“I began building with LEGO when I was two years old. I quickly became obsessed. I have a home video of one Christmas morning where I’m opening present after present but when I got to the LEGO® set I started jumping up and down and was just way more excited than anything else,” says Tyler Clites with a laugh. Clites, winner of FOX’s premier season of LEGO® Masters, is a designer, artist and creator who's been carving out a name for himself in the LEGO® scene for over a decade. Clites is more than just a creative multi-hyphenate though. He’s also a Gulf Coast native who resides in Sarasota. Even more importantly, he’s someone who has turned passion into a career, a shining example that childhood dreams can indeed come to life.

“One year for my birthday I got a castle lego set, but the instructions were missing and I thought it was useless until my mom ended up building it for me. She said something that was really influential to me at the time which was that I didn’t have to just build what the instructions said, but that I could take the pieces and build whatever I wanted to,” says Clites. “That started my journey of just taking parts and building whatever I wanted out of them.” That journey took Clites through an adolescence of making a name for himself in the LEGO® community over the internet, to continuing his passion while studying film in college eventually getting requests for commissions from businesses and individuals for various sets and models graduating into gigs such as creative director for companies like Brick Loot and Build Better Bricks, to founding his own design firm TC Brick Designs. Today, Tyler works with corporate clients such as Google and DHL and individuals creating unique LEGO® sets and models. His work ranges from large-scale creations – think 3-foot tall autonomous forklift for DHL— to deeply expressive characters inspired by film and television – including a striking portrayal of Stitch from Lilo and Stitch—and busts of various individuals or characters. In short, Clites’ creations dismantle everything the unsuspecting individual may think they know about LEGO®. He’s an artist on the vanguard, constantly pushing the envelope of what one can create with LEGO®, and an individual who Sarasota is proud to call their own.