After a shocking twist during episode three, two new contestants joined LEGO® Masters, season three. Following their five episode run, we caught up with Ethan and Dom for an interview. Of course, this was our second chat with the TikTokers this season. We had the opportunity to talk with them about their entry into the season earlier on. Now, we learn what the experience was like for them. As always, this interview was done in collaboration with Megan L. from Brickset, as well as other media outlets.
How did you feel arriving on LEGO® Masters after the third episode?
Ethan: One word: Overwhelmed. Within 15 minutes of that (first) challenge, I was so tense. I felt like I just ran a marathon because we did nine days of nothing. And then I was sprinting. I was like, “Oh I should have been stretching.”
Dom: After that first challenge our legs were so sore because we didn’t stretch, we didn’t prepare. We should have ran some miles on a treadmill. But my goodness that was a contact sport.
Ethan: This is more than a LEGO® building challenge, this is actually a workout.
What has the fan response been like to your time on LEGO® Masters?
Dom: People on Reddit hate our guts. [laughs]
Ethan: Oh yeah! [laughs]
Dom: In my opinion, we do not deserve it at all. But none of this hate, backlash, and negativity affects our actual social media. I haven’t seen negative stuff on TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube, which are the only social media that matter to me. You get used to it because we already make content, so we’ve dealt with haters before. I’ve received threats. It’s nothing, it’s water under the bridge. It doesn’t really affect me. Our moms on the other hand, they do not take it lightly. It definitely wasn’t what we wanted to be depicted as. But it’s a show. It is what it is.
Ethan: It teaches you as a person to focus on yourself, stick with what you do, and what you believe in. Don’t worry about what other people think about you. I guess that is a positive aspect with that. I mean, it’s affected me a little through the comments. But usually, the negative comments are people who don’t even follow me.
Dom: Yeah, it’s usually random strangers, so who cares.
What was the most challenging aspect of being on LEGO® Masters?
Dom: Putting up will Will Arnett’s sh*t [laughs]. I’m kidding, we love Will. He’s hilarious. In all honesty, I think it was really just time management. We missed out on the first three challenges. Having that first week of not doing challenges, I would give that up to go back to episode one and get into the competition right away. That wasn’t an option for us, unfortunately. I definitely feel like we would have done better had we had those first three challenges to learn off of and get that experience.
Ethan: I agree with that. Imagination is a mix of your previous weeks and using everything you’ve seen. We were inside of a hotel room. It doesn’t leave much room for imagination and your mental state. But it is what it is. I believe me and Dom made the best of the situation we were placed in.
In our first challenge, we really felt behind the whole time with not knowing the brick pit. We felt three episodes behind [laughs]. I think those challenges would have helped. The first two would have been fun. But, you know, I’m from Texas. It would have been awesome to have a bull riding challenge. That one would have been fun as well. Overall, we did the best in our situation.
How did you approach the last challenge?
Dom: We had a good couple of ideas. But we landed on the Jungle Temple because we wanted our build to stand out. And that was the height. But I feel like we focused too much time on the temple aspect than the second build. I wish I prioritized that second build a bit more, for obvious reasons. I focused on the mechanisms and the story aspects. Essentially, I was like, “Ethan, build me a temple. Here’s how we’re going to do it.” I first built the conveyor belt structure to basically get up to that height, and then decorated it with a bunch of leaves to make it look overgrown and stuff. And then once the mechanisms were done, we just started building stuff like animals and flowers, to kind of add some color in there.
Ethan: One thing that I do wish we would have done with that build was add a river. I wish I would have looked around at the room. A lot of people built the whole green. We focused on height when everyone else focused on spreading things out. If we were able to add a river or some sort of rocky path, that would have been super cool. But honestly, I’m happy with how our build turned out. I mean we had nine hours. We built a huge temple in nine hours.
Dom: Both of us have very little experience in Powered Up, so we were definitely happy with what we built.
What are some details from your builds that were not featured on the show?
Dom: First one that comes to mind is in Monster Camp and the porta-potties. One of the doors had monster toes creeping out, which I thought was pretty funny. I was hoping it would make it in. Another one was I wish we got to see more of the monkey stories on Monkey Mutiny, because there was a lot of funny monkeys doing funny things. I really posed the ever-living crap out of those things to really convey that there was a lot of chaos going on. I managed to sneak a monkey into our last build, but I don’t think we got to see the monkey.
Ethan: For me, it was definitely Monster Camp. I mean, I love that build. It was debatable what were the top two because the doctors had an amazing build. But I do wish we got a closer look at the haunted house that was in the back. That was something that I was really proud of. I really like the little monster doors and also there’s a full on interior there. Also, with the overall images of the camp that we got, the pictures were very low. If you raised the camera a foot or two, you could see inside, which would have been really nice. But overall, I mean, I was really happy with our builds. Monkeys was kind of a theme with us. Dom found a 1999 Luke Skywalker head in the bin of the heads so he placed a yellow Luke Skywalker in Monster Camp.
Dom: It was a Luke Skywalker lookalike Monster Hunter. That was not Luke Skywalker. It just so happened to kind of look like him. He didn’t have a lightsaber at all, it was a space dagger. But yeah, there’s a lot in Monster Camp that we didn’t get to see. One of the training dummies for the target practice was also built in the style of the monkey.
What are you going to do with the 90,000 bricks you won in episode 7?
Dom: I have some projects that I don’t feel like talking about right now. I have big plans with them. But I’m gonna build some stuff with them. It’s gonna be cool.
Ethan: For me, with the 90k, I really would like to refresh my parts that I’m low on, especially SNOT bricks and reddish-brown parts. Because I tend to break a lot of reddish brown parts while I’m building. I’ve been wanting to build a steampunk ship. Kind of inspired by Treasure Planet – it’s been on my mind for a while to do a build with that theme. Hopefully, I will get the parts and it will inspire a lot of ideas. A lot of times I don’t really have an idea. I dig through parts and I find one particular part, and that one piece can be the inspiration to a whole model, which is really cool.
What advice do you have for people just getting into the LEGO® hobby?
Dom: For financial reason, don’t [laughs]. Start small, work your way up. It can be very overwhelming with all these huge MOCs and creations. If you’re getting into MOC building, start small. My biggest advice is just take a Creator 3-in-1 set, and build the three models. Then try to create a completely new model out of that set just using those parts. That’s something I did a few times while prepping for LEGO® Masters. Also, make sure you have a space for your LEGO® building and collection. It takes up quite a bit [laughs].
Ethan: If you work hard and you have a passion, you can accomplish a lot. Whether it’s art, whether it’s music, whether it’s LEGO® building. That’s really my advice, it’s short and simple. Work hard and have a passion for it. Look at what other people built, but find your own style. Look at other builds through social media and find what you want and work hard for it.
More to come…
That’s it for our Ethan and Dom interview. A huge thanks to the team for sitting down with us again for another Q&A. Remember, you can follow both Ethan (@ethan.the.artisan) and Dom (@coolguydom02) on TikTok. You can also catch up on previous happenings this season by checking out our full season three coverage. Only six teams remain. Be sure to check out what happens next Wednesday night on FOX and CTV!
Until next time,
-Tom
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