In this week’s “Inside LEGO Masters” article, Maria shares her experience building a wearable LEGO hat, learning how to develop a concept, and figuring out a twist. Each week we will bring you insight from the builders themselves as they share what it was like building under pressure, handling the challenges, and any behind-the-scenes secrets they discovered along the way.

This is your official spoiler warning for Episode 4 of LEGO Masters US Season 2.

The Brief

LEGO bricks are made from a hard plastic with sharp edges and rigid connections. Not exactly the first material that comes to mind when you think “fashion.” But as soon as we walked through the LEGO Masters doors and saw Will Arnett modeling for a photographer, we knew what was coming—LEGO wearables. Philip and I are not fashionistas, but we were excited about building a hat out of LEGO bricks. The judges laid out the rules for us: we must build a hat that was two feet tall and 100 studs wide. This must be a hat—high fashion—not just a MOC on top of our heads. We could support the hat walking down the runway, but we must balance it on our heads unsupported for five seconds.

When the clock started, each team raced to the gallery to select a garment bag from the clothing rack. We opened up our bag and saw two yellow outfits that we would later have to wear. Yellow is not a color that either of us wear and it’s not a shade we usually work with. But with only 12 hours to complete our build, we knew we needed to start getting out some ideas.

Concept Development

One of our favorite ways to develop a build idea is to do what we call a brain dump. For this build, we wrote YELLOW in the middle of the page and started writing down anything that came to mind. The first rule of the brain dump is that there are no bad ideas. We literally write down everything that comes to mind. For yellow we thought of flowers, birds, sun, lemons, yellow brick road, pencils, stars, fruit, and school bus.

After we finished our list, we knew immediately we wanted to incorporate the sun and stars into our hat. Since we would both be wearing yellow for the fashion show, we decided we should keep it the focal point, but it wouldn’t be the main color.

I began sketching out ideas on our tablet. We started with a yellow sun, then I drew some puffy clouds around it—white would tone down the yellow. But clouds and sun are not a hat or fashion. The clouds holding up the sun resembled wings and that made us think—headdress. Our hat would be a celestial headdress inspired by a warrior princess. We would top it off with a blue sky and twinkling stars.

Building Phase

After filling our trays from the brick pit, we got to the work of building. We had decided early on that I would be wearing the hat. In retrospect, we are both so glad we made this decision because I don’t think I could have gotten the huge and heavy LEGO built hat onto Philip’s head (plus he is so tall!). Since I would be the model, we built the hat to fit my head perfectly. We did this using primarily 1x and 2x bricks and reinforcing them with plates.

Philip decided to start the cloud wings. We really wanted to be creative with our parts usage and Philip went for rollercoaster tracks to get a light and organic shape. This is a great example of being flexible with your implementation. In a timed competition, starting over means losing precious time, and there are few minutes to spare. But we realized that the tracks didn’t create a sturdy enough connection and we couldn’t risk our hat falling apart. Philip pivoted and went with a brick-built shell to create the cloud wings and sun.

The hat began to take shape—we had lovely cloud-shaped wings, a classic sun silhouette, and a helmet that blended seamlessly into the clouds. Our celestial headdress needed more height, so I started working on a blue sky to go above the sun. In order to make our sky really pop, we knew we needed lights. The sun would be rising on wings to chase away the sleepy, starry sky—the lit stars were the key to making our hat stand out.

Time Management

Another important tip about LEGO Masters is to use every single minute on the clock. Philip is a technology manager for his day job, so we used this to our advantage. We would plan out various steps of our project so that we would have time left at the end. This is so important! With our hat build, we left plenty of time to add embellishments. These were key to making our hat sparkle and shine—making it beautiful and memorable. Some details we added were transparent wings on the clouds, transparent flames on the sun, and ombre sunrise accents to the top of clouds and the blue sky.

Halfway through the challenge, we received a surprise new directive—we had to create a coordinating, wearable accessory. We decided to make a necklace to go with our headdress. We used yellow car hoods for the rays of the sun. We saw that similar pieces also came in white (like the clouds!) and blue (like the sky!) and I immediately knew how to make our necklace.

We pieced together the hoods to look like stones and gems and then gilded them with golden suns, like on our hat. The sections were connected with ball joints (who knew, right?) to make it flexible for fitting around my neck.

Because we had to create a hat and walk it down the runway, we made sure to leave some time for practicing. I tried on the hat throughout the challenge to be sure it fit my head and was balanced. But it was heavy!! I was very worried about my ability to wear the hat, to walk it down the runway, and balance it on my head for five seconds—all while playing the part of a fashion model.

On the Runway

As we waited for our turn to go, I was nervous. Philip kept encouraging me, but I just couldn’t wrap my head around this challenge. When my turn on the runway came, Philip picked up our Celestial Headdress and put it on my head. I threw back my shoulders and put up my hands to steady it. As soon as I started walking I knew I could do it. It felt more stable than I expected, my only concern now was balancing this heavy hat on my head.

In the end, we were so thrilled with how the runway walk went and with the comments from the judges. This hat was so out of our wheelhouse! It was such a relief that our hat was complete, that I was able to successfully wear it, and that the Brickmasters loved it. This episode was full of really special and amazing builds, some tragedies and many triumphs. But we were all successful in creating beautiful and unique hats that told a story.

What LEGO hat would you make to wear down a runway? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

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