To edit the design, I first downloaded the design, from the My Baseplate in bricklink.com, via the ‘download creation’ button. This gives you a ‘.mo’ file that can be opened in stud.io. This the mosaic file that will bring the design into stud.io. Yes, another bricklink.com program.
Why stud.io? Why not LDD (Lego Digital Designer)? I found the learning curve with stud.io to be much less steep. Add to the situation that I already know the bricklink lingo for colors and part description, and it was a no-brainer for me. And LDD doesn’t support .mo files. Based on the options stud.io has for ‘export as…’ there are several design editing programs. If you have suggestions, please tell me about them!
You can explore how to use stud.io via the bricklink.com page for stud.io. It’s pretty intuitive, if you are comfortable using a mouse. The one thing that threw me for a loop was how to move the design up and down in the screen. You press the spacebar and click on the design and move it to where you want it. Right clicking lets you rotate the design.
After some playing with it, I figured to deal with the mottled background, I needed to just delete all the background plates and replace with what I wanted. It was a bit time and work intensive, especially as I got near the character and letters.
The ‘clone’ tool is super nice and let me fill the area with 2×6 plates in dark azure (part 4 will explain why we did what we did with the colors), then filled in with 1×4, then 1×2, and finally 1×1.
When I had the design I wanted, I uploaded it to “My Baseplate” at Bricklink.com. From there, I created a wishlist of the elements, which eases the purchasing of the parts (that is part 5). [insert wanted list view]
Now, go! Create something, edit some Lego Design, and tell me about it. Got questions about some step along the way? Please ask in the comments, I’m sure others will have similar questions.
