MOC: LEGO 8-bit Engagement Portrait!

[yanathin]

This is one of my first posts here, but I've been a long time fan of LEGO and thought Eurobricks users might enjoy this quick little story! I proposed to my girlfriend on Christmas day with a 7,000+ piece LEGO portrait showing the 8-bit versions of us and our dog. I love how it turned out, and so did she! I'm very glad LEGO offers (or has offered in the past) so many different shades of brown, otherwise the skin/hair/shadows/dog would have looked very different.

Edited April 29, 2012 by Rufus
Indexed

[Pingles]

Geez, that is phenomenal. Congratulations on finding a Lego-friendly wife!

[MikeyB]

Very nice! my wife has always loved butterflies and I made one for her birthday as a gift. No where near as large (it is about 30 studs wide) She loves it and has it displayed in a shadow box in our living room.

[Legoist]

I proposed to my girlfriend on Christmas day with a 7,000+ piece LEGO portrait showing the 8-bit versions of us and our dog.

Wait... what did you do??? Did she say yes?

...

The AFOL world has a new king!

[Hrw-Amen]

Great idea and glad she liked it.

[yanathin]

Guess I forgot the important part - she did say yes! And you can't see it in the picture, but we have the whole Modular Building set displayed on a shelf off to the left. It's a pretty awesome LEGO-filled living room at this point. :)

[Dakar A]

Congratulations! And nice job getting that life of George set. I'm jealous...

Dakar

[Canada_7]

Absolutely beautiful portrait

But more importantly...

CONGRATS ON BEING ENGAGED :sweet:

Edited January 4, 2012 by Canada_7

[Vindicare]

That's great! Congratulations.

[Muddy]

This is one of my first posts here, but I've been a long time fan of LEGO and thought Eurobricks users might enjoy this quick little story! I proposed to my girlfriend on Christmas day with a 7,000+ piece LEGO portrait showing the 8-bit versions of us and our dog. I love how it turned out, and so did she! I'm very glad LEGO offers (or has offered in the past) so many different shades of brown, otherwise the skin/hair/shadows/dog would have looked very different.

Love it! so personal love the contrast of Studs vs no Studs!

Very personal good luck and best wishes

[lorax]

Awww, that is really lovely, and I agree, the contrast between studs and no studs is awesome.

And congratulations on your engagement.

[clcwong]

Nice one done!

I quite like the shade of the pic!

How did you start your design?

With any program...?

[Si-MOCs]

Congratulations!

and is that LEGO I spy on the loot pile? ;)

[AwesomeTaylor]

Guess I forgot the important part - she did say yes! And you can't see it in the picture, but we have the whole Modular Building set displayed on a shelf off to the left. It's a pretty awesome LEGO-filled living room at this point. :)

Congratulations, this is a wonderful way to propose and having that in your living room will forever be a reminder of just how special Christmas day is for the two of you now!

I'd also love to know more about how you designed this epic picture!

Also, I spy the Cafe Corner in the reflection of your window ;)

[Theo]

How cute, bravo!

[yanathin]

Thank you very much for the kind words! I actually planned it using a 130px x 130px file in Photoshop and just drew it that way. After it was done, I counted each pixel and found the best possible colors/sizes/prices for pieces on either BrickLink or Pick-A-Brick. All of the pieces are either 2x2 or 1x2, except for the base plates and the 4x4 and 4x8 plates that are underneath the elevated characters and the frame. When it came time to build it, I just built each 32x32 plate on its own (cropped in Photoshop so I didn't get confused) and put them together like a puzzle at the end. I used two different kinds of 3M sticky things to mount it. One was just this standard double-sided 3M foam tape that comes on a roll - that was used to get each plate to stick to a 40"x40" foam core board. Then, to hang the board on the wall, I used the large 3M "picture hanging" adhesives, which worked surprisingly well. They say they can hold up to 15 pounds or so, and the portrait was fairly light since I used the foam core backing (I'd guess around 7-8 pounds total). The only difficult part was lifting it above my head by myself - while holding it perfectly level - on Christmas morning to stick it onto the wall. But it worked!

Here's the link to the original 8-bit portrait I based it off of: http://drbl.in/CpE

[Ceroknight]

Congrats!

And what a fantastic piece of work!

Using studs vs smooth to make that pattern is quite brilliant!

[TheLegoDr]

Brilliant portrait! Congrats on being engaged.

[iamded]

Congratulations man! That is awesome, both the creation and the story.

[Legogal]

Wow! Congratulations on being engaged and the lovely mosaic used to propose to your fiancee. This is incredibly creative and very sweet as well.

The use of smooth and studded plates is first class here. Congratulations again!

[GingerWookiee]

Congrads on both fronts.