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.

Clone troopers vs. battle droids in landscape-focused LEGO Star Wars build

Noah (h2brick) is back with another Star Wars build, this time focused on the planet of Utapau featured in Revenge of the Sith. The colors of the bricks are great and mesh well together, separating the different areas. The mini-story that’s playing out between the customer clone troopers and the battle droids is a fun touch; maybe we’ll see General Kenobi falling into the water soon. While I lot of LEGO creations are framed with tiles, Noah chose to have the water and rocks continue down and away from the build, keeping it more organic.

This time-lapse is a great look at how Noah’s build came together. If you’re interested in learning more about how to make your own LEGO creations (especially for landscaping), you need to watch this.

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

Building an Iron Man Gauntlet? It’s a snap! (maybe)

Building large-scale movie prop replicas actually isn’t easy at all, but Flickr builder Claudio Tavella makes it look like a snap. This 702-piece, Infinity-Gem-laden Iron Man gauntlet looks every bit as impressive as the real thing. There’s even a great video of it, showing off the full “in the round” view. My favorite details are the curve at the wrist and the transparent cheese slopes as the gems. And, of course, that movie-accurate “snapping” pose. Getting human shaping like that to read correctly is another tricky thing to reproduce well.

It feels like this would be a great companion set to the upcoming 7619 Infinity Gauntlet. We can only hope that when and if LEGO takes its own stab at this, the results are equally stellar.

Built for the fearless adventurer

Spaceship! I will always react that way to any swooshable model starcraft. Builders love to show off their knowledge of the LEGO system by the way they mold and craft the shapes of their starships. In addition, the eye-catching detail, or greeble, they add shows off some of their brick collection as well as their ingenuity in representing the elements of a spaceship. In this wonderful model, Starfighter Intrepid, builder seb71 shows off some of their skill.

Having a history of well-crafted spaceships, seb71 has brought us an eye-catching, sand-green design highlighted with white plates and tiles built cleverly into the wings and body. If you look at the structure of the Intrepid closely, you can see the various orientations the builder used to achieve their desired design. The stickers seb71 used add just the right amount of extra detail. I love the large white slopes in the wings, often used in the Imperial Shuttle sets. They work perfectly with the structure as well as the color-blocking.

Read on to see more views of this fantastic spaceship

Who’s that guy with the big, big head?

M.O.D.O.K. — Mechanized Organism Designed Only for Killing. Easily one of the most distinctive Marvel villains out there. And boy is he out there. Anyway, this uniquely shaped baddie is given his just due in LEGO thanks to Big Easy Bricks. I’m particularly fond of the nested arch/curved slopes to form his signature grimace, as well as the range of motion provided by those Mixel ball joints in the arms. The clouds of jet exhaust are also smartly rendered, with some nice use of 1×1 dome tile to create interesting texture.

M.O.D.O.K. also looks great “in the round”. The rear-facing engine and the ridges of his chair are both very nice, and the use of Hero Factory armor for the shoulder pads scales up perfectly.

One of the best things about the popularity of Marvel characters is all the great LEGO creations that are inspired by them. Check out our archives for more stellar builds!

“Deploy the sentinels!” in this Matrix LEGO build

This Matrix-themed LEGO build from Claudio Tavella is a solid, energetic build. The sentinel (aka “Squiddy”) is feared in The Matrix, and it comes across here in the flexible tenticles and red eyes in the center of the body. With the way it’s built, you can pose the tenticles however you want.

“A Sentinel for every man, woman, and child in Zion. That sounds *exactly* like the thinking of a machine to me.” – Morpheus

I appreciate a good display stand, and Claudio knocks it out of the park. The black base is sleek, features a custom sticker, and has a transparent pillar to connect the model. The atypical top of the base is a nice touch, giving it some more visual interest without drawing too much attention.

Bag Tag Dice Lad

The LEGO Dots line has introduced some fun printed studs and colorful pieces to play around with. This year they introduced bag tag sets with a new cube element. In the past, they’ve had 2×2 stud cubes used in games as the dice, but this newer cube is 3×3 studs, allowing for more detail. Though the beveled, angular edges of the element can provide some challenges to integrating it into a model, builder nobu_tary shows us the character it can lend to a brick-built figure.

This little guy’s colorful head is detailed with tiles and modified studs while the body is built upside down, attaching to the studs on the bottom of the bag tag cube. Simple use of a slope and a curved top stud attached to bricks with studs on the side help give the impression of an arm. The same side-studded bricks are used to attach the Macaroni Technic tubes and 1×2 plates that make up the cute little legs. The angle nobu_tary shot this photo at helps conceal the attachment for the bag tag ring clip, which could either make or break a model because of the asymmetry it adds to the cube element. Nonetheless, creative positioning, as well as color blocking between the figure and the seat help nobu_tary, build an adorable little character that reminds me of the Wood Man from Netflix’s Hilda. Something about the character’s expression just reminds me of the Wood Man bursting in unannounced to peoples’ homes. Maybe this is Dice Lad, a relative of sorts, that appears to moderate board games, whether you like it or not.

Find more of nobu_tary’s builds on Flickr or Instagram (@nobu_tary) or check out some more characters by other builders!

This tree is deer to me.

Have you seen the film Annihilation? It’s one of my favorites; a great mix of storytelling and really gorgeous (if disquieting) visuals. alex-mocs has perfectly captured the eerie beauty of biologic mutation seen there with their creation The Shimmer. There’s some very creative work in the base, with animal-oriented LEGO elements melded seamlessly into the greenery. The star of the show, though, is the central tree/deer creature. My favorite touch is the Bionicle ball-joint connector that forms the mouth. You can almost hear the sound this being is making, but is it a cry of pain or celebration? Like most things in the Shimmer, it’s really hard to say for sure.

The biologic themes of this creation are very apt, considering this was an entry to the Bio-Cup challenge. Check out our archives for more featured builds inspired by that contest!

Taking LEGO Great Ball Contraptions to the 5th level [Video]

Great Ball Contraptions (GBCs) are one of the most fascinating and mesmerizing pieces of LEGO art out there. GBC layouts at any convention will always enjoy an onslaught of wonderstruck fans. But what those fans may not know is that many LEGO GBC modules were inspired by one person. Of course, not all of them – there’s tons of originality in the hobby. That said, a household name amongst GBC enthusiasts is Akiyuki. His incredible designs have been the inspiration for hundreds of builds. Now he’s back with an incredible new creation, his “Five Tilted Rings” module.

Click to watch the video of it in action!

A whale of a Jeep Rubicon

The ever-popular Iron Builder competition is heating up like Georgia asphalt in July and we’re pretty thrilled. Our friend and recent The Brothers Brick alumni Benjamin Stenlund is climbing the summit with this delightful little Jeep Rubicon. The seed part was used four times here along the fenders. But to me, that isn’t even the most exciting part. Did you wonder how I came up with the title? Well, it turns out Benjamin used two Duplo whales, a big one and a little one, as part of the rock formations. That’s some brilliant parts usage right there! Good parts usage is the reason Benjamin has been featured a lot lately. Rooting for the other guy? He’s no slouch either. Then check out how Grant Davis is measuring up.

Beep and Sweep: A robot’s guide to mopping floors

Looks like there is a lot of cleaning to do for this poor robot, as Benjamin Stenlund astounds us again with another encapsulating scene. It’s great to see a fully enclosed build, like this, with atmospheric lighting, which suggests that this display has a story to tell. The model is an entry in the Iron Builder contest with the current challenge being to build a model featuring sand blue spoilers. These spoiler pieces appear not only on the robot but also in the fans and the lights on the walls.

Ursula’s tentacles have been cleverly used as the mop head with the handle made out of candlestick pieces. I love the idea that even in a futuristic hangar, they still require a mop and bucket to clean the floors. Check out more articles on Benjamin’s stunning builds.

Ancient garage door pillars

This creation by Eli Willsea may or may not be inspired by the LEGO 10276 Colosseum. They are similar when it comes to architecture, color scheme, the lovely foliage and last but not least, columns! The columns in Eli’s creation are made of garage doors. There are three orders of Greek architecture (Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian). To these the Romans the Tuscan and the Composite. Since these columns look quite simple my guess is they are either Doric or Tuscan. Next to the exquisite part usage on the columns, the color scheme of this creation is quite remarkable. Most of the colors are earthy tones except for the yellow tree foliage which really pops!

Impressive life-size LEGO skeletons

Don’t be rattled by these life-size LEGO skeletons from Tomáš Kašpařík (“Chairudo”) (Skull design by Matthias Richter). The size of this build is impressive, to say the least, and it’s even more impressive that the sculptures can be moved and put into different poses. These are some white LEGO bricks that I do NOT want to yellow out. Scale aside, it’s amazing how much detail Tomášis able to achieve with a single color, from the joints to the ribcage to the skull.

A humerus joke must have tickled their funny bones in this pose.