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.

With a full interior, this 6ft long LEGO model of Air Force One looks fit for a President

We’ve featured LEGO aircraft models by Jack Carleson before, but his latest model of Air Force One completely dwarfs them. This stunning model is a whopping six feet long and has a wingspan of five-and-a-half feet.

The aircraft is a modified version of the classic Boeing 747 airliner, used as the US President’s personal aircraft. Its official designation is VC-25A, but “Air Force One” is its popular name. It is the radio call sign whenever the President is on board. Whatever you may think of its current occupant, this model of his aircraft simply oozes class.

Jack’s model isn’t just pretty from the outside. It has a full interior, including the President’s stateroom and meeting room, and also a galley, an operating theatre and space for Secret Service agents and the White House press corps that accompany the President on his trips. It also has working folding stairs, for direct access to the aircraft’s lower deck. Whether the model also features an escape pod, as depicted in the 1997 movie Air Force One, is, of course, classified.

Continue reading →

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Starhawk Battleship, ready for duty

Builder Andrew of CRCT Productions gives us one of the lesser-known hero ships of the Star Wars galaxy, the Starhawk-class Battleship. A creation of the New Republic in the final days of the Empire after the events of The Return of the Jedi, the Starhawk was a smorgasbord of cannibalized Star Destroyers and other warships. Three of them fought valiantly in the Battle of Jakku, taking down a Super Star Destroyer with its powerful tractor beam cannons on the nose.

This build is incredible. For having little source material, Andrew did a fantastic job at getting all the known details into his Starhawk. The yellow and blue markings are a nice touch, breaking away from the Imperial grey seen on nearly all the large warships in the Star Wars films. Other features include the smooth surfaces, neat angles and attention to the smallest of details, which give this LEGO creation the illusion that it might not be LEGO at all: it might be the real deal, an actual Starhawk.

A medieval town to die for

When it comes to medieval buildings, builders sometimes go all out on texture. Pieces end up being used every which way, with studs facing all directions, and random parts thrown in there just to show how clever the builder is. It doesn’t always look good, though, since it can appear too busy. That’s not to say that I think every surface needs to be smooth and flat and all lines need to be clean and straight. Quite the contrary. Ralf Langer is one of the builders out there who manage to balance irregular surfaces, crooked lines, and clever parts usages with cohesive structures and a strong visual presence. The ground in his latest creation is a perfect microcosm of what I mean: he blends smooth bits, heavily studded bits, and interesting parts to create something appealing and delightful, and I haven’t even looked at the buildings yet!

If you are wondering what the part in the ground is that gives it the baked-clay or tiny cobblestone look, it is a Technic drive chain. And by a Technic drive chain, I mean about ten billion And they’re not just in the ground, but also in the walls of the buildings, forming some of the wattle in the classic wattle-and-daub medieval look. Minifig legs create some fun decaying shapes in one of the buildings, and flex tube ends make for some clever windows. But best of all is Ralf’s use of stud shooter triggers. I see at least four different uses for those in this build, showing once again that all pieces have uses in custom-built LEGO models. I’m always a sucker for immersive builds, and Ralf is one of the best at them. Look through the arches and you can see more town beyond, promising a bigger world out there. Just not for the figure on the ground, since the standing one is Death.

For Baby Yoda, wackadoodle, the internet has gone.

Builder Miro Dudas knows that the formula for success is to build Baby Yoda or anything from The Mandalorian, really. I have not yet seen the pivotal series from Disney+ but in gleaning from the official trailer, internet memes, and prior TBB articles about The Mandalorian and Baby Yoda, I’ll try to surmise the plot of the entire series. Here goes:

(any spoilers are purely coincidental)

Click to see if I’m right!

To the stars and beyond: my microscale LEGO spacecraft inspired by NASA – part 2

Continuing on my fad of building “hard sci-fi” spaceships that look like they might have been designed by NASA or SpaceX, after completing the Vanguard, I found myself with a handful of leftover modules. So I set about building another ship and employing some of the techniques I’d learned and adding others. Last time my ship had topped out at 89 studs in length, but the I.E.A. Discovery rings in at 120 studs.

Read Part 1 here.

One of the main things I wanted change was the color scheme. Although the solid black-and-white motif is very classic NASA, I was trying to build a spaceship of the future, so perhaps a little color was in order. My two chosen highlight colors were sand green and flame yellowish orange (or bright light orange, if you prefer Bricklink’s nomenclature). Both are vibrant and bold, while still capturing the vintage space-race color palette I wanted. Continue reading →

These were 2019’s Top 10 most popular LEGO creations featured on TBB [News]

As we welcome the new year, let’s take a quick look back at the highlights of 2019. We dove through our archives and compiled this list of the LEGO models that were most popular with you, our readers, throughout the year. These MOCs, as LEGO builders call them, are sure to wow, just as they’ve captured the imaginations of thousands of LEGO fans around the world already.

Don’t forget to check out the 2019 TBB Builder of the Year and 2019 TBB Creation of the Year awards as well, as judged by our staff.

We’ll start at number 10 and work our way up to the year’s most popular custom LEGO creation.

Click to read the full list

Greebling with a side of more greebling!

It finally happened! This new creation by Angelo Favretti has me at a loss for words. So instead of coming up with the words you can fill them all in Mad Libs style and post them in the comments section.

This (adjective) spaceship is totally the (possessive noun) knees! I like how it is divided into (a number) sections, each more (adjective) than the last. I’m willing to wager my (noun) that this took a metric (unit of measure) of time and LEGO to complete. We’re all (adverb) blown away by the amount of (verb ending in “ing”) greebling this thing has! It’s like a (noun) exploded in (a place) and this is the (adjective) result. I think the gray (plural noun) and the white (plural noun) are (adverb) nice parts usage. (Brothers Brick staff member) says this might be the (adjective ending in “est”) spaceship we’ve seen all year and (famous person) just might agree. Let’s hope for more (adjective) (plural noun) like this in 2020!

Woodlouse-bots, roll out!

Woodlice are terrestrial isopods and, among other nicknames, are affectionately known as “roly-poly pill bugs” for their ability to roll into a ball. Though this ability is a natural defense mechanism, Japanese builder Moko drew inspiration from the woodlouse for their latest LEGO mech. Moko’s mech emulates the woodlouse’s segmented body thanks to staggered round shell detail elements, which appeared in black in 2012 Hero Factory sets Black Phantom and Toxic Reapa. This black armor is also reminiscent of the crab-like Garthim from The Dark Crystal.

As an added bonus, Moko’s woodlouse mech rolls into a ball just like the real thing. While the real life woodlouse does this to protect itself, I think it’s safe to say this mechanical critter can also use it for quick getaways. Now, that’s using your exoskeleton!

The Good, the Bad and the Mandalorian

The first season of the Mandalorian has now finished on Disney+ and while we have some time to wait before season 2, we can still revel in the LEGO creations inspired by the show. The planet Nevarro makes a few appearances, and First Order LEGO has recreated one pivotal scene. The landscape is sufficiently textured to give the model the same gritty feeling as the show. Additionally, the buildings are built using many small pieces, making them as aged and weathered as we’ve come to expect from the Star Wars galaxy. To avoid getting too spoilery, I’ll just say that the scene is filled with all the right details, from droids to moisture vaporators, that make it unmistakably Star Wars. Check out the rest of this builder’s photos and see what other details you can spot.

To the stars and beyond: my microscale LEGO spacecraft inspired by NASA – part 1

As a longtime LEGO space builder, I found I was ready for a bit of a change. After years of building Star Wars and video-game inspired spaceships, I wanted to try my hand at building a spaceship that is, paradoxically, a little more down to earth. Rather than ships bristling with big guns or outfitted with wings, I decided to take my visual cues from movies like Interstellar, The Martian, and of course, NASA’s own designs. Several years ago I built the space shuttle launch system for the theme, and since then I’ve been working on a couple of spacecraft. I’ve displayed them at a number of conventions, but over the holidays this year, I finally polished them up and photographed them. The first ship I built was the Vanguard, part of the fictional Interplanetary Expedition Alliance, mankind’s first attempt at visiting nearby planets and their orbiting bodies.

I built it as a series of discrete modules, and then strung the modules together to create the larger spacecraft. I like this technique because it lets me play with small structures of a few dozen elements at a time, which also results in a look similar to the real International Space Station’s modular design. Continue reading →

A midnight snack and a dip in the pool sounds good right about now.

The premise of Gremlins was to never expose these adorable Mogwai to bright light, never get them wet and never, ever feed them after midnight. But how do they know what time zone they’re in? Plus it’s always midnight somewhere so did they take that into consideration? They broke the rules anyway and drama ensued but in the 80’s you didn’t really need cohesive plots to make a movie watchable. All you needed was Phoebe Cates. Grantmasters proves you don’t need a ton of LEGO to recreate a pretty convincing facsimile of Gizmo, the adorable star of Gremlins who wasn’t Phoebe Cates.