sexta-feira, 25 de janeiro de 2013

AWTRInBricks - English


Notes:

- If you are a Portuguese Native Reader, click here to read this post in Portuguese language
- If you're not fancy reading and rather see a video of me speaking about the project, click here

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Who am I?

My name is Pedro Almeida, I am 23 years old, and I am a Computer Engineering Student from Portugal. I was born with Muscular Dystrophia and my whole life has been confined to a wheelchair. This helped me developed different tastes and likes than the average person.

Yes, I am what they call a Nerd. I love computers, I love technology, specially in the military and space fields. I like astronomy too. I like History, then again mostly of the World Wide Wars. Of course I also like the kinda of stuff common people do - I like Movies (Star Wars are my favorites), Series, Music (my favorite singer is Kelly Clarkson). I also like Sports, mostly Soccer (I support Portuguese Team Sport Lisboa e Benfica).

I usually spend my time around the Internet, like lots of hours, I watch a lot of TV too, and then as you'll see as this post progresses I also devote my time to this big hobby - LEGO®

So, what is this AWTRInBricks Project?

As I write this post, it is the 25th January 2013. This date marks the 11th Anniversary of the cinema release of the movie "A Walk To Remember". Because the whole story (book plus movie) changed me in so many ways I decided I had to pay a decent tribute to it, and I made it in the best and most original way I know - a LEGO® Mosaic - my speciality within the realm of bricks.

You said the movie changed you, can you explain?

This is a bit of the story that motivated me to do this Mosaic. Early in 2012, and yes I know I am 10 years late, while looking for Movies with Shane West (huge fan) I found A Walk To Remember. I watched it and I got so emotional the next thing I remember is I was on the Internet buying both the DVD and the OST. I got those, watched the movie over and over again, kept listening to the soundtrack all around (im listening to it as I write this post!) but that still wasn't enough for me. So here I go on my playground - the Internet - again and I grab the e-book of the novel by Nicholas Sparks. And then I thought things couldn't get any worse. I read the novel, and it kind of affected me even more than the movie, because the combination of both is just perfect. You'd have to know me very well to know exactly how this kind of things can affect me, because you know - I am disabled, and I don't have a Landon to look out for me.

Anyways, I kept watching the movie, listening to the music, reading bits of the book here and there, but I still wasn't happy with it. I needed to say thanks, to show how this whole story had changed me and my ways of thinking.

So, like I said before I decided to set a date - 25th January 2013, 11th Birthday of the A Walk To Remember Movie - to release the result of my hard work - my LEGO® Mosaic Tribute.

Enough chat, how about some pictures?

(click in the pictures for larger versions)





For the LEGO® fans, can you give some more details on the process?

Sure thing.

First of all let me say this Mosaic took 60, yes sixty, full hours to be made (comprised within around 4 months).

It's made of 16 different baseplates that hold no less than 16,500 pieces. Yes, I did say sixteen and a half thousand. This happens because for the sake of easyness and photo quality, I use only 1x1 plates, which for who doesn't understand means each "pixel" in the Mosaic is a different piece. 

The size is big. 128x128 studs. For you non-LEGO® enthusiast this is Chinese. So I'll tell you - it's 40 inches large , or 102cm depending on what metric you're used too.

It uses 10 different colors - Black, White, Dark Bluish Gray, Light Bluish Gray, Very Light Bluish Gray, Reddish Brown, Tan, Dark Tan, Medium Blue and Dark Blue.

Speaking of value - for me it's priceless - but if you want to know , between cost of pieces, other costs and a fair price for the work applied - it's worth US$1500

Any final considerations?

First of all, let me thank you for your time following my work.

This is my fourth Mosaic and I most say it's the one I enjoyed doing the most - not only because it's the biggest I have done so far, but because of the mean it has to me. I really like using my skills with LEGO® Mosaics not just to gather a few pieces around, but to express my feelings and the meaning of great things for me, and I think I have accomplished that well here.

Now. As soon as this blog is complete, I am going to literally bombard the whole Internet with it. Why? Because I have this ambitious, probably a bit far off goal of getting this to the attention of - Nicholas Sparks, Shane West and Mandy Moore - and eventually get a word back from them. It would mean the whole world to me!


Thanks for your time, and Happy Birthday A Walk To Remember !!

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