After I got done with my hammer icon, I wanted to create something for the ARCH baby blog (Christy and my initials can be arranged as ARCH and CHAR-we're "CHAR" only if we're in an evil mood, muahaha).
After drawing with Paint Shop for a little, I thought "hey, this'd be cool in Legos!"
So I started up the Lego Creator and made a few designs. Starting with a simple "ARCH" and ending up with a more arch-like design.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcwq8blvO6by7I1DrCzXoZOYaqIgdMWVtPRhI0cBDMks-W0aHk-Bi63VQ4UeBuab2bi1XbUKvAYT1d0BnQqyOVyIKsVPht2Zb63az_BFFUzaCb0EzFpwmORDeShREV-KwBOe6yTsAX6iM/s320/LDDScreenShot1.png)
The legos reminded me of bitmaps, of course, so out of curiosity I googled "lego dithering." I wanted to at least consider, if not really create, how detailed a lego logo (hehe) I could make.
The search pulled up this lego mosaic blog entry. Great stuff (was that first comment ["dude, you're killing me"] an inside joke, a compliment, or one-upsmanship, I can't tell)! I searched for dithering instead of anti-aliasing because the basic lego colors aren't close enough in color tones to pull it off.
I tested it on our dog Mocha and tried a few options. I guess I'll need to get the starting plate and the legos!
Which version do you like?
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4pp1hgWOvViunRO_AV10g0_mdUMRetrPUxx778M9AcfhR-q8WKQo89nDcnupeg4qxvmQSz-IZfwUTKzMQOYC6q7TPjU03xMZSIzEWeD_XT6fibD7VuHHBTY8yE4myixFjMRLfTcdGfGM/s200/mocha_lego1.gif)
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCsaZiQt6V9SLQCw8T1l7wTYL2j4kF_8FT1aKEyM6sCIAySzvmzPnIyYGngWodWYnxBWrsm13oT5AT3l2YSxI1x7Vj5M3gP9rseIEOJ6kvD3AcG4LyXwihv2OPwmJU5d_OVFpj6qndEXM/s200/mocha_lego2.gif)
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgur4BkuJoOZU0nDZxw3-GhuDnes2Ul9urBi9asLEeGoXpafIkmPQi_k9fbNK7tFkI_6zxPSZJxrYbsIMj0xgh6wa4DhPtMWLI3iDKJEY0Gv78IlMXMDgNtGKxEL3yq7jKfHf7oAEehAKo/s200/mocha_lego3_moreContrast.gif)
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivkgLRwBYO9NZbWpqKz0HnRFIlrOVFy3v1PdX3HNF9yrPMQibRTp0q30TBeip-i2c4ZtEqJF7tF6bmDIHW5tDHVyjJasFRJYqZiFq9HxqyjUwcPzM0u-TuWY54xMEpQOUtzZ7l1Y4DjJ8/s200/mocha_lego4_moreContrast.gif)
Source image was this one:
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoRCtfzFh1xiiNFWBKwNPF9gyDQN0q_HftxSSeRxg2IPpHhEKrOXbmd1LWfBKds_rBcu4LfgNy2IlKpUo9AKaBv5JArUqhuBAjWcZQqNBNvs6qTAD-a5gJlzdvk1O2txBOmshQ67U7c4o/s200/2006+247.jpg)
Some notes about creating the bitmaps...
- The extreme close-up and crop increases the resolution for Mocha's face. Otherwise, if I did more of the picture, less detail would be seen for his features
- I had to modify the instructions (much thanks to blog Ascent State's author John Tolva for the inspiration) to Paint Shop Pro.
- Mainly Effects > Distortion Effects > Pixelate instead of Mosaic, setting block width and height ("cell size") to 10
- I wasn't sure how to make a custom pallete, so I just decreased the color depth to 6 colors and then changed it to gray scale.
- View > Grid shows the grid in Paintshop
You can get help counting the colors by using view > palletes > histogram to see the colors. Normally the historgram would be used to tell if your picture's distribution of colors or contrast was correct at a glance. In this case, we can actually count how many lego pieces we need!
Found another guide and a tool that can help.
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