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This small mosaic only took 2 hours, plus about an hour of prep time, not that long. The cost depends on a few variables, this client is a good repeat customer, ive done a bit of work for them, custom sets they have given to clients with printed bricks, a hundred custom minifigs with their details printed on them, amongst other stuff, so i tend to look after them, plus they are nice guys so that helps. Also the colours of the bricks used etc. this instance was cost of materials plus my time, so it didnt cost a whole heap. I have a really big mosaic to do over the easter break, its going to take a few days, its 4x4 48stud baseplates in size, with a whole variety of colours and detail, i am also going to time lapse photograph it, as its going to be a beauty, i will post the results here. again a big thanks to David Boddy for the tips and pointers in the filming, i just wish i had have met him sooner as i would have timelapsed my airbus A380 hehehehee

Thanks to David Boddy (bodville Here on eurobricks) he gave me some advice on how to timelapse shoot stuff. So i had a small corporate job to do over the wekeend, so just as test i shot it. the lighting sucks i know, but as it was only a test and not for the client, it doesnt bother me too much. (and yes, how simple is thier logo to do!) cheers Ryan

Count another Aussie in, im making the journey over, going to bring my Qantas Airbus A380 (Eurobricks post link), also a few smaller mocs. Really looking forward to it, should be a blast! Cheers Ryan PS ill be bringing some custom sets, airbuses, as well as some custom printed minifigs and a new retro post office van with fully printed bricks inculded, ill send links once its finished. PPS im on the comittee of Brickvention, Australia's largest Lego show, so ill be interested to see how the Americans do it :) hehehehe

Hi guys, now that the posse firmly has me entrenched here on Eurobricks, i thought i would show my latest project (after the Airbus A380 - Eurobricks post link ) I was contacted by a company just prior to brickvention to do thier corporate logo as a studs out mosaic. Anyways here it is with a picture of the target image next to it. It has some sections not filled in as these are screw to board points which get covered by plates when mounted. The large grey area to the right is where some of the company name / writing goes, not very exciting but hey, they pay they get whatever they want. The mosiac itself provided no significant challenges apart from the colour selections, i.e the bug's underbelly, whereby a combo of Salmon and Sand red would have worked ok, but we all know about those parts, lol. So anyways enjoy cheers Ryan Flickrlink: Flickr Photo gallery

just the lego on its own is around 55Kgs. all the other stuff, touchscreen, power packs etc, who knows, lol

Firstly thanks to Peter and Bodville for posting their info, and for Bodville for the sweet video tour, these guys are too modest, they both build amazing moc's themselves. And im also sorry i have not replied earlier, real life work and all that sort of thing. Now i have posted on flicker several detailed close ups of how the automation is done, and the mechanics of how this interacts. Flickr Link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ryanmcnaught/ In each picture i have added in some text outlining what is what. To Answer a few questions: The cutaway A380 at legoland Germany, i actually didnt see pictures of that until after i started building, so it wasnt an inspiration to begin with, but it did give me a couple of ideas, my scale of plane is actually quite a bit larger than the one there, and dare i say it, the one in Germany is all the wrong shape, not that i can talk, my wing isnt 100% correct either, hehehehe. Also i am going to be doing several modifications to the plane before it is shown again, both mechanically and structurally, but nothing too large. Also Still no word from Qantas about the sponsorship, the freight is going to be a huge killer in getting it to the USA, but i figure its a once in a lifetime thing. I also had a call from Lego Australia, asking me to make sure i keep it together as they may want to use it, so that was kind of cool too. As for the .net and the NXT/mindstorms stuff, if you have a specific question on it i am very happy to answer/talk about it, its a very interesting topic, and an awesome feature which Lego & Mindsqualls do not get a lot of credit for. As for my next project it seems i have an answer, im working on a corporate mosaic job, but after thats done, its full steam ahead. At this stage it looks like being about a 100k piece MOC. anyone would think i am a sucker for punishment.

Sadly Ron, they are not interested, so no luck on that front, but i didnt really do it for them, so its no big deal. Like all things this size, its about challenging yourself, in new ways you have never been challenged before, and i certainly did, the real question is this, what do i build next? :) hehehehe

I dont even know what one of those is, but it sounds cool :) who do i bribe to get one? Sadly no video footage, but i am taking it to brickworld in chicago in June, so ill be sure to get video footage there :) Sadly some of the servos had to hold position to keep them open, like the doors, tail wings etc, but yes your right, the constant drive position chews through the battery like no tommorow. I will definatly be sourcing either a big rechargable battery or a mains power unit that can attach into the screw terminals. It was kind of sad for the last hour i couldnt show off all the functions to everyone. but its always good to learn how to do things better. I also need to redesign the two rear landing gears a bit, they got stuck on the doors once, again always a lot to do. I have a couple of commercial mosaic jobs to work on now, so ill probably get back to the airbus in march some time.

Hehehe, i dont want to get into the debate about minifig "scale" what a can of worms that is, lol, but the real Airbus A380 is around 73m long and has a wingspan of 79.8m, i.e BIG. The only thing that is not to rough scale is that the tail is slightly higher than what it should be, but to be honest, with the "flying kangaroo" on the tail it really does look better this way IMHO. There is 5 easter eggs on it, all aeroplane movie related: Snakes on a plane Passenger 57 Castaway Airplane (flying high as it is known in AU) Alive (the story of the soccer team that crashed in the Andes and had to eat each other, check out the two guys above samual jackson) I have made some custom mini airbus sets with sticker sheet and instructions etc, i think i have a few left if anyone is interested.

Ok If you are a Lego purist please steap away from the keyboard now.... You have been warned. The only non lego part of the airbus is the mindsensors expansion board and the servo motors. The windscreen is a lego peice that has been chopped. The turbine blades used some glue. - because they rotate at such a high speed they flew off otherwise! Feel free to look back now :P Its 35,000 peices give or take, most of the peices are reused from previous MOC's including last years 8ft eiffel tower that i made. the vast majority is plates. The hardest part was the nose, given the crazy curvature of the real thing. the most fun bit was the engines, i really liked making those, had a lot of fun with the new train remote control on them :)

I'ts going to remain a cutaway, it would have been easier to make the full model but not nearly as much fun. Its around 35k peices give or take, the seats alone use about 7k peices. I'm hoping to take it to Brickworld in June.

Hi Guys, New to Eurobricks, enough freinds have complained why im not on here, so now i am :) I thought i would share one of my NXT creations which was shown last weekend at Brickvention 2010 (Australia's largest LEGO show) It uses NXT as a well as Power functions. I used a Mindsensors 8 servo motor breakout card as well as 6 hitechnic sensors. I hooked the NXT up via bluetooth using mindsqualls .net and wrote a simple touchscreen program to control all the functions. Functions are: Front landing gear door (hitechnic servo) Front landing gear (NXT motor) Two rear landing gear dorrs (hitechnic servo) Both landing gears powered by one NXT motor. Front Cargo Door (hitechnic servo) Airbrakes on wing (Hitechnic servo) Landing flaps (NXT motor) tail fin an rear wing (hitechnic servo) Engines (power functions with IR remote) Landing lights (power functions lights) The NXT and Power functions use the lithium batteries and they lasted all day full usage no problems, but the mindsensors churn thru AA batteries like no tomorrow so i will have to find a new battery or go with mains power (anyone got any tips for a 6v source for this?) Anyways more pickures can be found on my Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/32580212@N03/ cheers Ryan

Cool, off topic a little, are you coming to Brickvention over the Australia Day weekend?

I'm from Australia and i am making the journey over, 18+ hour flight, yes I am totally crazy, lol. The website and registration etc. doesn't really cater for non US people, it keeps saying I'm from Alabama, Which starts with A, but is about 12,000 miles north east :P I have a whole bunch of questions about stuff, I've tried the contact us page, but no luck there for the last week. Bryan if you are around can you shoot me an e-mail please? cheers, and already looking forward to it.