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When you hear the term “dream job”, what comes to mind? Movie star? Chocolate taster? Astronaut? Well, for kids big and small, Ryan “The Brickman” McNaught has a fantasy career that’s hard to top: judge of TV show LEGO Masters and certified LEGO professional.
In his latest project, McNaught has channelled all his skill and passion into creating a “galaxy first” LEGO Star Wars exhibition at Melbourne Museum. This cinematic-scale exhibition – which took more than 25,000 hours to complete, using more than 8 million LEGO bricks – offers visitors the chance to see some iconic Star Wars characters, spaceships and landscapes re-created in LEGO, as well take part in hands-on LEGO activities, such as building LEGO starfighters and custom lightsabers.
The exhibition opens on 4 May. From kids to the young at heart, it’s a rare chance to get up close with the galaxy far, far away.
Star Wars favourites, brought to life
Visitors will find classic characters created by the LEGO master, including favourites such as C-3PO, Princess Leia and Darth Vader. Anyone who’s ever tried to construct a small-scale LEGO Star Wars set will know what a challenge it can be, so it’s easy to imagine the skill needed to build detailed versions of full-sized characters and spacecraft – some of which are as big as four metres high.
McNaught finds joy in that challenge, and has plenty of favourites pieces he’s excited to show off.
“Over the years I’ve always loved a ‘cutaway’ model where you can see the inside of something awesome, like the Death Star or a Star Destroyer, so they are super cool, but, unquestionably, my favourite [pieces] are the characters,” he says.
“Making a face in LEGO is easy, but making a face that looks like someone is hard – so hard that there aren’t many people that can do it at all, so that makes them awesome.”
As well as Star Wars characters in LEGO form, the exhibition offers an interactive, hands-on experience, with visitors getting the chance to build some LEGO sculptures of their own. There will be interactive elements and engaging experiences for fans of all ages.
“I think [I’m most excited by] the interactive components of the exhibition where our models hopefully inspire people to make their own stuff,” McNaught says. “For example, making your own Star Wars fighter, then having it scanned and watching it fly around in combat out the window of a Star Destroyer.”
Collaborative effort
The scene inside LEGO Star Wars: The Exhibition resembles a Star Wars film set, populated by life-sized droids, full-scale lightsabers and realistic starships. For McNaught and his team, building the LEGO Star Wars exhibition was a painstaking labour of love. It took, he says, a long, collaborative effort to get the exhibition off the ground.
“It’s far from only me; we have a dedicated team of 38 people who make it happen,” McNaught says. “It’s nearly 25,000 hours of designing, engineering and building – there’s so much work that’s gone into it. I’ve personally been working on this project pretty much nonstop – apart from filming LEGO Masters – for three years.”
Getting this project off the ground was no easy task. McNaught and the team needed a lead time of six months just to source the rare and unusual LEGO bricks required for these one-off builds. Even then, the skill needed was “way over the next level”, McNaught says.
“The thing with this exhibition is it is about firsts,” he says. “There’s a reason the majority of the models we have made have never been done before. It’s because they are so hard, technically, and these models are pushing the limits of what LEGO can do. I mean, imagine making the first ever life-sized Princess Leia and not doing it justice?”
Despite the thousands of hours and millions of bricks taken to bring the exhibition to life, McNaught feels as if he hasn’t even scratched the surface of the Star Wars universe.
“The museum is only so big,” he says. “The Star Wars galaxy is so content-filled I could make another two of this exhibition with all new things. Imagine Boba Fett’s [starship] Slave I, or a giant sandcrawler as examples.”
It’s fair to say that “The Brickman” loves his job. He get a lot of joy out of all that planning and building with LEGO, and is excited by the impact that exhibitions such as this can have on visitors. “I get to bring happiness to people, so that’s pretty awesome,” McNaught says. “Hopefully I’m inspiring a Sally or Johnny to take over from me one day.”
After seeing the exhibition, visitors can continue their adventure by exploring the main Melbourne Museum galleries, with general admission included in all tickets.
Embark on a journey through the galaxy’s first LEGO Star Wars exhibition.
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