Desmond Howard Lego - The Pose
For the third year in a row I spent the weeks leading up to football season buried in maize and blue Lego bricks. This year I created a Lego version of Desmond Howard's Heisman pose. Last year I posted about my two previous projects, a Michigan football and helmet.
Two years ago I made a Lego mosaic for my sister as a wedding gift, and had wanted to do a Michigan related project for a while.
It is about 4,700 pieces, is 3.5 feet tall and 2.5 feet wide. I spent about 30 hours designing it over several weeks (gif here of the partial design progress) and then another 20 or so hours to build.
Complete Imgur album available here, I'll also embed some below. While not as technically challenging as the helmet and football, I think I'm most proud of this one. It now occupies space next to my other prized Michigan possession, a signed Zoltan Mesko jersey.
Edit: Oops double embed below.
September 6th, 2017 at 12:31 PM ^
September 6th, 2017 at 2:40 PM ^
I'm more than happy to share the design, such as it is. Can't promise how easy to follow/intuitive it might be for someone else, though given the detail you're working with this should be accessible.
September 6th, 2017 at 9:26 AM ^
You spend more on legos than I do on cars.
They're expensive little bastards.
September 6th, 2017 at 9:29 AM ^
Yeah, the cost is mainly what limits me to one of these projects a year. Including shipping costs I think this was around $250. The helmet and football also cost a similar amount, but with maybe 1/3 of the pieces. I've gotten better at designing without some of the pieces that are particularly expensive.
September 6th, 2017 at 10:12 AM ^
September 6th, 2017 at 9:17 AM ^
September 6th, 2017 at 9:18 AM ^
Most impressive.
September 6th, 2017 at 9:22 AM ^
4,700 pieces
Great Googly Moogly.
WD ain't got nothing on you in the insane fan department.
Nice work.
September 6th, 2017 at 9:23 AM ^
and Smiley's People is a great book. The Alec Guinness BBC miniseries is a very enjoyable adaptation as well.
September 6th, 2017 at 10:57 AM ^
Stalker!
September 6th, 2017 at 9:24 AM ^
10 year old me would be obsessed, very cool!
September 6th, 2017 at 9:27 AM ^
... and so is my son, who works for Lego.
September 6th, 2017 at 9:30 AM ^
This is very cool and I wish it was mine, but before I saw the picture, I thought this was going to be a 3.5 foot tall 3D Desmond doing the pose. That would be ambitious, but awesome. Next year?
September 6th, 2017 at 9:37 AM ^
That is a skill set I'm still trying to build. The football and helmet I made the past few years were good learning experiences, but still simpler symmetrical and regular curves. I've been working with some 3D modeling software to try and learn more about how to build irregular 3D shapes, I think something like that will be my next project.
September 6th, 2017 at 9:38 AM ^
September 6th, 2017 at 9:40 AM ^
Love the Beatles stuff, too.
So at some point, you'll have the entire campus (South, Central, North) in Lego?
September 6th, 2017 at 9:43 AM ^
The Yellow Submarine set is so much fun to build. The Wall-E one was great as well.
Lego campus is my very very long term plan. I did the Burton Tower without much regard for scale relative to other buildings, so now I'm trying to define a consistent one starting with the grad library.
September 6th, 2017 at 9:42 AM ^
great job on all of those projects.
September 6th, 2017 at 9:45 AM ^
gets ALL the pussy! Bitches love legos.
September 6th, 2017 at 6:22 PM ^
September 6th, 2017 at 9:46 AM ^
September 6th, 2017 at 9:56 AM ^
Bando-in-1992's jaw just hit the floor. Holy cow.
The only downside to Legos is accidentally stepping on one. Those corners are killer.
September 6th, 2017 at 10:08 AM ^
September 6th, 2017 at 10:03 AM ^
21 always good
September 6th, 2017 at 10:03 AM ^
This is amazing. How the hell do you do this stuff?
September 6th, 2017 at 10:16 AM ^
Probably some software that you upload an image and it provides a pattern and instructions; similar to what people do with cross stiching.
September 6th, 2017 at 10:18 AM ^
The first picture in this gif of the design process is the best I could get out of the mosaic program. From there I ported everything to photoshop and did it cell by cell.
September 6th, 2017 at 10:14 AM ^
Looks good, now clean up that desk
September 6th, 2017 at 10:40 AM ^
I was never big into Legos as a kid, but...man. That is so awesome. You should sell the design layout so others can emulate it. That would look so cool on my wall (or a Woodson one).
September 6th, 2017 at 11:02 AM ^
As you can guess from my points, I don't post much. I clicked on this just to thank you for excluding an "s" from the end of Lego. But now that I see your work, I would be remiss not to comment on it. Very impressive!!
September 6th, 2017 at 11:10 AM ^
September 6th, 2017 at 12:58 PM ^
Love it. Don't bang me up too much for saying this (I was an Art minor at Michigan focusing on portraits) but can we do a little more to detail the face? Saw it and only thought was Rorschach from Watchmen.
September 6th, 2017 at 1:18 PM ^
That is definitely that part I struggled with the most. I tried so many different variations with the eyes and never was fully satisfied with how it turned out. You can't see his left eye in the original photo, and none of the ways I tried with a visible eyeball/lid seemed to look any better than keeping most of the right eye in shadow.
If you're standing 8-10 feet away it looks great, but unsurprisingly becomes an issue the closer you get.
September 6th, 2017 at 12:58 PM ^