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.

Welcome to the machine [Video]

The one thing that JK Brickworks does well is to combine LEGO bricks and motion. Well, okay, there’s more to their builds than that. There’s also the stellar look to their creations. And the great photos they take of them. And…well, look, we’re dangerously close to just doing a Spanish Inquisition tribute here. Let’s just say they’re a master at their craft and move on. Because JK Brickworks has finally entered the realm of the GBC, and it’s a wonder to behold. (That’s a “Great Ball Contraption” for those of you who haven’t encountered them yet.)

In Robot Dreams a quartet of workers rhythmically and endlessly pass tiny LEGO basketballs to each other. Each one has unique coloring and characteristics, but otherwise they’re just extremely decorative cogs in a machine. There’s an old saying about sled dogs – unless you’re in the lead, the view never really changes. Kinda makes you feel bad for at least three of these robots.

But words don’t really do this one justice. You need to see it in action. And, thankfully, there’s a video that not only shows this one in motion, but also gives some great looks at the Technic gearing and methodology that brought these robots to life.

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The Coffee and Cigarettes Generation

Back in 1993, Jim Jarmusch directed a short black and white film, Coffee and Cigarettes: Somewhere in California. In it, musicians Iggy Pop and Tom Waits meet at a coffee shop. Then they talk about stuff. It’s worth a watch. There’s just something inherently cool about seeing these two icons having a conversation. What’s even cooler, though, is seeing that conversation recreated in LEGO. Builder Timofey Tkachev has somehow managed to convert Iggy and Tom into perfect brick-built likenesses.

There’s a lot to love about this build. There are dozens of great techniques in play, from the use of 2×2 macaroni tile in the ears to the expert combination of wedge plates in Iggy’s jacket. The relaxed poses are full of complex angles and joins, and Tom’s hair…unf. Just so good.

And the background is just as impressive. Check out the use of transparent tile in the coffee urn, the 90 degree elbows in the coffee cup rims. There’s even a tiny “LEGO News” newspaper 2×2 tile used as small print on the cigarette pack.

Like the film itself, this is a build that rewards the viewer the closer they’re willing to look. I don’t know if I’m inspired or just intimidated.

Suddenly, a wild Pikachu appears!

In this expressive character model, Build Better Bricks builds a better LEGO Pikachu. What makes this figure so delightful is the expression and pose that capture Pikachu’s character perfectly. Arms connected with ball joints keeps the pose active along with the offset ears and his iconic lightning bolt tail. The face with its compound curves and tiled details is so full of life that one can almost hear his cute, squeaky voice. Or perhaps you hear the dulcet tones of Ryan Reynolds. In any case, he’ll make you want to pick up the nearest PokeBall and capture him for your own. Pikachu, I choose YOU!

You can’t take kids anywhere these days

Ruins are hard to do convincingly in LEGO form. I think this is partly to do with the rigid grid of the brick, which does not lend itself to organic shapes of decay, and partly to do with the visual incoherence that often results from too many shapes and colors in the same visual field. Even though we are a far cry from the primary/white/black color days at the dawn of the LEGO brick, there is still a limit to the shades and hues that can be used to differentiate areas of a build and maintain something that still makes sense to the brain. That being said, this post-apocalyptic build by Peter Ilmrud does a good job of showing buildings that look both coherent and ruined, covered with verdant vegetation, while a menacing black ship prowls air above the streets.

I’m fairly certain that nearly every botanical element produced by LEGO appears in the build somewhere, from vines to leaves to leafy vines to seaweed and more. Even the sprues from the three-leaved plants appear as vines. It is a lush city. The bad guys (you can tell they’re bad because they wear black) are aliens trying to kill the humans to harvest natural resources (like Avatar in reverse), and their ships are filled with greebles, especially ones from the Batman pack. Of course, with evil aliens on the prowl, one of the poor kids has lost his teddy bear crossing a street. Kids, I tell you what. Good thing they’re cute.

I’d like to be under the sea

If you feel a longing for vibrant colors, piece, and quite, try spending a day at Anthony Wilson‘s underwater lab. Built for fundamental marine research, this facility looks like a proper resort: huge windows, glass tunnels, and out-of-this-world species diversity right in front of you. I bet this place was engineered by those escaping anything happening above the water. It took me at least a couple of minutes to spot all the different fish captured in this build. I must admit, now I feel a lot calmer and happier.

Why does she get a blaster and I don’t?

Watching Star Wars it seems impossible not to sympathize with all the dummy droids. One of the reasons is their straightforwardness; they always speak what they process. Speaking about the Imperial K2SO from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, one of my favorite moments was his genuine question regarding a blaster in Jyn’s hand. Mirko Soppelsa builds a fantastic statuette, but still gives the droid no weapons.

Unlike many other similar works, Mirko’s droid features a very detailed area behind its head. Black, gray, and gold pieces go very well with each other. I totally believe there is the droid’s unique character hiding somewhere behind all those tubes and wires.

Genius inspiration is fleet-ing

Capturing great details on a spaceship that fits in the palm of your hand is a refreshing surprise from TBB Veteran, Letranger Absurde, and this pair of spaceships, while inspired by Star Wars, stand alone as a lesson in master parts usage. Take the fighter, made from a single LEGO minifigure robot head mold from the Galaxy Squad theme, where the facial visor serves as the cockpit canopy. And the red 1×1 tile on the side of the frigate nose picks up the circle design on the sides of the fighter beautifully.

A tasty LEGO build indeed

Ever seen a LEGO build that was just….tasty? Palixa And The Bricks takes us from forest to plate in a culinary journey featuring a somewhat unusual central protein: Wild boar.

Let’s start out with the beast itself in a very very raw state. Charismatic to a fault with Mixel eyes and grey banana ears, this happy-go-lucky scamp has no idea what’s in store. Take a moment and savor the musculature; various curved slopes and tiles gave a good feel of the bulk and weight soon to be enjoyed.

Read on to see this beast turn in to a feast

Fancier than a plate of es-cargo, and twice as tasty

While this sleek LEGO cargo ship by Guy Smiley would look perfectly at home in a scene of interstellar combat, this pair of vessels are here to get the shipping job done. The cargo ship is sporting some powerful engines, and the support craft has a manipulator arm to load and unload the containers. But my favorite part use is the door panels from a Minifig cupboard, used throughout the models, with those two tiny holes.

But every great spaceship needs a worthy stand to support it, and if you look closely at this scene, you will discover that this stand is a creation all its own, depicting an entire microscale city over which these ships are flying on their way to the port.

Workhorses fit for a minifigure army

LEGO Minifigures are oddly-proportioned little fellows. Because I am fussy about the scale of my models I rarely use them with my builds. However, thanks to a number of collaborative builds I’ve been involved with, which all involved minifigures, I’ve grown to appreciate them a bit more. Recently I have been steadily building a collection of minifig-scaled military models. These are the latest two: a US Army M936 wrecker truck towing an M1025 “HumVee” armament carrier. There are countless quotes about how logistics are at least as important to fighting a war as tactics. Equipment used in combat may capture people’s imaginations, but modern armies include vast numbers of support vehicles that are true workhorses. To me those are at least as interesting as tanks or artillery.

What constitutes minifig scale can be difficult and LEGO themselves have muddied the waters. When I was growing up, LEGO cars were just four studs wide. About ten years ago, most LEGO city cars were five studs wide and trucks seven studs wide, including their mudguards. With the recent Speed Champions sets the width of a supposedly minifig scaled car has been bumped up to nine studs, again including the mudguards. The cars look cool and seat two figures side-by-side. However, if you pose a figure next to the vehicle, it’s clear we’ve moved firmly into silly territory. I based my scale on the figure’s height. The wrecker truck ended up being seven studs wide. The HumVee is only six studs wide, which is much smaller than most minifig scale HumVees that are out there. Despite this small scale, both vehicles still have enough space inside for a driver.

This wind-up toy robot is programmed to love you all very much

If you like retro wind-up toy robots then set your phasers to Positively Delighted. It turns out Lino Martins (hey, that’s me!) has built one out of LEGO and the result is…pretty OK. It would probably be weird to label my own work as totally awesome, stupendous or earth-shattering so I’ll just go with pretty OK. He’s adorned in fabulously fifties black and sea-foam green with gray and just a touch of flashy silver. Through a series of gears, his chest plates open simultaneously and when you turn his wind-up key his head, heart and arms will rotate. Yes, he has a heart! I think it takes eight or ten or so rotations of the wind-up key to get his head, heart and arms to all settle back into their rightful positions. If I were a real engineer I’d know that for sure but… What am I, Elon Musk?

Check out this video of the wind-up action. This cheery bot is programmed to love you all very much. I’m programmed to be rather indifferent on the matter but I can create a swell playlist for any occasion so there’s that.

A rural office location for a different kind of paperwork

Brick or human, when you need to go, you need to go. We humans have a place to go around every corner (the less hygienic take “every corner” a bit too literally though), but the plastic brick people have a much harder time to find an outhouse. Or at least they would, if SuckMyBrick had not built this outstanding LEGO outhouse.

The build is visually simple, well photographed and composed. The ramshackle style is captured perfectly with tiles pointing in angles just odd enough to not be 90 degrees and the front door uses a few closely related colours to give a fading impression – but according to the builder, the creation is not as fragile as it looks. The base completes the build with details like fragrant flowers in the back and curved slopes that really add to the cartoony style.