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.

Porco Rosso takes the lead in his Savoia S.21 seaplane

I’ve lost count of how many LEGO versions of Porco Rosso’s iconic seaplane we’ve featured here on TBB, going way back to Uspez Morbo’s Savoia S.21 I wrote about in 2008. And yet I enjoy every version we’ve highlighted, not least this fantastic microscale version by Marcin Otreba, complete with stand and tiny Adriatic seascape. A miniature Porco pilot may try to steal the show here, but the details I love most are the little contrails emerging from the engine exhaust and the rounded cowling on the seaplane’s bow.

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A falconer left to “fen” for himself

Nature has gone wild in this swampy LEGO scene by Ciamosław Ciamek. In a daring design choice, opaque sand green tiles are used to excellent effect as the murky water in this morass. The cobbled tower, home to our birdkeeper, looks to have seen a few too many years. The tilework is perfect on its walls, and I adore all the details in dark gray around its entryway. But the real hero in this build has got to be all that thick vegetation. Dark green leaves stand in stark contrast to the lighter colors of the water and tower, making the build generally feel bigger.

Here’s some more detailed shots of the minifigures that make up the approaching party. But mind that you don’t get too distracted by the action in the boat. Who knows what monsters call this swamp home….

Book your flight to another galaxy on this intergalactic wonder

There are many styles of LEGO spaceships, but there’s just something special about the classic LEGO Space theme. Builder Wynd adds an entry to the theme with this excellent spacefaring vessel. The colors are the tried and true yellow, blue, and grey with the hints of red from the theme. Given the size of the ship, there’s plenty of room to use all those wonderful smaller pieces to add textures and details to the spaceship. There’s not a bad angle to be found! The ship looks great from stem to stern. The ship is perfect for some galactic adventures!

Across the fields of Pelennor, Gandalf rides to Minas Tirith

The city of Minas Tirith in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings (especially as depicted in Peter Jackson’s movie adaptations) is a fairly popular subject for LEGO microscale builders. But Joe (jnj_bricks) takes his LEGO build to the next level — or seven levels, if you count all the rings in the city — by creating a multilayered scene that places Gandalf astride Shadowfax in the foreground, the Tower of Guard in the middle distance, and the White Mountains against grim clouds in the distance. It’s often tempting to photograph your LEGO models from a high three-quarters view to show off all its details. While Joe has certainly built plenty of detail into his White City, he avoids that temptation by placing the viewer at Gandalf’s level in the foreground, looking up toward the city, with the Citadel of Gondor and Tower of Ecthelion reaching toward the lowering sky. The overall effect is magical.

If you’ve enjoyed Joe’s forced perspective LEGO version of Minas Tirith, be sure to check out an even more detailed microscale LEGO Minas Tirith by Koen that we featured nearly 5 years ago.

A churning river of LEGO influences

Do you know what I love? LEGO builds with a real atmosphere. Builds a bit like Markus Ronge‘s here, in fact. There’s loads of action and dynamism conveyed through the bricks. The trans-clear rods used for streaks of rain combine with the curved slopes of the churning river to make it very clear we’re in the middle of a big old rainstorm. Possibly in a city like Paris in the early 20th century, if I had to guess. Stylistically it reminds me of a combination of anime and Franco-Belgian bande dessinee comics, framed in a very Wes Anderson way. The rat riding out of the sewers even reminds of Ratatouille a bit. There’s something for everyone here!

Do you feel the need for teal?

Every now and then, a LEGO cyberpunk build will pop up that is invariably linked to the New Hashima Brickworld collaboration. And judging by how often they pop up, it’s going to be a massive collaboration. There’s no danger of it lacking colour though – not when Simon Liu is armed with his collection of teal bricks! It’s a neat futuristic take on the humble construction crane, even if it is built with tongue placed slightly in cheek. This is a build for something called MARCHtember. Simon’s description has the low-down on the ‘rules’, but I’m particularly drawn in by this one: “it needs to have teal as a significant colour in the build“. Now that’s a LEGO month I can get behind.

An elegant dragon

This elegant LEGO horned dragon by Aiden Rexroad appears to have a fluid, sinewy shape thanks to the ball joints of Bionicle, something that’s difficult to achieve with traditional System elements. A pair of large claws turned upside down gives the distinctive horn on the dragon’s nose, which lends a lot of uniqueness to this build. Meanwhile, Aiden has turned to Destiny’s Bounty from Ninjago to repurpose the cloth sails as wings.

The cutest little LEGO Cloud City

We’ve often remarked that you don’t have to have a lot of pieces to build great LEGO creations, and this microscale Millennium Falcon and Cloud City from Star Wars by gGh0st are perfect examples. They’re also an excellent use for those cloud plates, which look much more realistic here than they usually do, and help integrate the two different scales of the ship and mining colony to create a forced perspective scene. I would love to see LEGO release little sets like this for $10 or so.

A family gathering

OK, so the builder of this awesome LEGO robot family, Bartosz Sasiński, didn’t actually imply they’re a family, just that they’re a team. But especially with the little four-legged dog bot, I prefer to think of this as a cute family of exploration drones, and they’re magnificently sculpted with a clean aesthetic that Bartoz has carried through to the display base, which is perfectly minimalist.

Never ending fun in the sun

It’s that time of the year again when the Rogue Olympics contest sweeps the LEGO community. The first round’s theme is “Above the clouds”, and builder Dan Ko delivers this wonderful scene from the 1984 film The NeverEnding Story. Coming in at 27 parts, the scene features Atreyu and Falkor flying through the sky, an iconic and immediately recognizable scene from the movie. What I really like about this build is Falkor. The luck dragon’s body comes together with a series of battle droid bodies. At this scale, they work well to bring the Falkor’s face and body to life.

Travel through space and time with this diorama of Uzbekistan

The LEGO fan community spans the whole globe, and I love traveling vicariously through builds like this one from the well-traveled Lasse Vestergård. This creation allows us to travel to Uzbekistan – admittedly not a place that was high on my destination hit list. But isn’t it beautiful? It depicts the historic city of Bukhara. The blue decorations of the Mir-i-Arab madrasah make use of a lot of flower pieces, depicting the well-preserved paintwork of the real building. And if you thought there were a lot of flowers here, try and work out how many 1×2 plates and 1×1 studs are used in the Kalyan Minaret next to it! My guess is, er, a lot. It’s a tried-and-tested method of making round towers, but the considerable height makes it look like brickwork here, to great effect.

Don’t STAP me now!

When it comes to making LEGO Star Wars builds, one of my favourite things to make is the smaller, one-man craft. Partly because it’s less parts-intensive (and therefore usually cheaper!), but also because of the challenge. Making an accurate model while retaining a modicum of structural integrity is not always easy. And on top of that, they need to fit a minifigure pilot! Or a battle droid, in this case. This is where parts like the wands from Harry Potter sets come in handy. Once I picked up a couple of those and the candle-stick pieces to form the cannons of these Single Trooper Aerial Platforms (STAPs), the rest of the build flowed quickly from there. It’s funny how one or two pieces can dictate the entirety of a build, even small ones.