Tag: line art

LEGO Charlie Brown Line Art

andertoons4 Comments

A while back I created a LEGO Catwoman line art piece that garnered not only some attention, but won me all of the 2012 Batman sets too!

I’ve since been looking for another opportunity to test the technique further, so I dug into my cartoon books, found an image I liked and, voilà, LEGO Line Art Charlie Brown:

LEGO Charlie Brown Line Art

Click the above image to see it really really big!

Here’s the panel I used as inspiration:

Charlie Brown cartoon

And here are a few closeups of Chuck:

LEGO Charlie Brown face closeup

LEGO Charlie Brown hands closeup

When I did the Catwoman MOC I got a lot of comments that it didn’t look like LEGO. Which is very flattering, of course, but it also worried me just a bit that people thought I might be simply laying pieces on top of tiles, or using some other sort of cheat. So I wanted to share a little bit of the construction to show how the technique is achieved with standard plates, tiles, and hinges.

I start with a bin full of all kinds of black and white LEGO:

black and white LEGO pieces

But mostly what I use are these:

LEGO Charlie Brown line art pieces

What you’re looking at above:

The basic idea is that you create your lines using tiles and hinges…

LEGO Charlie Brown art hinged line

Then anchor them to the baseplate using plates and jumpers. For example, here are the anchoring studs for Charlie Brown’s head:

LEGO Charlie Brown line art studs

Jumpers offer another advantage in that the stud top is hollow allowing for placing connecting pieces either traditionally between the edges and the tube, or using the tube underneath as an anchor point:

LEGO Charlie Brown jumpers and hinge

In the tightest curves (Charlie Brown’s hands for example), I use a 1×2 tile both for its small size, and its lack of a tube underneath:

LEGO Charlie Brown tiles 1x2

Without the tube you’re free to slide the 1×2 tile on a stud to get even more flexibility in placement.

Then you fill in the rest of the baseplate with tiles the same color as the hinges to help hide them.

I tried counting pieces as I went, but I sort of lost track as I got deeper into the build. But if you’re looking for an estimate, it’s probably right around the 2000 mark.

So there’s how I got my Charlie Brown LEGO Line Art MOC to work. I took some liberties with the original art, but I think he turned out pretty well. I’m especially happy with the expression on the face, which, for me, is the most important element.

Hope you enjoy it, and stay tuned for more upcoming LEGO projects!

LEGO Catwoman Line Art

andertoons

lego catwoman line art

I’ve been wanting to try my hand at another large LEGO art piece, but was looking to try something other than the standard mosaic. So I created this tiled line art piece based on the Darwyn Cooke Catwoman.

All the black tiles are connected with white hinges underneath and connected here and there to plate studs placed strategically in the white tiles.

It measures about 20″ x 30″ and I had to order around 1500 of the 2×2 white tiles from Germany to get it covered.

Here’s a little closer look:

lego catwoman line art closeup

I’m really pleased with the result, and I’m already planning some other LEGO line art projects.

You can see it better over at Flickr! Meow!

BTW, don’t miss these other awesome Catwomen by Bruce Timm, Art Baltazar, Mike Maihack, Amanda Conner, and Darwyn Cooke!