Here’s the story behind those mystery extra pieces in LEGO Art 31213 Mona Lisa
There are some mystery extra pieces left over at the end of building LEGO Art 31213 Mona Lisa, so we asked the designers about their inclusion.
We were lucky enough to get our hands on 31231 Mona Lisa for review ahead of its release on October 1, meaning Brick Fanatics‘ Matthew has already built the upcoming LEGO Art set. At the end of the build, you’ll be left with some extra pieces that mean you can choose whether to display your brick-built masterpiece with printed eyes, or with blank elements.
Although having two versions of a build is nothing new, with themes like LEGO DREAMZzz and LEGO Animal Crossing making customisation a central feature of their sets. Nonetheless, it is relatively rare to see it as an option in the small collection of LEGO Art sets based on existing works, such as 31208 Hokusai – The Great Wave. When LEGO Art designer Milan Madge explained the reason behind it in a recent interview with LEGO fan media, however, the story behind it is well-suited to the LEGO Group’s most artsy theme.
“We had versions [of 31213 Mona Lisa] that were incredibly realistic,” he explained. “We had versions that had brick-built lips and eyes. We had various different levels of relief for the nose and the cheeks.
“We ended up in a situation where we had maybe a dozen versions all lined up in a room, and various members of the design team and even the leadership of the LEGO Group were stopping by. It was like you would do an art gallery, where everyone stood around trying to decide which direction to go.
“A solution we landed on was the one that that kind of captured the most people, but it definitely split the room,” Milan concluded. “There were a lot of people that really liked kind of more abstract stuff and there were a lot of people that really wanted the printed features. [That’s why] there are a few extra tiles in the box, so you can experiment with what you like more.”
Ultimately, it seems that there was no winning option between the abstract blank elements and the printed eye elements, leading to the compromise that’s seen in the final set. The real Mona Lisa is known for her mysterious smile and following stare, so now you can recreate it as you’d like.
There are still more customisation options if you want to get really creative, with the printed face element from 40649 Up-Scaled LEGO Minifigure also fitting to scale with the rest of the build. Unlike the real masterpiece, the bonus of the brick-built 31213 Mona Lisa is that you can play around with it without fear of ruining a priceless artefact. The world’s your oyster!
31213 Mona Lisa launches online and in stores on October 1, priced at £89.99 / $99.99 / €99.99 and available to pre-order now. You can find out everything you need to know about the upcoming LEGO Art set in our full review.
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It’s an awful set. They could, and should, have done far better. I’ve seen other budget sets do better for far less. Shame, Lego.
I wouldn’t have even thought about buying this set were it not for Matthew’s video. I mean, I’m not going to, it’s too expensive and the frame’s a bit off putting and also I’ve got about 300 Spider-Man and Friends sets including the Art set to buy first pray for my bank balance, but post-video, I’ve got an appreciation for this set that I didn’t get from the preview material. I don’t think I’d mark it down for the the face, or with the effort put into simulating it. it might look like a low resolution digital recreation, but it still holds a certain fascination. I think blanking out the face actually makes it look a bit creepy, a bit like a shocking cliffhanger from some wobble-walled 1970s sci-fi show.
…which, okay, *now* I get it.