Creating Nikita Kucherov, one six-sided die at a time

“I always start with the center and the most complex part of the piece, which is the eye.”

That’s where the first die was placed in Barbara Helman’s astounding mosaic of Nikita Kucherov, gifted to the Bolts winger during his 1,000-point ceremony ahead of Thursday night’s game against Dallas.

“I start with the eye and build out from the center,” Helman explained. “That’s how we get his face.”

It’s a fitting starting point for a portrait of a forward known for his supernatural vision—something Helman clearly reciprocates when bringing her own art to life.

The custom Kucherov piece is made up of 12,000 dice and 40,000 painted halftones in more than 130 hours of work. And it’s far from her first endeavor.

Helman has been an artist her whole life, but around a decade ago, she became fascinated with artists using unique, off-the-wall mediums to bring their visions to life. Rubik’s cubes, chess pieces and, for Helman, six-sided dice. Her work is often influenced by pop culture and historical milestones within the worlds of sports and music. And in 2020, she caught her first break when her portrait of Kobe Bryant went viral on SportsCenter.

Since then, she’s worked on celebrity portraits like Michael Jordan, Prince, and now, Nikita Kucherov. After witnessing her latest work get its big reveal at Benchmark International Arena, Helman caught up with TBL.com on the making of the one-of-a-kind design.

Thompson Brandes: How did you first get into art and how did that transition into making the dice portraits?

Barbara Helman: I've been doing art for my entire life. I always did drawings, very detailed, hyper-realistic drawings using charcoal. I'm obsessed with black and white because I feel like they're more dramatic. And then, let's say eight, maybe ten, years ago, I started noticing artists online that used really unique mediums. Like, Rubik's cubes or chess pieces, and I thought that was so cool. Because it’s like okay, you can use a regular object that you find every day and make something extraordinary out of it. So, I thought, "Okay, what kind of medium can I use?"

The dice are perfect because they're black and white. I lay them out just like I do a drawing. So I'm like, "Okay, the center of the eye needs to be a six.” And then I basically work that way. I'm actually experimenting with other mediums, as well. I'm going to do tiny cars, pushpins, that sort of thing.

Well this piece looks awesome. How did you go about choosing and constructing this picture of Kucherov?

I’ve got to look at the photograph and say, "Okay, this one would look great in dice. This one, maybe not so much.” Like, a white helmet wouldn't have worked because of his light skin, so I needed the contrast. So the blue helmet, blue jersey, absolutely perfect.

Every single dot is a different size. So, when I first started doing dice projects I just did raw dice. And I realized I'm limited to six colors and it looks very flat. It's like an Atari game out of the '80s. So now I’m taking paint and coloring in portions of the white dots to make them bigger or smaller…so it looks more like a photograph.

I construct it just like I do a drawing. If you’re doing a portrait of somebody, you line it, you space it, right, so that the features are symmetrical. So there's the measuring process, and then I have to display the dice.

How long does that process take?

This one took me about five months.

And it's heavy. I tried to pick it up.

It's 110 pounds, yeah.

Are most of your professional works inspired by athletes or custom works?

When I first started working with dice, it was experimental and I did very small pieces. It was just kind of to show friends and family. And then, my first piece that went viral was during Covid lockdown. I did a piece of Kobe Bryant, who's one of my favorite players. I put him on Instagram and within, like, two minutes, SportsCenter messaged me and it went viral overnight.

Oh, that's so cool.

Yeah, March of 2020. And then ESPN reached out again and asked, "Are you working on another piece?” And I said, "Yes, Michael Jordan.” So they put out Michael Jordan the week that they released The Last Dance...So if you look at that piece online, it's called "The Last Dice.”

What was it like to see the Kucherov piece revealed in front of thousands for the ceremony?

I was thinking, “This feels surreal". It was like an out-of-body experience because Kucherov has been in my living room now for five months [laughs]. And it was sad when he left my house. I did this piece in my dining room, because I figured, okay, every night it will be a constant reminder that I have to do some work on it. So he consumed my entire living room, dining room for a long time.

You can find more of Barbara Helman's work at her website and on Instragram.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.