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.

A Mecha That’s Snow Joke

My tag line may be a bad joke, but it’s by far the worst thing about this post. Juzu has posted a pretty cool looking mecha over on Flickr, and taken advantage of his local weather for a change in scenery. The build itself makes fantastic use of stickers to add detail to a form that’s curvy and bulky in all the right ways. The snowy background, and off center composition of the photo, draw attention to the build in a manner that adds a feeling of authenticity to the photo.

Juzu Corp. RSBM-[死神] Mk.2

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This Collection Will Make Your Skin Crawl!!!

Afraid of bugs? Well, Sean and Steph Mayo aka Siercon and Coral have built some spectacular insects and you don’t have to worry about them crawling all over you. And, if you are not freaked out, check out the great building techniques used to create the superb detail in these creations.

There are 10 total and each with amazing detail. Check out their photo set to see them all.


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Baby Lambo

We’ve seen a few large-scale Lamborghini Gallardo models here on The Brothers Brick over the years, but Mateusz Mikołajczyk (Matix22) goes much smaller. He pulls it off nicely — a challenging feat at this scale.

Lamborghini Gallardo 1

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Time-lapse video of Alice Finch assembling LEGO Hogwarts

Unless you’ve been living deep in the Forbidden Forest, you’ve already seen the awesome pictures of Alice’s LEGO Hogwarts here on The Brothers Brick. Several thousand more of you got to see it in person this past weekend at Emerald City Comicon here in Seattle. But I suspect many of you wonder how Alice Finch transports and assembles her masterpiece. Wonder no more!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItFu-TtcFS0

The video doesn’t include the six SUVs that hauled Hogwarts to and from ECCC…

We’ll have more ECCC coverage here on The Brothers Brick shortly.

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76006: Iron Man 3: Extremis Sea Port Battle [Review]

76007 Iron Man: Extremis Sea Port Battle

Get to de choppa 76006 Extremis Sea Port Battle is the last of the Iron Man 3 sets I’ll be reviewing. Be sure to also read my reviews of the Malibu Mansion Attack and the Ultimate Showdown sets, if you’ve missed them. The Extremis Sea Port Battle consists of an Extremis speedboat driven by badman Aldrich Killian, and Iron Man and War Machine to fight him. This set is what you’d expect from an MSRP $19.99 USD set: one large vehicle, and three minifigures, for a total of 195 pieces. The box contains two numbered bags, the instructions, a sticker sheet, and the same LEGO-style comic as the other two Iron Man 3 sets. The first bag builds the minifigs, and the bottom half of the boat, and the second finishes the boat and adds the buoy.

The boat is fairly large at almost 27 studs long, and looks pretty snazzy with its dark green and yellow color-scheme. It’s one of the cooler LEGO speedboats I’ve seen in a while, and I really appreciated the little touches the designer added like the swept-back windshield. I do always find it odd when a LEGO model calls for numerous plates where a single larger one would do. In this case, the bottom deck of the boat is held together with a row of four tan 1×10 plates. Perhaps that’s to make it look Get to de choppa more like planking, or perhaps a 4×10 plate would have put the set over-budget. Either way, there are no complaints from me; I’d rather have the smaller plates. There are two flick-fire missiles in the aft compartment of the boat. Unlike most flick-fire missiles which I find cumbersome to flick with your finger and ineffective for range, these fire via a small lever mechanism which works remarkably well, and blends in well with the design of the boat. The foredeck also pops off, allowing for a minifig to hide in there. Really, though, a sleek speedboat is its own play-feature in my book, and you don’t need too many gizmos added to it to make it fun. The bottom of the boat is, of course, covered in boat-tiles to make carpet-sailing an easy adventure. Next up is the buoy, which explodes when you press one side. It’s built sort of like a minifig-flinger, but I’m not certain it’s meant to be used like that. Spare parts were slightly nicer than usual, with an extra light-grey lightsabre handle, and some other typical pieces.

Get to de choppa The Iron Man minifig here is in the same Mark 42 Armor that’s in the Malibu Mansion Attack set. War Machine is definitely the coolest of the minifigs in this lot, especially since we haven’t yet had a version of him, despite his role in Iron Man 2. Naturally, the helmet is the same as Iron Man’s, just with a different color scheme, and the shoulder cannon looks nice, even if a little simple. Despite being covered by the neck-bracket for the shoulder cannon most of the time, War Machine does have a detailed printing on the back of the torso. The two-tone silver printing on this minifig really looks gorgeous. Aldrich Killian is sporting a simple tan suit with front and rear prints, and the two-sided glow-in-the-dark head is almost, but not quite, identical to that of the Extremis Soldier in the Malibu Mansion Attack set.

Get to de choppaAll in all, this is a solid set. There’s nothing outstanding here, except for the exclusive War Machine minifig, but the speedboat is a satisfying build and looks good when it’s done. For those not wild about keeping the set built, here’s a look at the inventory pages. I’d say the set is a pretty fair source of pieces, with lots of easily useable pieces, and an abundance of slopes of all sizes.

Finally, since some of you seemed particularly interested in what’s happening with Iron Man on the box art of the Malibu Mansion Attack set, I’ve scanned part of the comic that’s included in all three sets, which expounds on that scene a little more. Here there be spoilers.

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That is one dazzling smile you’ve got there

Perhaps there is a hint of minty-freshness? Regardless of your opinion of Shrek (or the second one…or the third one…did they make a fourth?) the sculpting on this lady dragon by gtahelper is simply lovely. The coloring’s fabulous. I want to see a scaled Donkey to go with!

The builder included a helping of adorable little donkey-dragon babies, and they’re pretty adorable,too. Check em out!

via The Living Brick

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Dumb Ways to Die – Star Wars Edition

So, where to begin, Erik aka Ninja_Nin has created eight AMAZING, expertly designed, large vignettes based on an Australian Metro safety video utilizing the Star Wars as the theme and boy are they GREAT!!! Check out his photo set and see the many Dumb Ways to Die!!!

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A Wee Little Tower

The last time we featured a model of Orthanc, it was over 7 feet tall. This time we’re going to the other extreme, with this awesome micro-scale version of Saruman’s flooded monolith by flickr user Julius No. Even the microscale ents are instantly recognizable.


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Pumpjack goes round and round and up and down

LEGO is made from plastic. Plastic is made from oil. And Gilcelio Chagas is extracting oil with this neat pumpjack. A pumpjack is essentially a device to convert rotational motion to pumping motion to suck oil out of a well. As Gilcelio illustrates very nicely in his video of the pumpjack at work. I lied about the oil bit, you need to go underground for that.

Pumpjack (See in operation )

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Magnetism for the Masses

LEGO magnets are cool, but most people just use them for connecting trains or picking up crates. Not so for Simon Liu, the ever-innovative Canadian builder. This mass transit suspension bridge is actually held aloft by magnetism, providing a cushy platform for the mag-lev train that rides on it over an earth-quake riddled fault-line. Be sure to watch the video of Simon disassembling it to show the magnets’ effects. Besides having an uuber cool concept, though, Simon has nailed the style of this futuristic bridge, giving it an edgy, techy architectural look. Also, I’m pretty sure Simon is crazy, because he’s competing concurrently in both the Iron Builder competition and the MocAthalon contest, and this creation counts for both.

Tycho Suspended Bridge Train

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Island Hopper Redux

Bruce Lowell (bruceywan) has taken one of the most fun old Adventurer’s sets, 5935 Island Hopper, and put his own skilled hands to recreating it for the MOCPages MocAtholon competition. The Island Hopper was always a favorite of mine in the final Adventurers setting, and Bruce’s version is all decked out with more advanced building techniques and smooth surfaces, and of course, a lot more pieces.

5935 Island Hopper (Redux) Box Art

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76008 Iron Man vs. The Mandarin: Ultimate Showdown [Review]

76008 Iron Man vs. The Mandarin: Ultimate Showdown

full set76008 Iron Man vs. The Mandarin: Ultimate Showdown is the smallest set of the trio of LEGO sets for the upcoming Iron Man 3 film. With only a vehicle and two minifigs, it’s clearly an action-based set. The box includes two un-numbered bags, the instructions, and the same 10-page comic as the other Iron Man 3 sets. The comic includes scenes from all three sets, and is really quite nice.

The vehicle seems to be some sort of flame-thrower armored car, and it’s driven by the big-bearded Mandarin, aka Iron Man’s new nemesis. The vehicle is pretty standard, with the flame-thrower stand holding two flick-fire missiles (where would we be without flick-fire missiles? Here’s a challenge: build a creation using only flick-fire missiles!) and being mounted on a 4×4 turntable. The rear of the vehicle does incorporate one of those multifaceted train slopes, which is a nifty under-utilized piece, so that’s cool. Beyond the missiles, though, there are no play-features in this set, so you’ll have to use your imagination. There are a few left-over pieces of the regular sort, and as usual, I’ve included a shot of the inventory page. I suspect figsthe real reason that most people will buy this set, though, is for the minifigs. Both are exclusive to this set. Although a minifigure of the Mandarin appears in the Malibu Mansion Attack set, and naturally Iron Man is in all the sets, both are unique versions here. This Mandarin has a bedraggled look, with a kerchief covering whatever-that-is on his chest (here’s a picture comparing the versions). In fact, this torso looks terrific for making your own generic guerrilla fighter, since it doesn’t really have anything in the print that specifically ties it to the Mandarin or this theme. The Iron Man minifigure here is the star, though. This is my favorite of all the LEGO versions of Iron Man we’ve seen so far. This Iron Man features awesome blue eyes and a blue power circle on his chest (here’s a comparison photo between the two armor types).

With an MSRP of $12.99 USD, and 91 pieces, I would pass on this set, unless you want the minifigs. Get to de choppa It’s not a great parts pack for those of you who aren’t enamored by the minifigs. On the other hand, a great many of you will thoroughly enjoy the minifigs in this set, and with the set price being so low, it’s probably cheaper to buy the whole set than attempt to buy just the minifigs on the secondary market.

Read my review of the Iron Man 3 Malibu Mansion Attack set here.

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