I got my comment in on the last article at exactly 2:00 when the RSOTD switched. Cool.

Anyway, I guess this set is how youtubers get those translucent baseplates. However they seem to be made of the more opaque trans-clear unpopularly applied to all clear pieces recently. There's a separate part number for clear instances (though sometimes transparent and solid color variations of a mold share the same number) which is a pattern that holds true most of the time when a different type of plastic is used. However ironically even though it's a separate part number the material appears different from the trans-clear used most of the time up until now. These baseplates likely couldn't be molded in the crystal clear plastic because they are vacuum formed.

@Norikins said:
"I got my comment in on the last article at exactly 2:00 when the RSOTD switched. Cool.

Anyway, I guess this set is how youtubers get those translucent baseplates. However they seem to be made of the more opaque trans-clear unpopularly applied to all clear pieces recently. There's a separate part number for clear instances (though sometimes transparent and solid color variations of a mold share the same number) which is a pattern that holds true most of the time when a different type of plastic is used. However ironically even though it's a separate part number the material appears different from the trans-clear used most of the time up until now. These baseplates likely couldn't be molded in the crystal clear plastic because they are vacuum formed."

I've noticed if as long you are on the page before then, and don't refresh, you can still comment.

That’s one large boombox next to that house... ;)

Good set.

Oooo, transparent baseplates!

I have to admit, the only part of this that gets me excited is the transparent baseplates.

I got some of those baseplates in a box of random pieces, I’ve been wondering which set they were from. Now I know

1x1 bricks in various colours and a clear baseplate, with a couple other parts. I got two of these back in the day. No regrets.

Childish and basic when compared to the recent LEGO Art, but not terrible in any sense.

The 3D aspect is neat.

Hey, I think I have this set!

My LEGO phone case 853797 appears to work very similarly to this one with the raised builds and all, except it's not mosaic-themed and therefore it uses round plates instead of square ones.

Clearly the best base plates.

Oooh, topside view of a flag to be a flickering tongue for that dragon is very clever

At first I thought they were plates, but they are actually bricks! I imagine this makes lining up and removing afterwards a lot easier! I can see how this would be popular will toddler and senior groups who want to do something a bit more arty, creative and personal than following instructions for the usual vehicles or buildings. For those doing mocs this would be a useful set now to readily obtain 598 bricks from the larger set 6163 , as there are never such large quantities on the on-line markets and at around a third of the price of buying each brick individually.

They were a step up from the first "Mosaik" sets in 1955, 1300 and 1301. Hopefully the format will continue to evolve.

Yes a nice set together with the 6163 , but the transparent base plate 16x16 4497482 really don't like the light.

Huh... you know, I did not know these existed. I remembered that 3443 was a thing, and I vaguely knew about the 2003 mosaics, but I thought that was the last that had been heard of the mosaic concept until recently. I had no idea these had come around in 2007.

I guess that really does show that was the beginning of my slow slide down into my dark age of a few years later, if I was no longer aware of the full extent of Lego's product catalogue that year xD

Clear baseplates! There were two of these mini mosaic kits, with this being the larger (the smaller one had two clear baseplates). I know someone who managed to get a small batch of new clear baseplates, but I can’t remember if they were 32x32 or 48x48. Another person I know managed to get some obviously used 48’s (some had marker on them in a few places), which she used to make a partially-transparent mosaic of Link. She said they use the clear ones for mosaic events because you can place them over 1:1 top-down instructions and just match the plates to the color under the baseplate.

I used eight of these in my LEGO Store MOC, to make the roof. The whole thing looks like a 10”x20” LEGO 2x4 brick, and the studs are all skylights. To make that work, I had to buy eight of these, because I didn’t want to use up all of the ones I pulled out of sets.

@Norikins :
The crab legs were _that_good_. Also, these baseplates are indeed vacuformed, as all baseplate are. I don’t know what they’re made of, though. Definitely not acrylic, or a harsh look would shatter them. When I worked in vacuforming, our clear parts were PET-G, which was optically clear as extruded sheet (often less so once we ran it on our molds), and strong enough that we could mold guards for chain and belt drives out of it. I think you can also vacuform polycarb, but PET-G forms at a similar temp to ABS, and I think polycarb has to be lot hotter than our oven controls would go. The issue is that you have a lot less control when vacuforming. Besides some variable thickness in the finished part (hotter areas will stretch more than colder areas, and there’s no way to achieve uniform temperature when the sheet starts sagging under its own weight, towards any heat source below it, and away from any above it), you’re going to get distortion wherever the plastic curves.

Look at the underside of a baseplate at all the dimples formed by the studs. Usually one corner will have reasonably crisp edges around the hollow space, while the opposite corner will look like trumpet bells. All of that jacks up the clarity of the plastic, to the point where about the best you can do through it is match the color of a plate to the instructions beneath it.

@Isabella_and_Lego_Liker :
There’s a window you can work with. If you load/refresh the page before comments automatically close, you can still post until your comment box times out (at which point you can’t use it to post anything unless you refresh the page, except that will remove the comment box once comments are closed).

@cflyg :
LEGO Art is at least the _fourth_ time they’ve done mosaic sets. This was either second or third. Before the greys became bleys, they did a batch of B/W mosaics on 48x48 greys, or you could try to run an original image through their software and buy a “custom” mosaic (really the parts were predetermined, and it would adjust the contrast to fit your instructions to the available parts). There was also a trial run of a custom mosaic system through at least one LEGO Store (UK, I believe), also in the bley era, but that never got rolled out to the rest of the world.