How a Domino Artist Creates Amazing Domino Setups
A domino is a small rectangular wood or plastic block, with one face marked by an arrangement of dots resembling those on dice. The other face is blank or identically patterned. When used in games, a domino has the ability to “cascadingly” topple other dominoes, forming chains that advance along the table. The value of each domino, indicated by the number of dots on its identifying face, is known as its rank or rank, and its total pips may be called its weight. Each domino features a line or ridge in the center to visually divide it into two squares, called ends. A domino’s identifying marks may be either an arrangement of dots or, as with the most common variety (double-six), Arabic numerals. Unlike playing cards, dominoes have no suits, and each piece is identically patterned on both faces.
Domino is a very popular game, and a wide range of variations exist. Many games involve blocking other players from taking turns or scoring points, and a player is said to win the game if he or she amasses the highest number of dominoes after a set amount of rounds. A few games of a very different character, including solitaire and trick-taking, are played using dominoes. These adaptations of card games were once common in areas with religious proscriptions against the playing of cards.
Lily Hevesh fell in love with dominoes when she was 9 years old and received a classic 28-piece set from her grandparents. She soon began experimenting with creating straight or curved lines, flicking the first domino and watching it fall. Her work eventually caught the attention of the world and she started a YouTube channel dedicated to her creations. Today, Hevesh creates amazing domino setups for a living and has over 2 million YouTube subscribers. She explains that while she often starts with a theme or purpose in mind, the physical force of gravity is the most important factor for her designs to work.
Hevesh’s impressive setups take several nail-biting minutes to fully complete because of the force of gravity, which pulls each domino toward Earth and then crashes into the next domino. This energy then carries on to the next domino and so on.
In her YouTube videos, Hevesh explains that when she first starts working on a project, she does a lot of research and brainstorming to get ideas for what kind of designs she wants to make. Then she tests each section of the installation to ensure that it works properly. She also films her test runs in slow motion so she can adjust the setup if necessary.
Hevesh has worked on projects involving up to 300,000 dominoes and helped to break a Guinness World Record for the most dominoes in a circular configuration. But she says one of the most important things she has learned is to keep it simple and logical. She believes that a complex layout could be overwhelming and confusing for her viewers, while simple, well-planned arrangements are easier to understand and more engaging.