Every brick matters. Every choice, every shadow, every tiny variation in height or color—it all adds up to something much bigger.

No glue. No shortcuts. Just patience, problem-solving, and an absurd amount of time. Why don’t I glue the pieces down? Because I can’t. Once they’re locked in, making artistic adjustments becomes nearly impossible. And since Lego bricks are designed to stay together, removing and replacing a single piece can be way harder than you’d think—but necessary to get everything just right.

Lego only makes two shades of grey, so before I can even begin, I have to paint thousands of individual pieces in four additional shades—one by one.

People always ask how long these take to make… hundreds of hours. But the actual building is just one small part. First, I have to sift through what feels like millions of pieces, sort them by color, then by size, and finally, paint each one before I can even start the fun part—pushing plastic.

It’s a slow, meticulous process, and when you’re working on it up close, it’s almost impossible to see the larger image—it looks like an incomprehensible mess. You constantly have to walk backward to get enough distance to see the whole image, find the errors, and then hope to God you can remember where they were when you get close enough to actually move the Lego pieces.

But when you step back and the image comes to life, that’s when it all feels worth it.