Building with Legos Is His Job
Master Lego Builder Gary McIntire chats with TFK Kid Reporter Cameron Young
By TFK Kid Reporter Cameron Young
Have you ever dreamed that you would make a career out of building with Legos? Gary McIntire is living that very dream. As the Master Lego Builder at Legoland in Carlsbad, California, McIntire oversees construction of the theme park's life-sized Lego models, and has built many of them himself. McIntire has been building with Legos since he was four years old, and now spends his time in a workshop, surrounded by millions of the plastic pieces. TFK Kid Reporter Cameron Young visited Legoland, and learned what it takes to build the most amazing Lego structures in the world.
TFK:
Did you like Legos as a child?
GARY MCINTIRE:
[Building] Legos is something that I always did. I got my first Lego set when I was about four years old. Whenever we would get a set, my dad and I would put it together. All of the neighborhood kids would always come to my house, and we'd have a big table covered with Legos. We'd build cities, castles, spaceships and stuff. It's definitely been a hobby of mine forever.
TFK:
How long does it take to build a Lego display, such as one that looks like a life-sized person?
MCINTIRE:
A life-sized person takes about a month to build.
TFK:
How do you come up with all of the Lego designs and sculptures?
MCINTIRE:
I'm usually given an assignment. When we put in Captain Cranky's Challenge, [which] is one of our rides, they wanted a model to go at the exit of that ride. So they said, "We want a model that people could sit down and take a picture with, and we want it to be a pirate." From there, I got to decide what exactly the pirate would look like and what he was going to be wearing and what position he was going to be in.
TFK:
What is the biggest Lego sculpture you have ever built? Roughly how many pieces did you use?
MCINTIRE:
The biggest thing that I have ever built, and I didn't do it by myself, was a seven-foot-tall Lego ball—a big, solid Lego ball. There were about 1 million pieces in there. That was a project that I did with the Myth Busters crew. The forklift couldn't pick it up because it was too heavy.
TFK:
How are computers used for helping to create 3D Lego models?
MCINTIRE:
We have a special program called "Lego-izer." [We] will put a 3D model in the computer, and we'll pixelate it down to Lego pieces, and it will give us instructions, layer by layer, on how to build it. Anything bigger than a person is definitely going to be done using a computer.
TFK:
What is the most complicated sculpture you ever built?
MCINTIRE:
I designed a flower arrangement. I had to design all the different flowers out of Legos, and that was tricky because they are really small and delicate. I really had to do a lot of research and become an expert on flower arranging. I first looked at a lot of different kinds of flower arrangements. Then I had to look up different types of flowers and decide what colors I wanted them to be. [After] sculpting them, I had to decide how to arrange them all. It turned out to be one of my favorite things that I ever built.
TFK:
What are you working on right now?
MCINTIRE:
This year, we are going to be opening a new water park, and so I will be installing all of the models in that area. There will be 25 to 35 new models.
TFK:
Is there anything that you'd like to build out of Legos that you haven't yet?
MCINTIRE:
That's a good question. A 1950s-style sci-fi rocket ship would be really cool.
I tried to build something with Lego blocks, but this thing won’t be easy. But still, some people can build big sculptures with many pieces of tiny blocks- sometimes smaller than you pinky finger! Many big sculptures need computers to complete-I don’t know this before, and I even didn’t know Lego has software to install! This man says, he built before many big sculptures, the biggest seven foot tall, and used 1000000 pieces of Lego! He needs to make 25~35 sculptures for this gallery. So after I read that, I know doing this needs a pair of steady hands!
