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.

Italy-stay home, stay strong

We are living in truly strange and uncertain times. There is a silver lining amid this global pandemic lockdown though. Most nations are reporting cleaner air, cleaner water, and nature sort of healing itself. I, for one, am enjoying hearing more birds and frogs and seeing stars in the night sky for the first time in quite a while. And I don’t know about you but my car is getting a solid four weeks to the gallon! However, First Order Lego also sees a glimmer of hope, as do most of us, in a return back to normalcy.

A plane in the sky is becoming an increasingly rarer sight these days and it looks rather awe-inspiring in this composition. The low-angle view is well-suited here and I really enjoy the colors and textures of these balconies. Italy has been hard hit with the pandemic so this builder was inspired to build balconies with a Mediterranean feel complete with numerous plants. Italy, and the rest of the world, let’s stay home, stay strong and, if we listen to our healthcare officials, we should be back to normalcy in due time.

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One of them there Tetrahedral Planetoids we’ve heard so much about

What you’re looking at is one of them there Tetrahedral Planetoids we’ve heard so much about in the sci-fi funny pages. Leave it to Simon Liu to wrap his noggin around a thing most of us can’t even pronounce much less think about. But Simon has one of those creative noggins and a knack to put it to use in LEGO. Math is beautiful, he tells us. I’ll take his word for it as my own mathematical results vary from “that just about makes sense” to…”now what in tarnation were you thinking, boy?” This piece is an exercise in both symmetry and monochromic applications. It was inspired by M.C. Escher who also has one of them creative noggins that can make math look beautiful.

Ilum, home to Kyber crystals and Imperials

Poland’s Jan T. has built an icy LEGO recreation of Ilum from Star Wars: Fallen Order and it’s an action-packed stage with a story to tell!

I have to admit I’ve never played the game but this model caught my eye for its boundary-breaking snowy clumps hanging off the edge of the edges of the scene. The stark gray face of the Imperial lair utilizes interesting paneling and some absolutely gorgeous cutaways reveal piping running through the walls. I also love the probe droid floating menacingly nearby.

Not content with only half the action, Jan has also included a backside to the stout Imperial fortress wall complete with an adorable little BD-1 hacking into a security droid.

Need more BD-1 in your life? We shared instructions from one of our favorite builders hachokoru24!

A rare and luxurious treasure

To be honest, when I chose to write this, I had heard of Fabergé Eggs but knew nothing of their history. I quickly learned that these aren’t just a generic tradition of creating fancy eggs. They are incredibly rare — as in, the original “Imperial Eggs” are each one-of-a-kind and worth millions of dollars. Ironically, LEGO versions of the eggs, like this one built by Marion Weintraut, are possibly even more rare. Of course, not being worth millions could be due to the fact that they aren’t loaded with actual gold and precious stones. Still, this one-of-a-kind piece is indeed regal and elegant!

There is something so royal and appealing about blue and gold! A couple of the real ones followed the same combo. Once upon a time, we discovered another LEGO Fabergé egg with a sweet story behind it. While totally different, it was just a pretty!

Winter, spring, summer, or fall

Vivaldi’s Le quattro stagioni is one of the most renowned pieces of music in the world, and served as newcomer ArmoredBricks’ inspiration for this moving (and moving!) LEGO model.

What sets this rendered model apart to me is not only the masterful instrument recreations but the titular seasons represented by small vignettes each crafted in their own clean, colorful way. Each one is such a clear personification of a season of the year. My favorite season vignette is the crooked, budding tree representing the spring season:

Check out the video below to see the full model in action accompanied by a sampling of the Spring concerti.

A stunning rendition of Venice’s St. Mark’s Basilica

With all that is going on in the world today, it makes me wonder if I’ll ever be able to travel again. Will I get to see Italy, with all of its beautiful architecture, from the Roman ruins to the Catholic cathedrals, in person? Maybe not; although, if airfare stays cheap, I might be able to afford it for once! But just in case I can’t make the trip myself, talented LEGO builders like Giacinto Consiglio bring a taste of Italy to me. In this case, it is St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice. The architectural beauty is lovingly crafted for us in microscale, perfect for tiny statuette tourists and worshipers.

These days, I find it increasingly difficult to differentiate between good renders and photos of real bricks, but does it really matter when the building is done so well? The tower is fantastic, especially the windows. The winged lion representing St. Mark over the entrance is also lovely, as are all of the other saint statues with One Ring golden halos. But my favorite detail has to be that rose window on the south facade, with excellent use of the newer arch piece. It’s the best rose window I have seen in LEGO, at any scale. Now to go buy my plane tickets to pay a visit to the real thing!

The heroes among us

I won’t lie, this is a scary image to me. Enough of my family (both chosen and biological) are in high-risk groups when it comes to COVID-19. Seeing a possible future, even “just” in LEGO form, is sobering. But this is also an inspirational image. Health care professionals are doing everything in their power to help, often at great personal risk. That, to me, is a level of heroism that deserves to be recognized. Builder Horhat Razvan shares my view, based on this creation. It is part of the Brickenburg Association and LEGO Certified Store Romania initiative #eroiidintrenoi. Which, as you may have guessed, means “the heroes among us.”

From a LEGO and photographic standpoint, I like the bright light and clean lines captured here. The bed looks completely functional, as does the supporting equipment. Printed tiles give just the right level of technical detail to the setting, and the use of a pneumatic T-piece for the ventilator is both apt and clever. Razvan says that they would have given the minfigures the correct protective gear, but they lacked those parts. (Shortages seem like a common theme, sadly.)

Even when this crisis passes, let’s all do our best to keep health care professionals in our highest regard. Because this is what they do. They care. Every day.

It must have been something I ate.

Sometimes it’s a challenge to keep things in perspective. Builder Ted Andes created a sharp-looking table out of LEGO, but called the image “EAT ME”. I wonder why? If you look closely you might spot a small clue…

Let’s take a another moment to appreciate that table, though. The legs are made from lampposts capped with eggs. The table runner has some clever building allowing for a half-plate rise over the tabletop, letting it read more like cloth. The use of gold-toned modified 1×1 round plates for tassels on the ends also works well. The rest of the room is also full of fun details. The vase is a Galaxy Squad Alien Pod in a pleasing shade of transparent purple. The windows are stained glass from the Brick Bank modular set.

At a meta-level, I do enjoy the juxtaposition of scales that Ted has used here. It’s a much larger build than you first expect, but still not human sized, so it’s still kind of small, but still big, and I think I need to go lie down now.

The early bird gets the worm

In the northern United States, at least, one of the first signs of spring is when the robins return. It is a day much beloved, a turning point when the cold and snow is gone and flowers are about to bloom. Of course, in many places the robins never actually leave, and snow never really comes, so it is less exciting, but I know as a kid growing up in Minnesota I loved to see that first robin. So, since it is spring where I live, and needing an idea for a contest entry, I (Benjamin Stenlund) built a robin coming back to the newly-hatched chicks in her nest. I am quite pleased with how it turned out, with the adult bird poised in mid-air with her flight feathers extended, feet ready to grasp the edge of the nest; and I think the nest itself turned out well, too.

The adult robin was fun to make, even if it is awful fiddling with those wings; they stay together just fine unless you jostle them, but moving the model from my building table to my photography station required some rebuilding. A round plate with bar built into her tail fits into a dinosaur neck twig to hold her in the air, just off the nest. The hardest part was the face and trying different solutions for the beak; I wanted to be able to put a worm in her mouth, but it would not look right with the parts I had, so I left it out and just used the spike. Lots of flex tubing went into the nest, but it was worth it for the un-LEGOy, organic shape of it. And when I ran out of flex tube, I used oars and blunderbusses and a variety of spikes and whips. To maximize the spring feeling, I added some flowers; perhaps cherry blossoms, maybe apple, or whatever pink flower you like to see on trees! I know it makes me want to get out of the basement where I build and go take a walk, at least.

Like bird builds? Here’s a sparrow and an owl for your viewing pleasure.

This brick built figure is a real Peach

Builder ZiO Chao has given a us a beautiful rendition of a somewhat obscure character from the Mario Universe, Peachette. She made her first appearance in New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe and is a unique form of another character but looks like Princess Peach. It’s all a bit confusing, but I digress.

This figure contains a lot of nice parts use and clever build techniques. The petals on her dress make use of the 4X4 with Bow brick combined with a few other types of curved bricks and plates to create a pleasing shape. The arms and puffy sleeves are nicely constructed and the modeling of the face and hair is detailed and full of character. The attention to detail includes perfect recreations of her unusual crown and trademark bow using the 1×1 heart tile. The pose is wonderful and really captures Peachette’s essence, bringing the whole character to life.

No more milling around!

I hear it all the time from would-be builders that they just don’t have enough pieces in their collections. “I can’t make anything cool,” they bemoan, as if having a billion LEGO elements at their disposal would make building easier. Now, in some respects, that is true; having more parts does expand the horizons of what you can build. But more importantly, building cool things comes from an eye for how to use the parts one has, rather than the parts one wishes one had, and a small collection is as good as a large one in that respect. Take this windmill by Inthert, for example. It’s not huge. It didn’t take a lot of parts. Granted, there are some specialty parts like the green palettes and the green feathers, but most of what is in the build could come from the collection of anyone who has a few sets. It’s in the art of arrangement, the way the parts are used, that the coolness comes. And that comes not from having a ton of bricks, but from using them a ton and getting familiar with them.

For example, who, having the fence piece, thinks to put it into the bottom of a jumper plate? Not I. And the tiny round tower, the artfully placed foliage of all sorts, the grille tile fence…the list of clever constructions goes on. And the little Heroica figures are just the cherry on top. And it did not take a billion bricks! So what are you waiting for? Go get your collection out and start building something, if you aren’t already. With this quarantine, I know you have time.

The X-47B UAV may have no pilot, but it still needs minifigures

During the war in Vietnam, the US Navy monitored the heart rates of some of their pilots. Flying though Hanoi’s air defenses understandably raised their pulse. However, their hearts went even faster at the end of the flight, when they had to land their jets on an aircraft carrier. These may be big for a ship, but they are very small for an airport. Unlike pilots, unmanned aircraft or ‘drones’ don’t have hearts and they are never tired. If a drone crashes or gets shot down, its pilot can’t get hurt or taken hostage. Instead, the operator is safely at his or her home base, in a comfortable chair in an air-conditioned container. So, it’s easy to see the attraction of unmanned aircraft. For the US Navy carrier landings remained a major hurdle, though. Enter the X-47B. Northrop Grumman built two of these weird-looking experimental jets, to demonstrate integrating unmanned combat aircraft into carrier operations. Between 2012 and 2014, the second of the two jets, nicknamed “Salty Dog 502”, performed several autonomous carrier landings and take-offs on three different aircraft carriers. At the time, the Navy expected to put unmanned combat aircraft into service in about five years’ time, but it has yet to happen.

Lately, I’ve been enjoying myself by building a series of LEGO models of experimental aircraft. Unusually, for me, these new models are mostly studless. I also built them to a scale for LEGO minifigures. Therefore there is a bit of irony in adding Salty Dog 502 to my collection. Not having to carve out space inside for a minifigure’s substantial rear end was a bit of a relief, though; I really struggled to fit a pilot in my YF-23. The X-47B is grey, much like operational US Navy aircraft. While its shape is certainly interesting, that is not enough for an attractive display. Fortunately, while the X-47 doesn’t need a pilot, it does require a ground crew to take care of it, like any other aircraft. So, I built a minifigure deck crew, as well as part of the deck and a small deck tractor to go with it. On US aircraft carriers the deck crew wears color-coded outfits that depict their different roles. These minifigures add a welcome splash of color.