- 23/06/2025
This week, an out-of-this-world model maker, an incredible LEGO artist, and a cake maker who likes boxing as much as baking.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00In the bustling tapestry of Britain, where centuries-old traditions blend seamlessly with modern life,
00:05there exists individuals who march to the beat of their own drum.
00:10Meet the inventors, the dreamers and the eccentrics, whose daily lives are anything but conventional,
00:15as we showcase the vibrant eccentricity that colours the landscape of British culture.
00:21Unconventional Brits invites you to step into the worlds of local legends,
00:25celebrating the delightful diversity that makes Britain truly extraordinary.
00:30This week, an out-of-this-world model maker, an incredible Lego artist,
00:38and a cake maker who likes boxing as much as baking.
00:50Well, they call me Dave, Dave the Planet Builder.
00:53I've actually called myself that, but I've become known as that to some of our friends anyway,
00:59especially science fiction ones.
01:07One of the things that inspired me was Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
01:13And there's a fellow on that called Slotty Barfast, who is in a planet-building industry.
01:19And I thought, what a crazy idea. Let's do it, you know.
01:22And basically, first of all, I wanted to be a paleontologist.
01:29And then I got interested in geography.
01:34Oh, that was after I wanted to be a herpetologist as well.
01:40And then I got interested in travel.
01:42You know, I wanted to stick a pin in the world map and go there.
01:45I had contacts in Canada and South Africa.
01:47I chose South Africa because it seemed more of an invention, more dangerous.
01:52And in some ways, I don't regret it.
01:55In other ways, I do.
01:56But I travelled a lot while I was there, when I wasn't starving.
02:00And then I came back here, and then nothing happened.
02:09So I thought that was it.
02:10Then I got work with the BBC.
02:14So that set me off on relief models.
02:17I'd already made relief models when I was in South Africa.
02:21And I managed to make something of a living out of that.
02:28So really, that got going again.
02:31And then I was working with Oxford Cartographers,
02:34which provided about 14 years of stability until I came down here.
02:40While I was with Oxford Cartographers,
02:43I started going to science fiction conventions
02:45and displaying, you know, one or two of my planets,
02:48like lower contagious Earth at these conventions.
02:52And I think, actually, working on planets,
02:55it's a multidisciplinary thing,
02:59and it's a splendid learning vehicle.
03:02I always learn something about the place I'm working on
03:04while I'm working on it.
03:07And I think, to me, that's what life should be all about.
03:11Well, right now, I mean, it's quite active
03:14because I've got about three projects going on.
03:16But that's only because I had two outstanding polystyrene balls
03:21and also friends wanted me to make the fourth Galilean moon so much
03:26that they were eventually prepared to pay me.
03:31And after that, I don't see much.
03:33I mean, apart from I want to keep a special needs job going until I'm 90
03:38because it's forged the perfect lifestyle for me.
03:44It's satisfying in a way that I never would have realised
03:47had I not been doing it.
03:50So after these immediate projects, I don't see much happening at all.
03:55I'm not looking for that much for fame and so on.
03:58But, I mean, I love talking about my work.
04:01I dread the business side of it.
04:03It's invariably, well, nearly always a real pain.
04:06And then I get the feeling when I'm starting one of these things,
04:10I'm off to save the galaxy again.
04:13And, I mean, I do almost travel to these worlds in my own mind
04:18while I'm doing it.
04:21Still to come, when a former architectural photographer
04:24made a Lego model of his own house,
04:26little did he know it was just the start of a journey.
04:30Yeah, I think a lot of people are quite amazed
04:32that it's actually something that I earn a living from.
04:34So I'm Rhianne, and I'm currently a professional Muay Thai fighter
04:44out of Fierce Muay Thai Gym in Fairham.
04:48I guess it's a bit of a contrast to what I do by day,
04:51so a little bit about me.
04:53So what I do, I work for a national charity,
04:55and we support those with addiction issues in prison.
04:59So they come to us and we support them
05:01to live lives more fulfilling outside of prison.
05:05So when they're released,
05:06and supporting them back into the community,
05:08giving them a second chance.
05:09It's a bit of a difference.
05:11So I've got kind of a softer side to me
05:12in terms of what I do for work.
05:14And also, I love baking,
05:16so there's lots of different layers to me.
05:18And then the most unpredictable one
05:19is that I'm here each night of the week,
05:22training quite an aggressive sport.
05:24But actually, yeah, it's a real soft side to me.
05:26It was family that got me into this, to be honest.
05:49So it was just coming out of COVID,
05:51and I was always kind of into fitness
05:54and then loved going to the gym.
05:55And obviously, that period of time,
05:57it was a challenge because we couldn't do that.
05:59So as we come out of COVID,
06:02about three years ago,
06:03I started on a membership.
06:06It was kind of once,
06:07I think once a week,
06:08I was signed up for a class,
06:10and that was the ladies only.
06:11So I was doing it once a week,
06:13and then I got comfortable.
06:14I kind of got my basics,
06:16and then thought,
06:16you know what?
06:17I love this.
06:17I want to do even more.
06:20I currently am UK ranked number three
06:22at superflyweight.
06:24So there are different categories.
06:27And yeah, it's kind of run by the Muay Thai rankings,
06:32and they rank opponents
06:35based on kind of their history of fighting.
06:38And yeah, in the current rankings,
06:40I'm number three at my weight.
06:41So I mean, it was a shock to even enter
06:43and be present in the rankings,
06:45and I've been able to kind of
06:46fight my way up.
06:48So yeah.
06:53When you're in that moment,
06:54and particularly when I jump in the ring,
06:55there is a calm and a peace
06:56that takes over me,
06:58and I've got one thing to focus on
06:59and one goal.
07:00And that's what I really love,
07:02is that you kind of,
07:03it's the intensity of what you're doing.
07:06And my fight name is Relentless,
07:09so people often say to me that
07:10it come about my first few fights,
07:13people are like,
07:14Rini, Nini.
07:15And that's kind of what I do when I'm fighting,
07:16as I just get into the clinch
07:18and I knee and I keep going.
07:19And it become a thing that,
07:21oh, she's relentless.
07:22And obviously my name's Rianne,
07:23and people can be re,
07:24so it become Relentless,
07:25and that was kind of my fight name.
07:28And it's what I do,
07:30I guess,
07:30not only in fighting,
07:31but also in every other aspect of my life.
07:33I will relentlessly try to support people in prisons.
07:36I will relentlessly bake for my friends and family.
07:38And I just always want to give back
07:41and just make the people around me proud.
07:44And I guess that's what I did when I joined this gym,
07:47is that I built a new family.
07:49And that was an extension of kind of the friends
07:51and the family that already support me so much already.
07:54So yeah,
07:55it's part of my nature,
07:57I guess,
07:57and I just really channeled that
07:58when I found this sport.
07:59Yeah,
08:00I think a lot of people are quite amazed
08:04that it's actually something that I earn a living from.
08:06My name's Steve Mays.
08:08The company is BrickThis,
08:09and I'm an independent Lego artist.
08:12I don't work for Lego.
08:13I've got no links to Lego.
08:15But I use Lego pieces to build models for clients.
08:19I do a couple of different things.
08:20I do big sort of display models,
08:22and I do smaller custom kits with instructions
08:24like you'd get from Lego,
08:25but for usually private companies and individuals.
08:28Before this,
08:29I was an architectural photographer,
08:31so my interest was kind of architecture.
08:33And I was into Lego as a kid,
08:34but I'd stopped playing with it probably 14, 15 or so.
08:38I have a memory of some very old Lego sets
08:40that I think are from the 60s and 70s,
08:42so they wouldn't have been mine.
08:43They must have been handed down.
08:45This was kind of even before I got into
08:47the Lego space stuff in the 80s.
08:49So there's some of the town layouts
08:51that look kind of medieval.
08:53I remember one of those very clearly.
08:55And I must have been very young when I had that.
08:57And about 12 years ago,
09:00just had this hankering to build something out of Lego.
09:03So I built a model of my house.
09:05So it was the architecture side,
09:06I suppose, that drew me back in.
09:08And I just kind of felt that there was a possibility there
09:11to add that to what I did as a photographer.
09:14So architects often get models done of their projects
09:17and what they're working on.
09:18So I thought maybe I could offer,
09:20as well as photographing buildings for them,
09:22to do a Lego model.
09:24Thinking not much would come of it, to be honest.
09:26But yeah, there just seemed to be a bit more
09:28potential there almost.
09:32The photography was going well,
09:33but everybody seemed to be a photographer.
09:35So yeah, it just felt like an interesting new niche.
09:39For a couple of years, I did just hobby projects.
09:42So after I built a version of my house,
09:43I did the Baltic.
09:44Actually, it was on display in the Baltic for a few months.
09:46And I did a couple of other local landmarks,
09:48like the Civic Center and the Angel.
09:50But I was still really a photographer at the time.
09:53After a year or two doing that,
09:55I thought I'd actually make a business name and a website
09:59and offer it out properly as a service.
10:02And did a couple of projects that were kind of linked
10:05through clients I already had as a photographer.
10:08Did Maggie Center, which is a cancer support place
10:11at the Freeman Hospital.
10:13And it didn't happen overnight,
10:14but it became obvious there was potentially
10:16more opportunities there, actually.
10:18And it just grew from there over years.
10:22One of the biggest I've done was Annick Garden.
10:25They've got it on display there.
10:26That took months to do,
10:28because it's a very complicated site, Annick Garden.
10:31And obviously very organic.
10:32And I've done a lot of architectural stuff.
10:33So that was a big challenge at the time.
10:36Annick Garden was on the go for 10 months.
10:38I did a big project for Bowes Museum as well.
10:40That was probably a similar amount of time
10:41or maybe eight months or so.
10:43It's not constant all day, every day.
10:45There's a lot of stop-start with the way I work.
10:48So I don't design in advance.
10:51I just get going with pictures and plans.
10:53So then when I realise I don't have the right parts
10:55for something, I'll order them and wait for them.
10:57So there's a lot of waiting for pieces to arrive.
10:59So it's not 10 months of work,
11:01but it takes that amount of time often.
11:04But they're extreme projects for me.
11:08It's more common for them to take a couple of months.
11:10So the kits need to be designed on a computer
11:12so you can do the instructions.
11:13There's a lot more design work on a computer now
11:16than I used to have.
11:17The company might say,
11:18can you do our product as a Lego kit?
11:19And they might have 100, 200 of them, say.
11:22So a lot of my time actually is spent
11:23actually boxing up kits.
11:26There's quite a few people that will do display models
11:29and they might do the odd commission
11:31and some larger companies that do that kind of thing as well.
11:35Doing the custom kits,
11:36there's not many companies that do that at all really.
11:38It's very niche.
11:41Next time on Unconventional Brits,
11:43we'll dive into the world of medical tattooing.
11:46This is an example of one that we did on the practice skin.
11:49It gives us so much confidence.
11:51If I've got this skill, like, why not utilise this?
11:53We'll see you next time on Unconventional Brits.
11:54We'll see you next time on Unconventional Brits.
11:55We'll see you next time on Unconventional Brits.
11:56We'll see you next time on Unconventional Brits.
11:57We'll see you next time on Unconventional Brits.
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12:06We'll see you next time on Unconventional Brits.
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