KZ: Hi Ryan! How long have you wanted to do an exhibition about LEGO Star Wars?
R: Forever, pretty much! When I was a kid, LEGO Star Wars didn't exist yet – LEGO didn't do any licensing at all. I had my plain LEGO bricks, and I used to make my own X-Wings and Y-Wings, and everything from Star Wars. Little did I know all these years later, we now have actual LEGO Star Wars sets. Since LEGO started doing Star Wars, I've thought, ‘Imagine if we did enormous Star Wars-y builds’. I'm very fortunate to be able to do this. LEGO Star Wars: The Exhibition took over 25,000 hours with the whole team and I working on this for years. For the world of Star Wars, it's really important that we're accurate, so that meant a lot of research, a lot of having to watch Star Wars movies and TV shows!
KZ: What can K-Zoners do when they attend the exhibition?
R: At our exhibitions, there aren’t just models to look at – there are cool things to do as well. You get to choose whether you're on the light side or the dark side of the Force, and build a ship. After, you take your LEGO ship and put it in a box to scan it – then your ship is projected on a screen where the light side and the dark side fly around and blow each other up. It's like you're looking out the window watching your LEGO creations fly through space, firing lasers. Another fun thing is building your own lightsaber, then standing in front of a green screen and seeing your lightsaber come to life. You choose which colour it is, and you can take a photo of the actual light up lightsaber that you built out of LEGO, and have a lightsaber fight with your brother or sister if you want to.
KZ: If you could be in Star Wars, which new character would you want to be?
R: Maybe like Watto, because I'd be building things, doing stuff with droids or weaponry, or maybe even like an Armourer in The Mandalorian. I'd want to be someone that's good with their hands – not so much a fighter, more of a builder.
KZ: If your new character had a LEGO Star Wars set, which item would need to be included?
R: I love bright sneakers, so as long as it has groovy shoes, I'm happy!
KZ: You have made so many LEGO builds, including a special K-Zone logo on display at K-Zone HQ! Have you ever found your work somewhere that you weren't expecting?
R: Funny you say that! In 2010 or 2011, we had LEGO models at the aquarium in Sydney for summer school holidays – a big Neptune, and lots of fish, sharks, and animals. About four or five years later, I was on holiday at LEGOLand in Florida of all places, and the big LEGO Neptune was there. Most of my LEGO models, I put a hidden signature. K-Zoners have good eyeballs for this, so if you go into a LEGO Store and see a Brickman model, it'll have my signature on a little hidden plate. Sure enough, my signature was still there on Neptune.
FORCE LIGHTNING ROUND
EARLIEST LEGO STAR WARS EXHIBITION BUILD IDEA?
R: An X-Wing was sort of the first idea I had. I think the first brick we laid was for the life-size Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber.
BIGGEST BUILD?
R: A quarter-scale AT-AT, which is five metres high. We couldn't do life-size for that because it's bigger than most skyscrapers!
MOST UNIQUE BUILD?
R: Over the years, I’ve made C-3PO a few times but the bricks have been yellow. We got special permission from The LEGO Company to get bricks made to match C-3PO, called ‘Pearl Gold’. Every brick I added as I was building him, I was having a moment thinking, ‘This is exciting,’ and I did that like 20,000 times!
FAVE DROID BUILD?
R: C-3PO has a special place in my heart. There are a couple of others in the exhibition – we have BB-8, K2-SO, IG-88, and more obscure droids (like a big Imperial Probe Droid). We have a remote-controlled mouse droid that drives around, and a Gonk Droid – there are lots of droids!
FAVE BUILD FROM A RECENT STAR WARS PROJECT?
R: We have a lot of models that have never been made before. We made Ahsoka, who is life-size. She's never been done before so there were challenges, if you think of the amazing artistry of her face. The one I think most people are going to love is Grogu, who is juggling frogs (as Grogu does)!
Watch Brickman share details about the BIGGEST builds in LEGO Star Wars: The Exhibition!
Watch Brickman spill some LEGO Star Wars: The Exhibition secrets related to The Mandalorian!
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