FIND MORE PRODUCTS LIKE THISArchitectureCelebrate Sydney with this LEGO® Architecture Skyline model!Sydney Opera House™37 ReviewsFIND MORE PRODUCTS LIKE THISBuildingsCreatorRecreate one of the most iconic buildings in the world!It all started with a trip to a Lego store in the United States. Ryan "The Brick Man" McNaught was expecting twins and bought blocks for his future children.When McNaught returned to Australia, before his children were born, he whipped out the blocks and began to build. That was eight years ago. Now, McNaught is one of 14 Lego "certified" professionals in the world. He is a real life master builder, travelling the world making the biggest and best Lego models - and hoping they don't get smashed.How can you improve your relationship with Lego beyond painfully stepping on an unassuming brick?Start with The Brick Man's 10 best Lego pieces. Lego brick 2 x 4 Most are familiar with Lego's traditional brick."It's the brick I use the most and is by far my favourite, it's very versatile," McNaught said."
It is relatively large, we use it a lot with the big sculptures to get to the size relatively quickly." Lego brick 1 x 2. This element will allow you to add fine details to your Lego masterpiece. "At the risk of sounding nerdy, you have knobs going in an x and y axis," McNaught said. "What a jumper plate allows us to do is change that axis in half studs, so you can work in between two studs with a jumper plate." This piece is also referred to as the Washing Machine Brick or the Headlight Brick. "It is really powerful," McNaught said. "It allows you to do crazy geometry." "It has a stud on the side and makes bricks go in different directions." "It's an amazingly common piece and has the most amount of colours. It allows you to make a nice soft slope for objects like roofs and cars," McNaught said. Unsurprisingly, it's called a "cheese slope" because it looks like a wedge of cheddar cheese. McNaught said this piece is the "spatula of Lego".
"In the Lego mathematical system, three plates equals a brick in height," McNaught said. "So what you can do is if you don't want to go as high, you can use a plate." "It is handy, great for filling in gaps." McNaught said the piece could be used for the inside of an arch. "Holes inside the brick allows you to join bricks to pins and axles and are really important in a Lego system," McNaught said. "Use them all the time." Lego 1x1 round brick "Like a Lego brick but round instead of square, if you need to use pillars, (something) cylindrical," McNaught said. "What they allow me to do in my world is to bring models to life," McNaught said. "I can show emotion, I can show people having fun. For children it's roll-play ... it brings things to life." What is a Lego Certified Professional? It is a community-based program created by adult Lego hobbyists. Though they are not employees, they are officially recognised by the Lego Group as business partners.
A Lego Certified Professional is selected based on proficiency, enthusiasm and professional approach towards the building community. Painstaking creations destroyed in seconds It hasn't always been smooth building for the Lego legend. In 2013, McNaught's $25,000 replica of Elvis (a helicopter) was destroyed by youths in a shopping centre in Cairns, Qld. Reports say vandals broke into the centre and ruined his 100,000 piece creation. McNaught said he can now laugh about the incident. "Channel 7 and 9 were at the centre because they had heard there was a helicopter crash." This year a child destroyed a Lego sculpture worth $20,000 in China. What's next for the master? McNaught said his next project is "top secret Lego business" but it's going to be "something really spectacular". Bring Your Career To Life THE LEGO Group is one of the largest manufacturers and retailers of play material in the World. We are looking for smart and talented people that embrace our innovative spirit and enhance our fun and collaborative culture.
At the LEGO Group, you will have the opportunity to share your ideas and develop your career as you help enrich the lives of children around the globe. Learn About the LEGO Group Do you love to experiment with new and emerging technologies and solve complex concept problems? Then help us build the future of LEGO® experiences where we integrate communication, campaign and product and reach our consumers in new ways. Senior Finance Manager UK & Ireland Are you an experienced commercial finance professional with strong business acumen? Do you thrive in a partnering role where you are able to influence and have an impact on decision making through using both your analytical and interpersonal skills? Szeretne részt venni a világ egyik legnagyobb játékgyárának munkájában? Dolgozna olyan vállalatnál, amelynek termékei gyerekek és felnőttek millióinak szereznek örömet világszerte? Assistant Store Manager - Eastview Mall (NY) LEGO Brand Retail Mission
Marketing Specialist, Promotions & Product Content Are you an expert marketer? Do you thrive in developing innovative, engaging and creative experiences and marketing plans across all shopper touchpoints? Are you ready to help play a part in achieving our ambition of reaching 300 million children by 2032? View all open positions here"We're hearing more and more about it, especially from America," said Michael Peebles. "Australia has perhaps been a bit behind in this, but in America it's a big thing, a really, really big thing." Peebles, 42, of Bendigo, was talking about people breaking into toy stores and stealing Lego sets. And he would know, at least insofar as the world's favourite building block is a huge part of his life.Peebles is a proud AFOL, and the founder of his own LUG, in this case known as BALD (Bendigo Area Lego Designers).All of which demands some explanation. AFOL is the in-group acronym used to describe grown-ups who like to build brick models. It stands for "adult fan of Lego".
A LUG is a Lego User Group, of which there are hundreds around the world; BLUG is the Bendigo version thereof. (He's also a member of the Melbourne one, dubbed MUGs.)LUG members, it must be said, seem to be scrupulously honest folk, who come by their bricks in traditional ways: buying sets from stores, and sought-after individual pieces from a couple of specialist online traders and community-run Facebook buy-swap-and-sell sites. Beyond the world of these worthies, however, exists a vast and sprawling black market, with back-of-a-truck dodgy dealings fuelled by a desire to get expensive sets at bargain prices, and supplied by smash and grab operators who aren't exactly subtle.In June 2014, a gang of thieves broke into a Seymour toy shop twice in a week, stealing $15,000 of Lego. They removed – neatly, both times – the glass from the sliding front door in order to do so.Another toy store in Macksville in northern NSW suffered the loss of about $10,000 of Lego in a raid that involved the thieves traversing neighbouring gardens then cutting through the shop door with an angle-grinder.
In 2015, several grand's worth of Lego sets were stolen from a shop in Brunswick East by a man dressed as a ninja. Also in 2015 a giant Lego banana and Lego blue tongue lizard were stolen from an outdoor art show in Townsville. The items were later recovered by police, one of whom admitted to being a "keen Lego fan".The most recent, and arguably most histrionic, Lego theft happened in Coburg North in mid-December. Having staked out a toy store for hours, a couple in a Citroen van reversed at speed through the shop's gates, smashed the window, grabbed a metre-high statue from Lego's ninja-themed Ninjago range and drove away, rear doors flapping as the vehicle accelerated.It was a heist that left the AFOL community as baffled as the police"It's totally worthless, in the sense that once bricks are glued together it's virtually impossible to clean them back up," said Peebles."If you look at what its value was as a model, fantastic, bit it's only worth something as that model – so therefore the market for them to get any gain out of it is really limited.
It is a strange theft."This is, it should be noted, a particularly Lego-centric interpretation. Lego model builders love the colourful little bricks primarily for their potential to become part of something larger. When those bricks are glued together – "kragled", in the jargon – that potential is destroyed and their value greatly diminished."I can assure you that the Lego community is on the look-out for the statue," said Annaleise O'Keefe, 26, of Coburg North. "It will eventually resurface, because there's not much you can do with a ninja statue."O'Keefe is an active member of MUGs and also one of the organisers of Melbourne's annual Brickvention, the biggest Lego fan event in Australia, being held this year on January 14 and 15. (Sydney's equivalent, The Brick Show, takes place in April.)"Perhaps even now it's on its way to a mysterious collector in Zurich," she said. "Perhaps it will come to light in about 60 years after he dies and police raid his giant mansion."O'Keefe was being only slightly tongue in cheek.
Surely, the international theft-to-order scenario is considerably less bleak than assuming two light-fingered parents nicked it as a Christmas present, the recipient now being told that he (or she) must never ever show it to a friend or mention it in the schoolyard."It was probably someone who loves Ninjago and wants it in their living room, said Lego jewellery-maker Rolanda Markovski, 48, of Mill Park."I've never heard of any black market stuff going on. I think Australians are a bit too open and honest to do that."That certainly seems to be the case within the tight-knit AFOL community, which operates according to its own strict moral code.The prime prohibition, however, isn't against theft so much as penny-pinching. Building with any brand of cheap Lego-lookalike bricks is LUG anathema. Anybody found using them at Brickvention, Markovski said, would be "banned and walked out".But there is another, more prosaic barrier to black market trade among dedicated Lego enthusiasts: it's all a bit pointless.
People with skill and a big enough collection of bricks can build pretty much any in-store Lego set without actually having to buy it. It's a practice known as "re-piecing".However, there are a couple of very special, very rare Lego sets where this is impossible. That's when prices start to climb alarmingly – and, perhaps, the temptation to cut them by fair means or foul arises."There is one particular set that is probably the single most expensive set that's available on the market, which is an Ultimate Collectors' Set Millennium Falcon," Peebles said."That was released around nine years ago. To get one new in the box is over $7000. You can't re-piece it because there are two components in it that were only released in that set. Either of those components would sell for $300 or $400 for just one piece of Lego."That sort of thing would certainly have a market in the AFOL community, but a model like the Ninja wouldn't. If someone was to offer me the big Lego MCG that's currently in at Myer [in central Melbourne], I'd probably turn it down.