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.

Check out this colourful cyber samurai

This is one to watch out for on the battlefield! Eero Okkonen has taken inspiration from the Monkie Kid sets with the vibrant colours featured in this build. Yellow curved tubes (AKA macaroni) form part of the character’s wide helmet with red claws portraying horns. The fingers are actually skeleton arms and the windscreens in dark turquoise are perfect for creating the samurai’s armour skirting. The futuristic design is completed by the use of trans red at the knees, arm shields and in the sword. It’s an eye-catching model where you can tell Eero has taken time to analyse parts from the Monkie Kid theme in order to apply the pieces in inventive ways.

Polymer Samurai

Bobbo the Babbler built from bricks

One of the challenges of moving to Finland for me has been picking up the language – I am finding it rather difficult to get my head around it. One of the suggestions that has been put to me is to watch children’s TV shows, and after seeing this build by Mikael Montelius (Gonkius), I may have found one to do just that! This adorable character is called Bobbo, and is one of six characters in the educational show Babblarna (‘the Babblers’). It’s originally a Swedish show, but does apparently have versions in Finnish, as well as English, German and Norwegian. Bobbo here is a high-energy character with an occasionally fiery temper. He also likes to dance, and Mikael has captured him mid-boogie! The red windscreen pieces are the perfect choice to capture his circular shape, and the half-circle tile used for his tooth, along with the eye tiles, gives him oodles of character.

Gossipus Norvegicus

Apparently I have this thing for LEGO birds. Sometimes they tend to be really realistic, other times they look more cartoonized. These two little cuties by Lars Barstad are more on the cartoonized side of the spectrum They apparently are called Gossip Birds and they tend to come in pairs. Unlike turtle doves, these birds do not symbolise love and affection. These two represent the tittle-tattle, the rumors and the whispers. They are dishing the dirt, spilling the tea. Whatever you might call it, they are game for it! My guess is they are currently telling all the latest scandals about who used the Dr Strange cape as flower petals first.

Gossip birds

An elegant exercise in plating built with LEGO plates

There’s just something extra sweet about these amazing chocolate (well, LEGO) confections from Jaroslaw Walter. Minimalist in their builds, they instantly evoke a $50 a plate Michelin Star dessert course. Let’s start off with some musical highlights. The treble clefs used here first appeared in Trolls sets as minifigure accessories, and the stave (the lines from the sheet music) might be from the equally soothing 10281 Bonsai Tree.

dessert

Drizzled in dark chocolate round plate, decorated with white-chocolate dipped berries made from Lion Dance eyes, this tiny cake hints at a taste of lavender from its lilac minifigure washtub base.

dessert

Have room for just one more? Might we suggest these tiny slices of heaven served on red balloon panels? Don’t forget to taste the dark-blue vine garnish.

dessert

As much as we’d like to eat all of these…probably best to recognize that LEGO bricks aren’t digestible. So don’t eat your bricks, kiddos. You’ll just regret it. And probably run up some insane hospital bills, to boot.

A dragon that’s both sci-fi and fantasy

This blaster-wielding LEGO dragon by builder Sandro Quattrini is a glorious mix of D&D and cyberpunk. The sculpting on the figure is exquisite, as we’ve come to expect from Sandro. The visor design feels both like it belongs to Geordi La Forge and the Mouth of Sauron. I love the use of these 12-tooth gears for the dragon’s teeth. And the feather pieces making up his goatee are wonderful. Combine that grin with the attitude conveyed in the figure’s pose, and the message is clear: no one in sci-fi or fantasy tells this guy what to do!

Dragon Hunter

And before I go, we’re just going to have to talk about that blaster! Much like the figure, the gun incorporates the mechanical and biological into a single design. The use of the red Dragon Masters horse helmet is particularly nice. Of particular note is how Sandro has used minifig hands here. While on the top of the weapon, they provide a natural flow indicating a dragon’s spine. However, on the underside of the barrel, they’re used in a rigid line, in keeping with the artificial aspects of the blaster. Two sides of the same part.

Dragon Hunter's Blaster

Merrily the hobbits roll along

Frodo, Sam, Pippin, and the newly joined Merry travel by ferry in this LEGO vignette by Thorsten Bonsch. This series from Thorsten follows the first part of The Fellowship of the Ring. Here, we see the four primary hobbits traveling across the Brandywine River into Buckland. The color palette of this build is outstanding, allowing each detail to stand on its own among the others. When it comes to the building techniques, the roofing tiles on the structure draw my eye. It’s a simple technique, but quite effective. It’s just tiles on plates, but the tiles aren’t pressed down on the raised end. The rest of the structure is cool too, with the disheveled layers and angled brown supports. This is one of those locations in a LEGO build that I would love to visit if it were a real place. I would listen to the sounds of the lapping water on the riverbank and the nocturnal sounds of nature around the river.

07. The Ferry

This scene you may recognize from the movie as well, with a Ringwraith bearing down on the hobbits. In the book, upon which this vignette is based, this scene had less pressure on it. The book takes a lot longer to get Frodo and company out of the Shire, but there’s only so long they can take with a movie runtime to consider. Either version, the wraith takes the long way over Brandywine Bridge. Silly Ringwraith, shortcuts are for hobbits!

This LEGO bloom turns a magical artifact upside down

Some new LEGO Botanical Collection sets are dropping just in time for Mother’s Day, and they seem to have planted the seeds of creativity in the larger LEGO community. Dawn Sloboda, from LEGO Masters Season 2, brings us this single bloom with a magical twist. Dr. Strange’s Cloak of Levitation gets put to use to make some of the best petals we’ve seen on any LEGO flower. Here’s hoping Dawn didn’t have to endure any multiversal dangers to get her hands on four cloaks.

Smooth seas don’t make good builders

I’m sure we’d all like to have LEGO collections full of pristine bricks. The reality though is that they are not infallible, and sometimes we’ll come across a broken LEGO element and think it is good for no more than the trash. But as Josh (Sergeant Chipmunk) demonstrates with this underwater scene, broken bits of LEGO do still have a use! In this case, a selection of flex tubes that have seen better days are used to represent a broken mast in a sunken ship. The rest of the scene is equally is good – the shaping of the ship’s hull is great, and the rockwork poking through the bow makes it clear it has been beneath the waves for a long time. Those waves, incidentally, are made up of tiles and clips that allow for a wavy shape that, while fragile, gives a good impression of a sea in gentle motion.

Treacherous Shoals

Swallow kite in black and white

I tend to build in minifigure scale. Therefore I am mostly drawn to other builders’ creations built on the same scale too. However this beautiful Chinese kite creation by Dicken Liu caught my eye. Limiting themselves to using only black and white for the kite, and brown for the kite rod. I am by no means an expert when it comes to Chinese culture, but a quick google leads me to believe this creation is inspired by a traditional swallow kite. I love the use of bats and curved plant stems for decoration. But what I like most is how the decoration on the wings reminds me of the plant plate piece. Also have you spotted the Mickey brick used as a blob of paint?

Spring-01

Terror of the Cretaceous seas

Two and a half years in the making, builder Cornbuilder gives us an awesome LEGO representation of a prehistoric terror. Meet the Tylosaurus Proriger, one of the largest known specimens of mosasaur. The average length of these mosasaurs was between 12-15 meters. To put that into perspective, the biggest predator in present-day oceans is the orca, which measures around 5-8 meters. Tylosaurus is nearly twice the size of an orca, and Cornbuilder captures this immensity beautifully!

King of the Seas

A great amount of care is shown in the seamless lines and curves of the creature itself. The studs along the surface lend a scaly texture to its skin. This predator is both beautiful and terrifying to behold! Below, sea life as it may have appeared in the Cretaceous Era plays out. With the coral, fish, sharks, and other aquatic life, the Tylosaurus looks even more intimidating and massive. Count me out of any Cretaceous diving expeditions!

Speeding through the desert

This high speed LEGO speeder bike by Charlie screams fast! Bright red and sleek, the bike stands out from the rocky desert landscape below. Not that you would be able to see the landscape going at these speeds! While it doesn’t use a lot of parts, they are all well-chosen and flow together nicely. I especially like the use of the white rubber bands as pin striping while also acting as structure. The rocky ground below is also a wonderful combination of brick-built chunks and loose parts which give a very organic feel and accentuates the bike well. I’m always a fan of terrain to complete and build and this does a great job!

The RED Snake II

The great city of Sundari, Mandalore, beautifully recreated in LEGO form

Mandalore is described with domed cities littering the landscape and here, James Taylor captures the interior of one such City using LEGO perfectly in this sweeping cityscape from Star Wars. If like me, you are an ardent fan of the Clone Wars this is an instantly recognisable view of the Capital, Sundari, from the view of Mandalorians as they approach and slowly descend through the City to the Royal Palace. Take a look at just how James has captured the depth of the buildings here!

Sundari City

I love how, beyond varying techniques, James has used sizing of LEGO parts to introduce depth to the scene. In the foreground, James has used larger bricks and plates to capture the near buildings’ mix of geometric patterns that is a trademark of Mandalorian architecture. It turns into smaller plate builds for the buildings in the mid-ground, whilst still capturing the sleek lines and heavy use of 1×2 transparent plates to show the tall windows that are seen throughout the locale. Finally, serving as a backdrop to the scene, the grand design of the great doors to the Royal Palace is on full display and is put together with some nice building techniques to capture the delicate lines needed. Surrounding the doors, James has again stepped down to the smallest pieces to add crucial detail to the far cityscape again using various techniques to really set this incredible scene both in front of the doors and up to the sides.