As noted earlier, a LEGO mosaic can be any size you like. If it is an image you want to display that you’ve made with the studs-out technique, it is likely to be the size of whatever baseplates you have available. Figure 8-3 shows a picture of the two most common large waffle-bottom baseplates that LEGO makes.

The smaller, darker baseplate is 32x32 studs, whereas the larger one is 48x48 studs. For the remainder of this section, you’ll focus on creating works assembled on the 32x32 version.

In addition to a baseplate, you need lots of 1x1 elements to make a mosaic. If you can obtain enough standard plates in this size, then you can create a very thin picture. Otherwise, you’ll more often build your studs-out mosaic using 1x1 standard bricks. Although it will be thicker from front to back, the resulting image, as it appears to the viewer, will be just the same when viewed from the front. You may also want to use other standard bricks, or even peak elements, to create a frame around your image.

Figure 8-3. The small white square near the bottom center of the picture is a standard 2x4 brick. This gives you a sense of the size of the 48x48 baseplate.

To create a studs-up mosaic, you again need lots of small elements (1x1 bricks and plates), but you also need whatever other pieces are required to fit the mosaic section into the larger model you’re building.