Bits to Bricks

Face it, Lego is the greatest toy ever made. And although its electronic efforts have been spotty, the company’s new online mosaic program is a fun way to turn a personal picture into a work of Lego art.

The Brick-o-Lizer, available free at https://www.lego.com/shop, transforms digital images into a 15-inch-by-15-inch mosaic of Lego plates. The program allows users to manipulate brightness and contrast and then print out instructions--similar to a needlepoint pattern--for free so they can build the mosaic with pieces from their own Lego collections.

Or, for $29.99, Lego will aggregate the pieces and ship them.

Right now, the Brick-o-Lizer spits out images only in black and white--using plates in black, white and three shades of gray--but the company plans to release a color version.

A far more sophisticated Lego mosaic program was developed by Eric Harshbarger, an Alabama-based Lego sculptor who consulted on the design of Brick-o-Lizer. Harshbarger’s Pixelego program, available at https://www.ericharshbarger.org/lego, generates full-color mosaics that can be several feet tall and wide. But unless they have a huge Lego collection, users might be hard-pressed to actually build some of the designs generated by Pixelego. A Lego Mona Lisa, for instance, required more than 30,000 pieces.