This LEGO riff on Van Gogh’s famous self-portrait is a great optical illusion

Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/12/15/this-lego-riff-on-van-goghs.html

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It’s certainly clever, and in my opinion, artful, but does LEGO make bricks in all of those shades? I expect they do not. I’d be happy if I were shown to be wrong, I might even pursue my own version of a pixellated LEGO art career. But I’m not about to begin 3D printing my own bricks in custom filament colors to accomplish this.

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Drinking a whole box of wine also works.

hiccup

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holy shit, i swear there’s more detail when i take off my glasses. WHAT IS THIS WITCHCRAFT?

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I was thinking that they are probably a combination of new and aged bricks. They certainly put out a much broader range of colors now than when I was a kid and even my son’s bricks that are just a few years old show aging variation.

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None of them say Lego on the stud so we know these are not true Lego.

However, to answer your question:

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See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_image

Are they real plastic bricks? I can see they aren’t Lego, but I would still feel better about this art if it was physical. Otherwise it is like a 60 second photoshop job.

Like this:

Check our the full size…

If somebody took the time to cast a bunch of custom color plastic bricks, though, then they are my hero.

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Also, something fishy is going on here, because this is the same thing but with apparently real Lego bricks.

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I thought this seemed mighty familiar.

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Looks like Abraham Lincoln.

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Love these. We actually have this hanging in our hallway. When you’re standing next to it you can’t tell what it is, but if you’re looking at it from the other end of the hall you’d think it was a photograph of the good Doctor.

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Technically, couldn’t you use a buttload more Legos to create a buttload more accuracy and detail?

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'shooped

very lovely, but 'shooped for sure
why you may ask?
well, legos don’t FIT together quite so beautifully, quite so perfectly, even when new
and those shades? nope, too subtle

menu item Filter --> Stylize --> Mosaic… throw a grid on top of that
throw a highlight/shadow for each of the nibs and replicate across the grid
boom

very beautiful, saved to my giant scrapbook (IN MY MIND!)

also no LEGO on the nibs (mb they copyright/complained or something, sigh)

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I assumed it was a painting of LEGO bricks in those colors. Or even a computer program where you scan a painting and convert it, then print it out.

Wonder what these would look like with a light source from below?

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Severe squinting at these lego-inspired pictures can often come awfully close to the images they are based on.

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Lego photo app from 2010. Also makes a nice brick-clicky sound when you change filters

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