone, there must be a way to sort and count just the pieces that you need for half the price? Personally, looking on line the resolution is too low for me and they need more colours. I would pay £100 for say 64x64 with 4096 pieces, and say at least 6 different skin tone colours rather than greys.
@Lego_max said:
"The bricklink entry says it has 4502 pieces, the box says it has 6002 pieces, @Huw "
Interesting. The LEGO.com inventory claims it has 4502 pieces, and the actual box https://forum.brickset.com/discussion/25146/40179-mosaic-portrait says the same.
So, perhaps the image at LEGO.com is incorrect, or maybe there are now 1200 of each colour plate rather than 900.
Your test picture looks strange compared to my experience with the in store Mosaic Maker. Yellow was only be used for the background. The yellow within the ox should be white 1x1s. It’s great if this can be changed online but I am still missing white.
@ambr said:
"Why do they need to give you so many pieces if the 48x48 baseplate can only hold 2784? Surely rather than the same generic box for everyone, there must be a way to sort and count just the pieces that you need for half the price?"
It wouldn't be half the price. It would be very expensive for LEGO to count, pack and where necessary correct individualised boxes. LEGO would pass those costs to consumers, likely making the set more expensive, not less.
^ You can fiddle about with it within the software: this was the result of 30 seconds' effort!
@TomKazutara said:
"3443: LEGO Mosaic"
That's what I was gonna say, thanks for listing the set name and number.
This is cool. I tried a couple pictures off my phone with varying degrees of success. I would love to build a mosaic of my cat, but she has black fur, so in grayscale she just becomes a big black blob. Maybe one day they will add more colors (at an even larger expense) and that will be possible. Other pictures came out clearer and it was fun to fiddle with, but ultimately there is no photo I have that I would want to spend $130 to display.
This is much needed. We visited the Leicester Square store when we were on holiday in the UK a few years ago but the process to take a photo in the booth felt rushed and I was never happy with the result. So I’m glad this gives us the ability to go online and engineer some new designs. Thanks Lego!
Luckily this fits the Pittsburgh color scheme. I suppose Borussia Dortmund and Iowa Hawkeye fans will also be excited, but are the 5 colors the only ones available?
Do you have a recommendation for a website where you can put in a picture and have a LEGO mosaic design that you'd use to build with pieces you already own?
I might have to do some experimentation to see if there's any images I want to make with this. Probably won't buy it for a while cause NC Gardens and the Botanical collection take priority, but hopefully by July I'll pick it up.
VERY happy about this having owned this set for three years. The photo booth machine at LEGO House in Billund struggled and struggled to make a picture that looked like me (while my wife's came out perfect every time) so I am glad to have the opportunity to upload different pictures and tinker.
I'd make my cat's face, if i could afford it.
@DarthWalle said:
"Do you have a recommendation for a website where you can put in a picture and have a LEGO mosaic design that you'd use to build with pieces you already own? "
Try this out, loosely based on the LEGO Art theme but much more color options
https://lego-art-remix.debkbanerji.com/
I remember when 3443 Mosaic came out in 2000, it didn't sell too well and lots of LUGs ended up getting them for cheap ballast for train shows.
The cover image looks like like someone just snapped an Infinity Gauntlet! :-o
@Galaxy12_Import said:
"Try this out, loosely based on the LEGO Art theme but much more color options
https://lego-art-remix.debkbanerji.com/"
Thanks, Galaxy 12! That's a great tool to know about.
By the way, are you in New England Long Island, or the Mid-Pacific Ocean?
Play Well.
Paul Sinasohn
I'm curious what Huwbot would think of having his own mosaic...
A very similar set was offered at Lego Clubhouse at California Legoland for $39.95. They take your picture and create a pattern, let you tweak or re-take the picture if you want, then give you a big grey baseplate and lots of little bags with little one by one plates in white, black, and shades of grey. (Half price discount for Passholder members.) One of the best products available in the Park, and one of the things discontinued when Merlin took over operation of the Parks.
Sure wish they'd brought back the very-light-gray (or blay version thereof) shade from the first mosaic set. It's a very useful color even if you only have it in 1x1 plates.
Why is this not with round flat tiles? Aligning 1x1 square plates is horror.
Hope it comes to Canada.
It's now available in the UK officially ! So chuffed as I too felt rushed in the Leicester Square store and I'm not really happy with my result. But now I can get a better result in my own time and rework the set. That's my weekend sorted !
@dabe1971 said:
"It's now available in the UK officially ! So chuffed as I too felt rushed in the Leicester Square store and I'm not really happy with my result. But now I can get a better result in my own time and rework the set. That's my weekend sorted !"
Just saw it too, so ordered it after playing around with the online tool. It's good as you can save multiple images and change it up when you want something different.
@Huw - The Mosaic set from Lego Shop at Home in the USA is also 4,502 pieces; not 6002 pieces as shown in some of the images. Mine just arrived and I was a bit disappointed that TLG even has images with misleading counts out there floating around. Thought I would let you know to set the record straight for those still considering purchasing this set based on the piece count.