Ryan McNaught has a new book out: Brickman's Big Book of Better Builds. Photo/Supplied
The more Ryan McNaught talks, the further the brothers’ faces drop.
“Do me a favour,” McNaught asks them. “Step back three metres. Now get three metres up in the air, and that’s the angle you’re going to be looking at it. The problem is all this cool detail is awesome [but] it’s pointing down. All we’re going to see is the back of its neck.”
It’s the first episode in the fourth series of Lego Masters Australia, and Ryan ‘Brickman’ McNaught has just broken Joss and Henry’s hearts. They’ve so far spent seven or eight hours building a spectacular Lego sea monster and Brickman has revealed a problem. That is, after all, his job. McNaught is judge, jury and excellent advice-giver on the show, which has quietly become a massive hit.
Lego Masters is child’s play as high drama, a plasticky MasterChef, or Bake Off where you daren’t step on the ingredients. It’s also an immense amount of fun, and the show’s wholesome, slightly knowing corn is part of its joy. Brickman, as he is always referred to on the programme – never Ryan – is the straight man to comedian/co-presenter Hamish Blake, who brings puppy dog charm and look-to-camera irony, while McNaught is woven of pure enthusiasm.
McNaught got the gig because he is one of just 22 Lego-certified professionals in the world and the only one in the Southern Hemisphere. People who know about these things will tell you he’s very, very good with the blocks.
“I’m pretty okay at Lego; I don’t know about good,” says McNaught, on the line from Australia. “I’m always astounded by what other people can come up with, particularly children when they explain what they’ve made; there’s no way I would have thought of that.”
Watching Brickman at work, though, it is clear he sees the world differently than most, even those who are adept at Lego. Monster-maker Joss works in a Lego store and at 23 is already a builder of repute, but he doesn’t notice things that are apparent to Brickman.
“Making models for a TV show is very different to making models at home where you’re the only person you need to satisfy,” McNaught says. “So, my role on the show nine times out of 10 is just to challenge people to think differently.”
Lego has always been a big deal among kids, but the age bracket is skewing older and older. The evidence is in successful shows like Lego Masters, and the latest toy sets.
“Even the Lego company has recognised that adults are a big part of it,” agrees McNaught. “If you look at the types of products they release and the brands they work with, it’s very much a mainstream thing now.”
Not long ago, it wasn’t so mainstream, as McNaught once found out when entering New Zealand.
“A few years ago, before the TV show, I landed at Auckland Airport and on the arrival form you have to put what you do for a living. I put Lego-certified professional. The customs officer said, ‘Come on mate, you know it’s a crime to lie on this form, right?’”
McNaught avoided jail time, but he wouldn’t even be questioned now. Of course, that may be down to his personal fame – against the odds, he’s become a cult hero. Not that he’ll admit it.
“There’s a distinction between what I do and who I am. Just because I’m very lucky and what I do is super-cool, it doesn’t make me the hero.”
Maybe not a hero, then, but someone with enough celebrity to have written a couple of books, including the new Brickman’s Big Book of Better Builds.
“I get asked a lot, ‘How do I get on Lego Masters, how do I get good at it?’” explains McNaught. “There’s no easy answer, so I’m trying to address those questions. The shortest way I could do it was to write a book.”
It took him 300 pages, and the advice is simultaneously very technical and very simple, like an engineering manual written in crayon. There’s method in the madness, to be sure, but you sense that the method is also where McNaught finds a lot of the joy. We’re more than 170 pages into the book before McNaught writes, “This is the fun bit.” Shouldn’t it all be fun?
“Fun’s a relative term, I guess,” he says. “For someone who does it on a commercial scale, often there are aspects of the project that are still fun, but they are a job.”
Some of McNaught’s jobs are immense. His exhibition, simply called Awesome, used more than two million bricks and took close to 5000 hours to complete. Unsurprisingly, he doesn’t do these things alone. He has a team of 31, comprising project managers, engineers, 3D and graphic designers, builders and more.
“They all have very different skills. Some people are unbelievable with animals, some with vehicles, some people build emotions into their things. With that diversity comes the range and capability of what we can deliver.”
What does McNaught bring to the studio? Is he the team’s Raphael, the master artist adding the final flourish and putting his signature at the bottom? McNaught says every project’s different, but he likes to include his own design touches.
“I have a certain flavour and style I like to put in, that I’ll communicate to the artist or people who work on the models and the team kind of runs with that. [It’s] often a sense of humour or irreverence.”
Back on Lego Masters Australia, brothers Joss and Henry have included a humorous element, but they know it’s not enough to connect with Brickman, and they discuss ways they might improve their monster. The only option, they realise, is to perform radical surgery.
“It’s a lot more difficult than you might think,” says older brother Joss.
Henry: “I know how difficult it is.”
“To change the framework, we’d have to take apart the whole build. I’m very, very not happy about doing that,” Joss sighs, removing the first block. He knows Brickman is right.
Brickman’s tips for beginning builders
1. Build what you love
“If you want to get into Lego, start with whatever you’re passionate about because you’re probably an expert in the subject matter and you already love what you’re making. If you love boats, build boats; if you love trees, make trees.”
2. Design and plan
“Planning can be the difference between success and failure,” Brickman writes. “It’s like eating your vegetables before you have dessert. Get the serious bit out of the way so you can enjoy the fun stuff.”
3. Get creative
“If you watch children playing with Lego, they may build a car, it’ll have four wheels, so you have the structure of making a car. But then what if it had laser beams? Lego allows the freedom and creativity to do that.”
4. Tell a story
“Telling a good story and being able to recognise it makes for an infinitely better Lego model because it makes it more relatable. It’s no different to writing; you need to hook someone in and take them on that journey with you.”
Brickman’s Big Book of Better Builds (Allen and Unwin, $45)
New York Times: Are privacy screens ruining the joy of reading over a stranger's shoulder?