Man goes viral for creating portraits with rubik's cubes

ROMPIN, Aug 22 -- Zabli Ab Hadi, 35 recently went viral on social media for using Rubik’s cubes to create a difference in producing portraits. 

Zabli, 35, said 391 pieces of the puzzle cubes were arranged in a special frame to produce a portrait of the personality couple Shamira Muhamad or better-known as Shuib Sepahtu and the late Siti Sarah Raisuddin which took about three hours to complete.

The Pahang-born admitted his intention to upload the video of the portrait on his Tik Tok @abam.takaful last Wednesday (August 18) was done as part of his job as manager of the Kampung Pianggu Internet Centre here.

“I was asked by some people to teach them how to upload videos on social media applications prompting me to produce the video to make it easier to understand.

“As for the content, I feel it is not wrong if I share my interest in solving Rubik’s cube which had been my hobby since the age of 14.

“I only knew the video had gone viral that night after being told by a friend, but I did not take it seriously. The next day I was surprised to see it had garnered tens of thousands of likes and shares,” he told Bernama when met in Kampung Pianggu here today.

Zabli said he was glad that his wife Nor Aimi Zaini, 35, did not object when he used their RM2,000 savings to buy 400 Rubik’s cubes online to produce the portrait adding that he was nervous when it arrived late.

Watching his fingers manipulating the cubes speedily to find suitable colour arrangements before placing them on the frame, evoked a sense of awe, but he repeatedly said he was not a fast Rubik’s cube solver.

“To produce a portrait also requires homework. The original portrait must be enlarged using Adobe Photoshop to see the pixel arrangements before it is changed to four colour tones due to the limited colours of the cubes.

“We can only count the number of cubes and the colour arrangements through the pixels because the picture is not so clear at the preliminary stage.

“The portrait produced is clearer if seen from afar or through pictures in the camera or smart phones as it is based on the arrangement of the pixels,” he said.

Zabli said that the portraits he produced could not last long, as the cubes would be stored back in boxes after the portraits were immortalised in the form of pictures, adding that he was still looking for the best way to maintain the arrangement of the plastic blocks in the frame.

The best way in his opinion is to have a sheet of glass installed on the frame, which has to be custom-made to maintain the positions of the cube blocks but this will involve costs.

“Because of this too, I am still considering the requests to produce portraits of several individuals especially after the video went viral.

“More worrisome is, if the arrangement of the cubes collapses during delivery... which will surely be a disappointment to me and the buyer,” he added.

-- BERNAMA