This post originally recommended a tool called Brickify, but because it's no longer available, we've updated with a few viable alternatives.

There are lots of ways you can create fun and entertaining photos to share online or use as social media profile pictures. One creative approach would be to pixelize your image, which normally isn't desirable but can be great when done well.

There are two free services that make it easy to add such an effect to your images.

LunaPic

With LunaPic, you can either upload your image directly from your computer or copy and paste the URL of an image already online. You can also connect your Facebook and Instagram accounts to the site, or install a Chrome extension that adds LunaPic to your right-click context menu.

Whichever way you choose to get your image into LunaPic, once the editor has loaded, go to Effects > Lego Style and your photo will be transformed into a flat, pixelized rendering of yourself.

Once you're done you can save your image to your desktop or share it on a bunch of different sites you can connect to LunaPic including Facebook and Twitter.

Brick-A-Pick

Brick-A-Pick is another option that stays even truer to the brick look. You'll have to upload your images directly to the site. You can adjust which part of the image will appear in your final creation by zooming in and out and panning, as the final image is a square. In the final product, you can also take advantage of 3D features that allow you swivel the image around.

Brick-A-Pick saves your image for 48 hours on their servers, after which it's deleted. By adding your email address, it can be saved for a longer period of time. Once you're ready to download the image, right click it and select Save image as. Just note that if you've swiveled the image at all, it will be downloaded at that angle with a white background!

If you're looking for a tool that lets you create 3D brickified images from scratch, be sure to check out the online pixel art app Q-Block.

What fun ways do you find to jazz up your social media profile photos? Let us know in the comments.