I would guess that I have about 60-70 sets scattered about my basement, on various shelves, ledges, and windowsills. I keep my instruction booklets in a small filing cabinet, which has saved me on more than one occasion when something gets knocked off a shelf.

Like most people, I had a bunch of Lego when I was a kid. This was in the 70's, when the sets were mostly bricks with a few Space Lego sets available. Then when I was about 24, I was wandering through Wal-Mart and saw the Witch's Windship (set 6037). I bought it on a whim, loving the molded pieces and the fun of having a Lego set once again. From there, I started accumulating more and more, focusing mostly on the Star Wars stuff, and Pirates (including Islanders).

I took my son to the local Science Center on day, and the Lego Egypt display was on tour. I was of course very excited about all the various sculptures, but the item that really drew my eye was a mosaic of some ancient Egyptians. It was so intricate and big, and I was very taken with it. I went home and found a picture of my son, and made a small picture of him (which can be found my collection here). I bought a few bulk brick sets with lots of small pieces in various colors and put those to use. After that, I started making more and more, and it just took off from there.

Usually I'll throw ideas around in my head for a while, or look for an image that I think will turn into a Mosaic well. Some pictures lend themselves well to mosaics, others don't. Usually things with text, or too many colors can be difficult. Most of my "portrait" stuff is grayscale, I like it a lot, I think it brings out faces very well. Once I have picture I like, I'll run it through some image software and play with the contrast and saturation, to simplify the color range. Once I have something I like, I map out the colors and locations, and start laying out the piece. Color choice and layering style will depend on what the picture is, how much shading is needed, and whether I'm looking for sharp contrast lines or gradual shading.

For mosaics with lots of textures, I would create a "plus" + shaped piece, basically 2 1x3s overlapped. The texture pieces tend to use a lot of those, and it would save a bit of time, and save me from buying more 1x1s, which it seems like I'm constantly doing. (A quick shout out to bricklink.com, the best place to find whatever you need piecewise.)

I'd love to make a mosaic for a movie star or athlete and see it hanging on their wall. Maybe Jack Nicholson, or someone like that. That would be cool. Or even to have a piece displayed at a company or museum would be a big thrill.

I made a mosaic of Zach Braff from 'Scrubs", I think mostly because he's a pretty web savvy guy, and I figured there was a good shot that he would see it, and maybe buy it;) No such luck so far.

I think that someday I should also do a "self-portrait", as I've already made a mosaic of my wife and my son. We're looking at renovating our house soon, and adding a new room, and I'm thinking a wall-sized mosaic of the whole family would be pretty awesome, though expensive. My wife has been awesome about my passion for Lego. She's very encouraging, and that makes everything easier. My son if 4, and apart from occasionally adding pieces to mosaics when I'm not looking, he tend to take a lot of my loose brick and transport them around the table with his trains.

The part of the mosaics that affects my day job is that I tend to lose track of time and stay up far too late building them. The best time for me to work on them is after my wife and son are sleeping, so that pretty much leads to me staying up too late. It would be great to build mosaics for a living, but we're a ways away from that. They're a pretty select market, as most people don't have a couple thousand dollars lying around to spend on art, Lego or otherwise.

One of the side benefits of the Mosaics for me is that it teaches me patience. I'm a pretty impatient guy, and I think working on something that I can't possibly finish in a day or even a week, is good for me. Having said that, I'm getting pretty efficient at the mosaics. I had a friend come by, who had commissioned a piece for her parents, and she wanted to help put some pieces in, so that she could be a part of the process. She started putting some pieces in, and I was surprised at how much more quickly I was working than she was.