Wimberley’s Sage and Ian Summers are contestants on the Fox television program, “LEGO Masters.” Adult fans of LEGO and avid builders, the brother- sister team is competing in the program’s fifth season.
Teams of LEGO enthusiasts go head-to-head in multiple elimination rounds with the hope of taking home a $100,000 cash prize, the ultimate LEGO trophy and the grand title of “LEGO Masters.”
In each episode, host Will Arnett, with expert Brickmasters and LEGO employees Amy Corbett and Jamie Berard, introduce challenges that test the creativity and skills of each team. The season opened with a Star Warsthemed episode, where teams were challenged to rebuild the galaxy one brick at a time by transforming the remnants of a destroyed planet into a new creation. Beloved Star Wars characters, like Stormtroopers and Darth Vader, were part of the mix. Season 5 challenges also include a masquerade party and a colossal wedding cake build.
The first season of Lego Masters aired in 2020. After auditioning, Ian and Sage were filmed in 2023 navigating the challenges of the 10-episode season. Last year they learned that they would be featured in Season 5, along with other competitors.
“It was a dream come true to meet Amy Corbett who designed LEGO Friends,” said Sage. For Ian, meeting judge Jamie Berard, an NPU expert and creator, was thrilling. “The both of them created sets that we grew up on,” said Ian.
When asked how the two began their unusual journey, Sage said, “Basically, we grew up in a LEGO house. We had two older brothers who were LEGO crazy, but not like us – we’re extremes.”
Both Ian and Sage, as homeschooled students, spent practically all of their time together which put them at ground zero in the creative LEGO household.
Two years younger than Ian, Sage’s first major “collaboration” with brother Ian was her request that he build a miniature version of Wimberley.
“He delivered in a big way,” she said. Ian had created a faithful reproduction of many of the buildings in town.
“I called it ‘My Wimbrickley,’” Sage continued. “We used to drive around town and I’d point to Mima’s and say, ‘I have that in my Wimbrickly,’ or point to Brookshire Brothers, and say, ‘I have that one in my Wimbrickly, too.’” After that, Sage’s requests took flight and Ian continued to deliver. “I like to say that I perfected his lego skills,” she said.
For some years, Ian had been building miniature reproductions on a 1 to 1 scale.
“I love building things that people recognize,” he said. “I like to bring humor into a build to get a reaction, spark a memory or to make someone laugh. It is definitely an art form.”
He produced a photo of a life-sized Jumanji game board that he made, faithfully reproduced from the 1995 TriStar film of the same name, without a pattern or specifications.
Soon Ian became Sage’s teacher. “Like everyone who becomes serious about LEGO bricks,” Ian said, “she passed from the ‘playing stage’ into the ‘building phase.’” After that, Sage joined Ian in the artistic phase. “One of the first things I built was a recreation of a Hannah Montana set with mini figures.”
Soon Sage progressed to MOCs, which in the LEGO world stands for “my own creations.” One of them was a rabbit burrow. Viewed as a cross section, the top of the build shows the garden entrance, complete with a mail box, down the burrow into a living area, where a bunny family lives. It is refined and deeply adorable. It is, like Ian’s creations, hard to believe that it is made with the LEGO brick.
“Once you enter the artistic phase, you see that building with the LEGO brick is a cool art form. When creating a sculpture, your imagination is limitless. Even though there are a variety of forms in LEGO, the only limitation is the fact that the pieces used are premolded.”
Ian’s artistry has progressed to the stage where he adapts parts to represent objects for which the parts were not intended. Called NPUs, which in LEGO speak means “Nice Part Usage,” he uses parts in unexpected ways.
In his sculpture of a toothbrush overflowing with toothpaste, called “Messy Morning,” he adapted a cartoon ghost figure from a LEGO halloween set, to represent the gushing toothpaste.
In another sculpture, he adapted a visor from a LEGO racecar set, using the visor from a safety helmet to represent a nail clipping.
Apparently the penchant for creative problem solving seems to run in the Summers’ DNA. “We’re from an artistic family,” Sage said, “and our grandpa was an engineer.”
To follow Sage and Ian on their “LEGO Masters” journey, Season 5 episodes air at 7 p.m., central time, on FOX. According to the Summers, Season 5 is full of twists and turns.
