Mosaic Cubes 

Rubik's cube mosaics: sets for building pictures

A cube mosaic works like a picture made of pixels. Each 3x3 cube has nine coloured stickers on a face, and a few dozen cubes placed side by side form a portrait, a logo, a game character or a lettering. In this category you will find sets of 3x3 cubes for building mosaics and pictures from MoYu, GAN, QiYi and YJ. You will also find MoYu magnetic 1x1 blocks and educational Monster Go sets.

Number of cubes and level of detail

The number of cubes determines how much detail fits into the picture. A set of 9 cubes, e.g. YJ 3x3 9pcs or MoYu Mosaic 5.5 cm, gives you 81 squares. That is enough for a simple icon, a heart or an emoji. With 25 MoYu Mosaic 3 cm cubes you can build a picture with 225 squares, and GAN Mosaic Cube 6x6 has 36 cubes and 324 squares. The large sets are YJ 8x8 (64 cubes) and GAN Mosaic Cube 10x10, QiYi 10x10 and MoYu Mosaic 3 cm 100 pcs. Each of the last three has 100 cubes, which means 900 squares. With that many squares you can build a recognisable face or a more complex graphic.

The size of a single cube matters too. MoYu Mosaic 5.5 cm has standard-size cubes. They sit comfortably in your hand, so once you take the picture apart you can use them as regular 3x3 cubes. The 3 cm (MoYu) and 2.8 cm (QiYi) cubes are smaller. Thanks to that, even a picture made of 100 cubes has reasonable dimensions for a desk or a wall, but these cubes are less comfortable for everyday solving.

Boards, stands and patterns

Larger sets come with a board or stand that holds the cubes in an even grid and lets you display the finished picture. MoYu Mosaic 100 pcs has a display stand. In QiYi 10x10 the cubes lock into a 10x10 board, and the app for the set turns an uploaded photo into a pattern to follow. GAN Mosaic Cube boards can be connected to each other, so you can build one large picture from several sets.

Mosaics for kids and magnetic 1x1 blocks

Monster Go Spelling Cube sets consist of small 3x3 cubes you use to build letters, numbers and simple shapes. The 4x4 version has 16 cubes. It is a good choice for a child who is learning letters and practising finger dexterity at the same time.

MoYu Magnetic 1x1 work differently. They are single coloured blocks connected with magnets, in sets of 9, 27 or 64 pieces. You don't turn any layers; instead, you build flat patterns and 3D shapes with them. With 27 blocks you can build a 3x3x3 cube, and with 64 a 4x4x4 cube. They are more of a desk toy and fidget toy than a puzzle in the classic sense.