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 floating castle under glass

This microscale castle by Jaap Bijl (jaapxaap) is a miniature version of their full-scale build from 2018. Fitting snugly under a glass dome, this tiny wonder is full of fun details like golden unicorn spire-toppers and an icy base. There’s also complex building going on with the inversion of part orientations and somehow supporting the castle’s weight on just a couple of tiny minifigure ski poles. This creation is a great display piece, a tiny moment of wonder preserved for all time.

If miniaturization is your jam, check out our microscale tag for more tiny goodness!

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Fiendishly fearsome fantasy figure

Beyond Japan, Yōkai are often assumed to be demons, but the word actually translates as “strange apparition” and these mystical spirits are not always malevolent. Having said that, Rockmonster2000‘s LEGO yōkai figure looks pretty mean! The stance, the stare, that weapon — they all strongly suggest this beastie is about to unleash some diabolical mayhem. There’s quite the mix of parts involved in this character — I spy regular System bricks, Technic panels, and Bionicle and Knights Kingdom pieces. That braided piece of clothing around the midriff looks like a shoelace to me — I do hope it’s an official LEGO one from 10282! My favourite detail though, that has to be use of the bucket-handles as clasps on the sandal buckles. Lovely stuff.

A Classic Space Paraflyer is a fun way to travel

LEGO builder David Roberts tells us the Classic Space Paraflyer is a fun way to travel over planets with any form of atmosphere. I’m inclined to agree, not based on my own experience, but based on the expression of the little space minifigure’s face. I mean, look how happy he is! You can’t be melancholy with a face like that. In fact, every last minifigure produced from 1978 to 1989 had this same exact smiley face. Whether they were robbing banks or laying up in a hospital bed they were damned happy to do it! While we may feature massive spaceships and elaborate castles, sometimes it is the little things that speak to us the most.

David’s fun little builds have spoken to us on several occasions. Here are all the times that we listened.

A really cool tree next to a nice house

Yes, the building is a work of art but have you seen this incredible tree? LEGO builder Ayrlego shared a recent creation with us, the Villa. Plant life, thy name is beauty. Just look at that tree! It might take the cake as the most realistic LEGO deciduous tree I’ve ever seen. The vine work is also fantastic with the way it crawls across the roof. I also admire the small potted plants and the garden shrubbery. It’s all a testament to Ayrlego’s skill with bricks.

Of course, where would this creation be without the villa itself? I mentioned that it’s a work of art because it truly is, incorporating styles from American Colonial to Spanish Mission. Though the lore behind Ayrlego’s creation is fantasy, one could easily see such a villa existing somewhere in the early days of North American settlement.

Octopus time! An alternate build for LEGO 31203 World Map [Instructions]

The Brothers Brick contributor Chris Doyle is back with more mosaic madness! This time, he’s reworked the LEGO Art 31203 World Map into a vibrant octopus. He also shares the instructions necessary to build this version of the World Map yourself. You know. If you want to.

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The pieces are rare, the build is well done.

One of the joys of the online LEGO community is getting to see what other people build, but sometimes it’s just as fun to get to see what other people build with. That’s why this spaceship from Isaac Snyder caught my eye so quickly. I couldn’t immediately place the red fins that contribute to this ship’s retro-futurism aesthetic.

The tapering curve looks like something from a rocket designed in the 1950s. But what sets are those pieces from? Thankfully, Isaac shared the answer. Turns out they’re part of the Znap theme that LEGO launched back in the late 90s. A relic of another time that I had completely forgotten about. And Isaac has put them to perfect use in this swooshable starfighter.

LEGO elements have been in production for decades, and it’s unlikely that any builder has a collection that contains every part from every era. Let us know your favorite obscure element from outside the main LEGO themes that you like to build with.

This massive mech is ready to do some serious damage

LEGO builder Blair Archer has created this fantastic model, armed with a mixture of cannons, missile launchers, Gatling guns and more. The build has an aggressive, militaristic appearance which is reminiscent of the mechs featured in the Metal Gear franchise. The huge missile launchers at the shoulders appear to be using red projectiles, from the Bionicle Mahri sets, as rockets. In order to create the Gatling guns at the centre of the model, Blair has cleverly used tyres stretched around bar parts. The central laser or camera is represented by the reverse side of a lipstick piece, creating a fearsome retical.

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Travel under the sea with this LEGO mermaid

This LEGO Ariel from qian yj is full of character and vibrant colors. Right away we’re drawn to the mermaid’s emerald eyes, with a surprising dimensionality. The way that the fish are swimming around the middle of the frame adds motion to the scene, along with the stingray on the bottom. The sea urchin on the bottom right look amazing, and the green seaweed serves as a great background element.

There’s an art to this build.

This amazing stylized character build of Persona 5’s Ann Takamaki by Joseph Zawada pushes the limits of LEGO art in impressive ways. The offset round tiles in the hair highlights suggest an entirely new style of mosaic building, and the use of negative space in the mouth to create thin lines and shapes not possible with existing brick is an inspired move. I also have to note the creative part usage in the eyes; I’ve spotted everything from minifigure hands to flex tubing. Truly, this is a work of art.

Check our our art tag for even more examples of great creative expression in the plastic brick medium.

Those scrappy Rebels

The Rebels in Episode IV of Star Wars were really a rag-tag bunch of freedom fighters, and their equipment was largely hand-me-down dilapidated old tech. LEGO builder Abe Fortier is showing us a side that we don’t often see though, of the Rebels scrapping out a ship that’s no longer spaceworthy. Abe pulled the Y-wing design from Star Wars ship-master Jerac, but gave it a cool twist with disassembled sections and of course, a portion of the Massassi outpost on Yavin 4 that the Rebels turned into a base.

The MK II Cylon Raider makes a swooshable comeback

2004 was quite the time. It was the year we fathomed the possibility that some of our friends and neighbors just might be Cylons thanks to Battlestar Galactica. Hot on the tail of that pivotal TV series, Rubblemaker has built a minifig scale LEGO MKII Cylon Raider. He’s captured the bat-like shaping and complex curves nicely. It’s been a while since we’ve seen Cylon Raiders here on The Brothers Brick so it’s neat, in a sense, when someone builds something long after its relevance has peaked. There are a lot of great new parts that weren’t available to us back when seeing a slew of these at LEGO conventions was as ubiquitous as used Toyotas. The builder tells us this model is 32.5cm long and 20cm wide and is made of 656 pieces, including the stand. It is also highly swooshable, which is important stuff when building LEGO spaceships.

Now, what is that song I hear? It’s like a weird version of All Along the Watchtower. Do you hear it? Maybe it’s just the bourbon. Or is it? While you’re mulling that over check out more Battlestar Galactica stuff in our archives.

LEGO model of the cabin from Sweet Tooth is the perfect place to wait out the apocalypse

The main character in Sweet Tooth, a new Netflix series based on a comic book, is a boy who is a human/animal hybrid born in the midst of a global pandemic. His caregiver Pubba makes a secluded home in the woods to raise the deer boy in safety, hiding from surviving humans who resent the existence of hybrids. Norton74, who is a master of building cabins in the woods, put his skills to great use in re-creating the dilapidated cabin that Pubba has spent considerable time and effort to repair and add on all the comforts a growing deer-boy needs, including a place to play “catch the ball”. Aside from the wonderful details in the cabin itself, the inclusion of a buck in the background is perfect.