We’re sure you played with LEGOs as a kid. Like all of us here, you probably built houses and cars, broke the wheels,lost the LEGO wigs and all the single stud pieces, and tried to find all the clear bricks to make windows until you realized half of them were thrown out after your sister spilled oatmeal on them. You may even have a scar of a LEGO brick permanently seared onto the sole of your foot. (They make slippers to prevent that now.) You are probably not, however, a professional LEGO builder… meaning you do not have the coolest job in the world. Certified LEGO Master Builders like Robbie McCarthy and Bill Gowdy, however, do. Wired recently took a tour of the LEGOLAND Model Shop in Carlsbad, California to check out what goes on behind-the-scenes and shot a little video to share.
In this video, we hear from McCarthy and Gowdy about how they build their incredible brick creations. The shop itself is a little kid’s dream. There are rows and rows of shelves and bins full of bricks. Over three million of them, in fact. They even have rare colors like plated gold. (Fun fact: A new skin color is being used for LEGO Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures to give the characters a more multicultural appearance. The color is nougat and it’s one of the official LEGO shades.) There are more than 70 colors in all at the model shop, according to McCarthy.
He even gives us a glimpse of the LEGOLAND proprietary computer modeling software, explaining that it’s like a CAD program that one would find in an architecture firm or art studio, but is based around LEGO brick builds. You put in a design and it allows you to see the sculpture in slices, one for each layer of bricks. We get a look at one from the LEGO Ninjago world; a guardian dragon. The piece has approximately 77,280 individual bricks and would take a single person nearly a month to build. McCarthy does mention that any kid at home could absolutely make this LEGO Ninjago guardian dragon himself. Sure, if his or her mom wants to sell a kidney and purchase 77,280 LEGO bricks.
Gowdy explained that Robbie is the building expert, but that he’s the master of SNOT. Stop giggling. That stands for Studs Not On Top. He’s the one that puts together things that have the studs facing out, like the mosaic on the subway station he has going. Check out the video and let us know what you think. Tweet me/us @JennaBusch/@Nerdist and tell us the coolest thing you’ve ever made with LEGOs. Or tell us the story about how you stepped on a LEGO and howled like a banshee while setting off a Rube Goldberg-like chain of events that involved tumbling forward into a pot of spaghetti which then fell on the cat who ran under the table, caught the tablecloth, knocking a pot of coffee onto your head. I mean, that would never happen… to anyone but me.
Featured Image: Wired
