Will and Crosby are teaming up with Andy Richter in LEGO Masters Jr. In this interview with the talented young builders, find out about their favourite types of LEGO builds and how they experiences stepping onto the famous set.
LEGO Masters Jr. is finally giving children in the US a chance to compete for the ultimate brick bragging rights – plus a sweet trophy with a sizable cash prize alongside. Five teams of young builders are putting amazing creations together based on brief they get from Brickmasters and LEGO design professionals Amy Corbett and Boone Langston.
Will and Crosby are teamed up with Andy Richter. The pair are neighbours and stated collaborating before they signed up to LEGO Masters Jr. together, so definitely know their way around the bricks. Will is even a member of the Blocks team, crafting impressive Quick Builds with instructions every month for the magazine.
Blocks sat down with the pair to find out about their LEGO Masters Jr. experience…
Blocks: For each of you, what was your first LEGO set?
Will: My first LEGO set was actually [6074] Black Falcon’s Fortress that Blocks magazine’s Daniel Konstanski gave me – he is actually my dad’s cousin. That started me on my whole LEGO experience and journey.
Crosby: Yeah, mine wasn’t that special. I think it was a Spider-Man LEGO Juniors set or something like that.
Blocks: To be fair, there are not many people your age who start with a 1980s LEGO Castle! Spider Man is more what you expect to get.
Do you guys have a particular favorite LEGO theme?
Will: I really have always liked castles, just since I built that first one. But I like to jump around all sorts of LEGO themes. Any LEGO is LEGO – and it’s fun to build with.
Crosby: I really like building cars and Technic stuff, but I’m not great at Technic without directions.
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Blocks: We have seen you both on LEGO Masters, building super creatively. You don’t need instructions and things like that, unless you’re building Technic, of course. When did you both discover that side of LEGO building? When did you break out of the instructions and start doing your own thing?
Will: I started when I was about 10 years old and I did my first LEGO show. Philadelphia Brick Fest was when Daniel Konstanski invited me to help him with his Hogwarts build. And I think that’s the first time I really did some sort of creative building. After that, it just took off.
Crosby: Mine mostly started three years ago when I moved right next door to Will and found out that he was really into it. That’s when I started moving from LEGO sets to building my own stuff.
Blocks: What were you building when you first started building your own things?
Crosby: I started building forests and stuff like that, Will built la castle part of it and I built the forest coming off of it.
Will: That was actually our first build that we did together.
Blocks: Do you have an all-time favorite build that each of you is super proud of?
Will: I think it’s that [castle] one. Because we started on it a long time ago and we’ve made many advancements to it. We actually added running water to it eventually. I think that’s one of the ones we’re most proud of.
Blocks: Have you taken that to some LEGO events and conventions?
Will: It has been all over the US.
Blocks: What’s the best thing about going to a LEGO show and having your builds on display like that?
Will: I think for me, it’s the fact that you get to learn new techniques and see other people’s builds, you get to meet new people that are involved in the LEGO community.
Crosby: Yeah, it’s definitely cool to look around and look at other people’s [builds] and say, ‘oh, I never realised you could do that and use LEGO bricks like that.’
Blocks: How did you guys decide to team up on LEGO Masters?
Will: My mom found an application on Facebook for LEGO Masters. We filled out the application. We were actually really close to the deadline of the application, but we got it in on time. That stuff led to more stuff and eventually they kind of asked me to grab a partner. I was like, ‘oh, I know just who.’ He lives right next door and we can do all this stuff very easily. I roped Cosby into all of this.
Blocks: What builds are you working on at the moment? What’s the next LEGO project?
Will: We actually have a video game that we play called Clash Royale and we’re making a MOC based on that.
Blocks: Which of you adds movement to builds?
Will: I think we both do that. On the show we both kind of worked with the mechanics of things. [Cosby] was the one that would use the Spike Prime and program everything.
Crosby: We were definitely both new into more of the motion stuff when we first got on the show, we didn’t do a bunch of that beforehand.
Will: I do think that the whole experience really helped us work more with LEGO motion and we learned a lot from it.
Blocks: What was it like when you stepped onto the set of LEGO Masters for the first time?
Will: It was so amazing to see what we saw on TV, in person, and it was just crazy. They had so many LEGO bricks and elements that were in our arsenal to build whatever we wanted.
Crosby: It was crazy, because I watched the show for a couple of years before that and I never imagined myself actually being on it.
Blocks: What was it like to meet [Brickmasters] Amy and Boone?
Will: They were super nice, they were always encouraging and I really think the feedback that they provided us helped us get through the challenges that we were in.
Blocks: How about your teammate, Andy Richter, what was it like being like teamed up with him for the for the contest?
Crosby: Andy was amazing. He was super duper funny and nice, he was pretty good at building also.
Will: In that first episode, once we got him into it, he really took off.
Blocks: Did you give him some tips and pointers to get him up to speed?
Crosby: He basically did whatever we told him to.
Blocks: What more can you ask for from a teammate?
What was the thing that surprised you most about being on this show and having this experience?
Will: The thing that surprised me the most was definitely that I wasn’t really used to working with a time limit. In that first episode it was really like trying to get used to the time limit aspect of the whole thing, working under a time crunch, time management was definitely a key detail. I also think that just learning where things are in the brick pit was also a major challenge in the first episode.
Blocks: Such good points. Because when you’re building at home, there’s literally no time pressure for when something is finished. You can order a part and wait for it to turn up. And you know how all of your own bricks are sorted.
Will: I mean, on the bright side, you have basically anything you would ever want.
Blocks: And does it feel like that when you’re in there? Are you literally, like, ‘I’ve got any LEGO element I could need here’?
Will: You basically have everything that isn’t a extremely recent part and you’ve got as much of it as you need.
Blocks: The first episode of LEGO Masters was Disney themed. What was that first challenge?
Will: We walked in, Kelly Osbourne was standing up there, we saw the Brickmasters, and they talked to us about our first challenge. There was a table was filled with many different Disney minifigures and we had to build a train layout based on the Disney minifigures we chose.
Blocks: Which minifigures did you go for?
Will: We chose Mickey and Minnie, so we had to build Toontown.
Blocks: So you have got to think about that kind of animated style and everything?
Will: And especially using as many colors as we could, to really bring the animated style to life.
Blocks: And how was that for you guys? Was it something you straight away got into or did you have to kind of think about how to tackle it?
Crosby: I mean, it definitely took a little bit to get used to, I’ve never been to Toontown before, and I’m not hugely into Disney. It took a little bit to kind of get what the judges were looking for. But after we figured it out, then it worked out.
Will: I think for me, it was the same way I struggled with laying it out in my head at first, but I think after we really got in the flow of things, we just kept going. And I think it turned out pretty well.
Blocks: That covers all the questions about your experience. Is there anything else that you want to share about it?
Will: Standing up in front of the Brickmasters was one of the most nerve wracking parts. Waiting to find out what place we got and how we did was a whole new experience. I definitely enjoyed the part where they gave us feedback on our builds and told us what we could do better for the next challenges.
LEGO Masters Jr. airs every Monday on Fox, then is available from Tuesday on Hulu.
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