By Cara Waters
In a nondescript warehouse in an industrial estate at Tullamarine, a team of 38 people are hard at work building Lego models.
A letterbox made entirely from red Lego bricks is the only giveaway from the exterior that this is the headquarters of Ryan McNaught, known as “Brickman”.
Ryan McNaught in his Tullamarine warehouse where boxes of carefully sorted Lego line every wall Credit: Simon Schluter.
The Age is going behind the scenes at the workshop behind the Lego Masters television show and the Lego Star Wars exhibition, which opened this month at the Melbourne Museum showcasing the largest collection of life-sized Lego Star Wars models ever assembled.
The secret to these spectacular models, the biggest of which is four metres high, is that most of them are held together using steel frames and glue.
“They are full public contact models, so basically people can go up and get a selfie with it,” McNaught says. “They have to be incredibly robust, safety is obviously our No.1 priority.”
Inside the warehouse, the walls are lined with clear plastic boxes filled with different types of Lego carefully categorised by colour and shape.
Drawers at one end of the room hold hundreds of mini figure heads sorted into sections for each different permutation – those with beards, those with moustaches, those with glasses – another drawer has mini figure bodies, and another mini figure legs.
In one corner, the design and engineering team create 3D models and concepts on computers before a brick is picked up. In another, the inventory team is in charge of ensuring the millions of Lego bricks needed are on hand.
Sitting at tables around the warehouse or standing around models are the Lego builders painstakingly placing bricks, after consulting computer models that show the “rough shape” of where the bricks go.
One group of six are working side by side on a giant model of a beanie, which they are creating for a motor neurone disease charity event. Another Lego builder is working on a model of a dinosaur destined for a Lego store in New Delhi in India.
Hamish Blake and Ryan McNaught host Lego Masters.Credit: Nine Entertainment
No photographs are allowed that include any of the Lego builds under construction because of strict confidentiality agreements.
Overhead cameras film each Lego build on time-lapse, with the footage to be released once the build is finished, and small exhaust pipes hang from each work station to extract the fumes from all the glue.
While building Lego might be literally child’s play, McNaught and his team take it very seriously.
Life-sized Star Wars figures made of Lego at Melbourne Museum.
“Everybody knows how to put two Lego bricks together, that’s an easy thing to do,” he says. “We teach a certain method and style of Lego building.”
McNaught says Lego is not designed to be made into giant structures, so there is a lot of skill and technique in the “artistry of Lego” which needs to be taught.
He uses a method called “north, south, east, west”, which means that you alternate direction when building layers of bricks, which helps with strength and stability.
“There’s also a technique we use called SNOT, which stands for studs not on top. We turn bricks in different directions, which give us shearing strength,” he says. “There’s a whole heap of things like that. On average, it takes a person about two years before they’re proficient in those techniques. Call it an apprenticeship, if you will.”
The Lego builders work at adjustable tables to protect their backs, and McNaught says the main occupational hazard is calluses from the hard plastic blocks.
“We have really good calluses on our fingers,” he says. “If you look at anyone who’s a builder, you can see exactly whether they’re left-handed or right-handed or both-handed, because of the calluses.”
McNaught is one of only 21 certified Lego professionals in the world, which gives him permission to use the Lego brand and to contract to Lego.
But this title does not give McNaught any discount on the crates of Lego he purchases.
“We wish,” he laughs. “We pay a fortune for Lego. We’re the No.2 or 3 consumer of Lego in the world.”
McNaught estimates he has 30 million Lego bricks in his warehouse, with the Star Wars Lego exhibition alone using more than 8 million bricks and taking McNaught and his team more than 25,000 hours to build.
The exhibition opened on Star Wars Day, May 4, and runs until the end of January; 35,627 tickets have already been sold.
Tim Rolfe, director of exhibitions and experiences at Museums Victoria, said the exhibition was on track to be a bestseller.
“In all likelihood, Lego Star Wars will be one of the three or four most popular blockbuster exhibitions ever to be presented at Melbourne Museum,” he says.
Lego Masters airs on Nine. Nine is the publisher of this masthead.
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