Category Archives: Models

This is what we’re all about. We scour the web for the best custom LEGO models to share with you. From castles and spaceships to planes, trains, and automobiles, you’ll find the best LEGO creations from builders all over the world right here on The Brothers Brick.

The Supreme Leader of the House of Mouse

Builders Build Better Bricks built a better brick Mickey Mouse to put in your brick-built house! Now try saying that 10 times fast.

Mickey Mouse

Mickey Mouse is one the most iconic and enduring characters in animation history and he’s captured the imagination of many an excellent LEGO builder. This version of the world’s most famous mouse puts Technic parts and hinges to excellent use. The Technic axle connectors that make up the arms and legs could easily swapped and replaced to make the figure capable of a variety of poses. The gloves are really nicely done with the Vehicle Mudguard making a nice curve to the palms and used again to create the curved back of the closed hand. The rounded tiles that give the illusion of rounded fingers are a nice choice. Mickey’s face, with its many odd shapes are well rendered with a combination of quarter round tiles, clever sideways building and rounded bottom plates for the cheeks. The pose is one that will be familiar to fans and imbues the figure with a wonderful sense of action and personality.

This Le Mans racer is alternately awesome

Real Le Mans racecars are carefully built and strategized to maximize efficiency and performance over the grueling 24-hour race. So it’s fitting that LEGO builder Milan has chosen to build this sweet Le Mans racer with a key restriction. He’s used only the elements from the LEGO set 42093 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1. That’s especially impressive because the Corvette is about the same size, yet features a radically different shape.

Milan has lots of experience with building custom creations using only the parts from one set, though (AKA alternates). In addition to being an expert Technic builder, alternates are his signature style. He also frequently provides instructions, meaning if you own the Corvette set, you can follow Milan’s guide to build a Le Mans racer of your own.

I am not in danger, Skyler. I am the danger!

A builder who goes by the dubious name of SuckMyBrick has built a stunning LEGO portrait of Walter White, the mild-mannered chemistry teacher turned badass meth dealer because…desperate times. I hope I didn’t spoil too much for you, but as Breaking Bad has been cited as one of the best TV shows of all time, it is strongly recommended that you watch it to see Bryan Cranston in the most pivotal role of his career, even if just to sputter off memorable quotes such as this article’s title. SuckMyBrick is exceptionally good at building characters and portraits. Here is a recent time we featured his Fred Flintstone, as well as a whole string of internet influencers and the Commander in Peach.

Walter White

Get ready for a family vacation road trip, LEGO style

If you are looking for great LEGO models of cars in a 1:1 scale to the LEGO Minifig, look no further than these two classic automobiles by Mateusz Waldowski. At first glance, it would be easy to mistake these dual versions of the 1970s Ford Granada MK1 for die-cast Hotwheels. From the smoothly curved hoods to the white stripes made from official sticker material, there’s not a visible stud to be seen. One of my favorite details is the little tab sticking out for each door handle. (See if you can figure out how they did it.) And that luggage rack is ready for the Griswolds to load up for their family vacation.

An icebreaker, but not the desert-island-album question kind

I have an icebreaker for you. No, I don’t mean one of those icebreaker questions like “what is in the trunk of your car right now?” (Eldritch Horror game, reusable shopping bags) or “what childish thing do you still do as an adult?” (Well, duh!). I’m talking about a roughly 2,000 piece LEGO Antarctic icebreaker built by Luis Peña. This is the new icebreaker of the Chilean Navy, currently under construction in Asmar, Talcahuano, and should be set to sail by 2022. Equipped with two SH32 Cougar helicopters, it will be the most modern icebreaker in South America, and the largest and most complex ship ever built in Asmar. The ship itself still has no name, but the project is called Antarctica 1. Perhaps they will let the internet decide a catchy name for this vessel. I mean, what can go wrong?

Icebreaker “Antarctica 1”

Oh, I thought of an icebreaker question that I can’t see backfiring in any way: Which Brothers Brick contributor annoys you the most? What can go wrong, indeed?

Looks like Voldemort learned Diminuendo!

It appears that He Who Must Not Be Named has few more unusual spells to use, and he’s got the heroes of Hogwarts down on their luck. These tiny characters by LEGO builder gonkius are the perfect representations of their larger selves. How many pieces do you need to build a great character, after all? It looks like the answer is about seven, and they couldn’t be cuter! The use of the rollerskate wheel for Harry’s glasses is particularly inspired.

And just in case you’re still struggling to figure them out, from left are Ron, Hermione, Dumbledore, Harry, and Hedwig. Honestly, I’m kind of wishing the official LEGO microscale Hogwarts Castle had used these!

Fight the power! Protest tyranny! Remember the fallen.

Two hundred years ago on August 16, 1819, eighteen persons lost their lives when British yeomanry hacked through a crowd of protesters with their sabers. The event was named the Peterloo Massacre, which Dan Harris has built in lovely LEGO form for our edification on its 200th anniversary. The crowd had gathered to protest the Corn Laws, tariffs on agricultural products that helped powerful British landowners by keeping prices high but hurt common British folks who bought food by…keeping prices high. As an American, I appreciate the sign that says “Taxation without representation is unjust and tyrannical,” as that sentiment was instrumental in our own protest movement against the Crown several decades prior. But unlike the British subjects in the American colonies, the poor folks of Manchester (where the protest happened) did not get to see an increase in liberty; ironically, the massacre of innocent civilians by out-of-line cavalry resulted in more crackdowns on reform (until 1832, when reform laws were passed that finally gave them representation in parliament).

The Peterloo Massacre

Nothing needs to be changed in Dan’s build, however. The most striking thing about it is the excellent minifigure posing, coupled with an abundance of angry and scared flesh-toned faces. The layering of the figures and the angle of the shot give the impression of a large crowd as well as the panic engendered by a charge of horses and sabers against unarmed civilians. The man laying down in the middle of the front of the build seems to be breaking the fourth wall and entreating the viewer for help, too. As far as the LEGO build goes, the buildings in the back look great with their cheese slope roofs and nicely textured walls. The best part, though? That has to be the Star Wars helmets used backwards for the women’s bonnets; it looks perfect, almost as though it was designed for that purpose rather than for an Imperial pilot. It is perhaps slightly ironic that the women wearing the Imperial helmets are the ones being attacked by uniformed soldiers of the Empire, a reminder to all of us to stand up to those in power in defense of what is right and just.

Why don’t you come along with me...on a Magic Carp(et) Ride

LEGO builders have often explored the theme of “speeder bikes” – flying motorcycle-esque vehicles with a grand and glorious racing tradition. (Or, for those looking for the possible origins of the trope, a callback to the forest chase scene in Return of the Jedi. Although usually built in minifigure scale for maxium swooshability, there’s no reason that one couldn’t make a larger version. In fact, Eero Okkonen has done just that in Kiirus Ögonblick and The Carp Speeder, mixing skill in large figure builds with…a fish. Not just any fish, though, but a carp. A blue and orange, jet powered, mechanical-hybrid carp….Because why not?

Kiirus Ögonblick and The Carp Speeder

See more of this fishy speeder bike.

The devil’s in the details. No, wait. That’s just a chicken.

In many fantasy tropes there’s that moment where the heroes gather to set off on their grand adventure. Maybe it’s in a tavern, maybe it’s the king’s audience chamber. Sometimes it’s in a mystic glade or just a chance encounter. If you’ve seen this scene once, you’ve seen them all. However, what you might not have noticed was the world happening around the heroes. There are common folk who exist outside of the main narrative, living their fantasy lives as best they can. ‘Sergeant Chipmunk’ brings us a LEGO moment in time that captures the momentous as well as the mundane.

Unlikely Companions

Read more about this medieval model.

This epic recreation of Deep Space Nine is so huge, I can practically fit inside!

Ok, so not quite, but it is approximately eight feet in diameter, and I am only a little over six feet tall, so it is bigger than I am. And if I curled up around the central core between the docking pylons, I could probably fit. Thus, the title is not entirely hyperbolic. But I could wax hyperbolic about the eponymous space station from the Star Trek series Deep Space Nine, built by Adrian Drake from over 75,000 pieces, including an absurd amount of dark bluish grey. It took over two years to build, and I can see why.

DS9_00

Read more about this massive Star Trek build.

We came, we saw, we kicked its bricks!

When there’s something strange in the LEGOhood, who you gonna call? Darren Thew, that’s who! The Ecto 1 has been modeled in LEGO bricks many times before, but Darren takes things to a new level with a massive version of the beloved vehicle from Ghostbusters. He has taken great care in striving for authenticity, from every minute detail on the roof to the use of System and Technic parts to form the curvaceous shape of the retrofitted 1959 Cadillac Miller-Meteor.

Ghostbusters Ecto1

See more of this ghostbusting ride.

Life, uh, finds a way...to eat you.

Even before LEGO’s recent release of 75936 Jurassic Park T-Rex Rampage, dinosaurs have been a popular subject for builders. ZiO Chao has apparently found the historically-based thunder lizards a bit too tame, though. Why just recreate a single species when you can add in a bit of mad science to remix the most fearsome aspects of three of them? ZiO has combined the raptor, T-Rex, and spinosaurus into a reptilian death machine named Spino-Tyraptor. This model is highly poseable, including some creative arm joints using pneumatic T-pieces. The head is expertly shaped, and the use of a spoiler for the tongue really works well.

Spino-Tyraptor

Just as nature intended, the most eye-catching part of the creature is the fin. Carrying the dark red of the head along the spine, it reaches up with brighter reds highlighted with grey and orange 1×1 round plate and capped with quarter-round coral tile. We may not know what the true function of spinosaurus’ fin was, but I’m guessing here it’s a combination of threat display, heat regulation, and wi-fi antenna. Hey, if you’re going to genetically mix something like this, why stop at what nature thought of?

Spino-Tyraptor