This portrait of Ruth Bader Ginsburg
is made up of about 5,000 Lego pieces.
But zoom into her blue eye again.
You've got a square blue Lego.
Diagonal to that is a rectangle one.
And another rectangle is perpendicular to that.
Then, separated by a row of black,
another square blue Lego.
To you and me, this pattern doesn't translate into an eye,
but that's how artist Andre Veloux sees the world.
In pixels.
Each portrait starts on the computer.
In Andre's case, two computers.
He uses them to turn a regular image
into one that can be recreated using Legos.
He plays around with the contrast and saturation
of the image in Photoshop to get the picture just right.
The higher the contrast of the photo,
the better it translates into pixels.
Then he crops it into the shape of the canvas
and moves the image to his other computer.
From there, he uses a separate program
to turn the image into pixels.
Each pixel corresponds with a Lego stud on the canvas.
But figuring out the colors?
That takes a little more work.
Andre Veloux: Each person you take for a portrait
has their own color balance, if you like,
and that, depending on their skin tone
and their hair color and their general appearance.
And so you need to choose a Lego palette with colors
that will be complementary to that.
Narrator: And his palette is already pretty limited.
The official Lego palette that Andre uses
has 51 different colors, 33 of which are solid.
The remaining ones are considered special bricks.
And contrary to what some people might think,
Andre doesn't use any custom bricks
other than the ones engraved with his signature.
Andre: I will just reduce the Lego color palette,
take out some of the primary colors
that I don't want to appear in the portrait.
And that way, you get a more realistic
and kind of photo-realistic portrayal of the portrait.
Narrator: Taking out a handful of colors
limits his range even more.
And it's possible Andre might have to change
a color or two during the building process.
He begins a physical portrait
by creating the canvas with baseplates.
Andre: I found out these aftermarket ones,
this is the only thing that I use that's not made by Lego.
This is another company that makes
standard baseplates, but they're thicker.
And so this gives a much stronger structure
for the whole piece, and it helps hold together better.
Narrator: Andre uses Legos
to attach the baseplates
together to form the canvas.
Then, using placeholder bricks,
he maps out the general shape of the section
he's going to work on.
These are brightly colored bricks
that won't blend in with the colors he's actually using.
Once that's done, he lays down the first bricks.
Because the process involves a lot of rearranging bricks
and swapping out colors, it makes it difficult
for him to know exactly how many bricks
he'll need of each color.
Andre: When I build a piece,
I'm always running out of stock
of the pieces I need, so I have to then
put some kind of placeholder in
and leave it there until the stock actually arrives,
and when the stock arrives
you can replace them with the pieces you need.
Narrator: Because of this,
it can take Andre up to three months
to complete one portrait.
He doesn't like to keep these portraits flat.
And that could mean adding layers of texture
to the hair, face, or the background.
This vastly increases the amount of Legos he needs.
Creating texture in each specific section
requires using different kinds of bricks.
For the hair, Andre might use varying sizes
and colors of stacking bricks, thin plates,
and slanted, single, and square bricks
to create a textured effect.
Sometimes deciding what bricks to put down
is also an economical choice.
Andre: I have all the black around the edge now.
So, it doesn't really matter what color I use in the middle
because it's not gonna show at the edge.
So I'm gonna fill the middle
with whatever color I want.
I try and use the most economical-priced piece
for the middle section
because Lego is not the same price for each color.
Some colors are much more harder to find
and they cost a lot more,
so you don't use those as much.
Narrator: Next, Andre moves on to the face.
He makes it using a majority of flat plates
that vary in colors and hues,
and it can be tricky to get right.
If one or two bricks are placed in the wrong spot,
he might end up with something odd-looking
pretty quickly.
Because this can easily happen,
it could mean putting in and taking out bricks
hundreds of times,
which can do some damage to Andre's fingers.
When he gets it right, it all starts to come together.
Andre: I mean, that's why, I kind of, like,
I'll call it magic as it comes together.
You can see nothing for such a long time
and then you suddenly see it all.
Narrator: But the most important step
to give the portrait its realistic feel?
The eyes.
Andre: The principle elements in it
are the eyes and the lips,
specifically the eyes.
And you have to design the eyes
so they're gonna make some kind of connection
with the viewer when it's produced.
And so that takes the most time,
because, if you think of a single eye in one of my pieces,
it's probably got a pixelation level
of, say, like, 10 by 10.
An incredibly small amount of information.
But because our brains are so attuned to faces,
in particular eyes,
you can make it work in a very powerful way.
Narrator: After putting the final piece in place,
he wipes off any fingerprints
to reveal the finished portrait.