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.

Medieval technical masterpiece

What would have happened if a medieval city grew as dense as modern cities? Ralf Langer builds us a picture of what it might have been like with this set of wonderful LEGO medieval buildings. Now I will confess up front that I’m not much of a medieval buff so I’m sure I would butcher any attempt to discuss the historical accuracy of these buildings. That said, what I do know is building techniques. And this is full of them! One of my favorites is the use of brown tread links to create the wooden supports slotting in between the curved white slopes of the walls. The rock work on the lower walls in superb as well, Ralf does a great job creating fairly random structure that gives great depth. Great stuff here, and it’s worth checking this out in greater detail!

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Explore the cosmos with Captain Future!

Eric Druon lovingly recreates the Cosmo-Liner spacecraft from the 1978 anime Captain Future. The ship is really cool, from both a design and LEGO model perspective, bringing to mind visions of a deep-sea diving vessel. The viewport of the ship is hexagonal as if it’s destined to be made of LEGO! This calls for the use of the transparent blue canopy from the 2000 Artic LEGO toy line. The color palette of the ship is simple and quite clean, letting the canopy shine as the focal point. Looking at the design, I can’t help but think the original designers were inspired by TIE fighters. Star Wars premiered a year before the anime aired, leaving room enough for the artists to be inspired by that hit movie. Regardless of the ship’s origin, this build is inspiring in its own right!

Fun fact, the anime was based on the pulp sci-fi character Captain Future. The character’s original adventures were published in the eponymous pulp magazine from 1940 to 1944. The anime was imported into many countries and was particularly successful in France. It was in France that the character’s name changed to Capitaine Flam.

This Pacific Rim mech is ready to avenge

Giant hulking robots are always fun to see in LEGO form. Psyro TtunTomato has built this awesome version of Gypsy Avenger from Pacific Rim Uprising movie. The model has a muscular design with a slender waist section, all presented in a clean-looking dark blue colour scheme. The golden eye area is cleverly represented by a textured circular brick. While it is in a bit of an odd position, a bike chassis is used to form the crotch of the mech.

A trans-orange wheel rim portrays the machine’s powerful generator at the chest. When it is time for the final strike against a monster, the mech comes equipped with a chain sword which is represented by a blade first featured in the Nexo Knight sets.

Gardening on the go

As spring full sets in with showers and sunshine, carpets of grass and beds of budding flowers thrive. This clever garden and cargo tricycle by Mel Finelli celebrate the spirit of the season perfectly with a ton of green. Using a ton of repeated elements and minifigure headpieces, Mel not only made some lovely garden beds but also tools, a watering can, and a whole tricycle with its own bed of thriving plant babies.

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Even in the future, it’s all about marketing.

Sebastian Bachórzewski shows us a glimpse of the future with this one block stretch of a cyberpunk city. Futuristic flourishes like the hover police car and the archway made from curved gear racks immediately catch the eye. But Sebastian went above and beyond by creating a working video billboard. Sebastian loaded a phone with custom advertisements made in Procreate and then slotted that into the side of the building.

When the city is all lit up, that billboard helps give this future scene an incredibly modern touch.

A handy pile of stone and machinery

This latest build by Dark Small is quite the manual smattering of LEGO pieces. While no individual part feels quite at home in the creation, they come together to form five mechanical digits reaching for the sky. It’s impressive how, even while creating the distinctive hand shape in such an irregular manner, Dark Small still manages to enable such realistic posing of the fingers. As a result, the build comes off far more organic than it’s rocky and nuts-and-bolts make-up suggests. Combine the main piece with a killer background consisting of more mechano-terrain and some delicate flowers, and I’ve got to hand it to them: this is one impressive scene!

Tiny tall tales

Working with a limited number of LEGO pieces can be a real challenge, but builder Dan Ko rises to meet it with this tiny but awesome build! Building with as few pieces as possible really pushes you to get creative on how to represent your subject, and Dan shows us the way with all the clever parts usage. For example, minifigure skater helmets make up Alice’s shoulders while mugs make up her hair. Orange leaves stand in for the Mad Hatter’s hair sticking out from under his hat. I love the use of shuttle bay doors for the book’s pages! Minifigure hands make up Rapunzel’s flowing hair, which acts as a bookmark of sorts for the open book. And there’s particularly crafty usage of the transparent handle as the heel of the glass slipper. Go ahead, take a closer look and see what wonders you’ll find among these tales!

Sailing across the wild blue yonder

Here, Markus Ronge presents a brilliant LEGO series of microscale Steampunk-inspired flying ships based on minifig scale versions he’d previously made. Each one brings something different, but what brought this to my attention was how each build is nearly two-dimensional in design. That can bring its own challenges, but Markus has afforded each build remarkable detail, and the brick-built clouds against the sky blue background really accentuate these builds.

Above we have the Skytanic on a majestic voyage. The gold highlights on this royal yacht add that extravagance you’d expect to see in a luxury liner, as do the white, red and black colours.
There’s something pleasing about the angled smoke stack, too, as the vessel gently charts its journey across the seven skies…

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One guy, one cup: On Stranger Tides indeed

So there’s that moment when you go on a mega-pint bender and wake up next to a pile of your own poo only to realize the poo is not your own after all but rather it belongs to your estranged ex-spouse. I know what you’re thinking; we’ve all been there, right? Right? Well, according to his deposition, Johnny Depp/Jack Sparrow has. (They’re interchangeable, really.) I’d wager that LEGO meme generator and The Brothers Brick alumn Iain Heath probably has as well because he’s a hard-partying dude. Leave it to Iain to have his wine-soaked, dubiously smelling finger on the pulse of what is hot at any given moment! Whether you’ve been following this fiasco or not, you gotta admit Iain tickles our funny bone. Find out what we mean by clicking the little blue link if you dare.

Stitch of the purple dolphins

There are lots of interesting techniques to see in this model! Logan W has built this impressive model of Stitch from the Lilo and Stitch franchise. Two dolphins have been cleverly incorporated into the design, representing the purple insides of Stitch’s ears. There are more aquatic parts used in the model such as a large clamshell for the lower jaw and flippers at the arms. Black knit caps portray the adorable pupils of the character with Admiral Thrawn’s hair used as the nose. The legs are formed of stumpy wings, featured in the Mario penguin costume. It’s a great build that perfectly captures Stitch’s cheeky personality and proportions.

Minifigs galore from the Hundred Years’ War

Travel back in time with this LEGO battle scene from the Hundred Years’ War by builder Hunter Erickson. This build depicts the Battle of Poitiers, fought between the French and the English in the year 1356. This was but one of many clashes in this series of armed conflicts fought over the French throne. Edward, the Black Prince, led the English forces in this battle, while King Jean II led the French forces. This LEGO scene depicts the battle much the same an artist would have painted the event at the time of the conflict. Layering the background, the sky behind some brick-built hills achieves a great forced perspective. I just love the colors of the plates and bricks making up the rising dawn! The scene is densely packed with minifigures engaged in deadly combat. In blue are the French, fighting to push back the ever-advancing troops of the English. And waving across the battle from the mounted soldier is St. George’s flag, wonderfully rendered with round plates, studs, and clips to capture cloth in motion.

The outcome of this battle will side with the English, despite the two-to-one odds against them. King Jean II was captured, along with one of his sons. Their ransom and the peace talks would take another four years to complete, but eventually, hostilities ceased in 1360 with the Treaty of Bretigny. England regained Aquitaine, was paid the ransom for Jean II and his son, and renounced the claim on the French throne. However, this peace was fleeting–hostilities resumed ten years later, continuing the Hundred Years’ War.

Massive 100000+ piece MCRN Donnager Hangar

Spaceships and LEGO are partners to the end. Fans have been dreaming up their own versions of their favorite ships, fictional or real, since before LEGO picked up Star Wars. Builder Mocking_brick combines their love of The Expanse with LEGO to create massive, minifigure scale ships from the series. Though these spacecraft are already immense on their own, Mocking_brick felt like pushing the limits of the building program, Stud.io, by making gigantic scenes as backdrops for their creations. This scene exceeds 100000 pieces all on its own, showing off the hangar bay of the MCRN Donnager prior to its destruction. Housed inside this minifigure-scale creation are the damaged Knight shuttle (which held the survivors of the Canterbury ice freighter) and the MCRN Tachi (which would become the legitimate salvage, the Rocinante).

While James Holden and his rag-tag crew of rebels caused issues for the Martian crew of the Donnager, their seized shuttle sat in the hangar with the formidable frigate that would become the Rocinante. After digitally building these ships to minifigure scale, Mocking_brick created separate renderings for the different parts of the background. The background was fleshed out first, as it was a repetitive but satisfying element for the builder to develop.

After building out both walls and partnering them with the Tachi, Mocking_brick moved on to the base and the maintenance rig. Already at 63,000 pieces, this next section added another 40,000 pieces and tested the limits of the Stud.io program and their computer.

This builder has an unmatched dedication to this fandom and I, for one, am here for it. I mean, the attention to detail that Mocking_brick puts into their ships goes above and beyond anything I’ve seen. I can’t wait to see what else they manage to finish. Given the size of their creations, it makes sense that they jump around projects for a little while. Patience is a virtue, though, and these builds are worth the wait.