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.

The amethyst bonsai

Purple treeze all in the ground. Don’t know if they’re growing up or down. Is it crystal or purple ice? Whatever it is, Duncan Lindbo built a tree that’s nice. Queue Jimi Hendrix guitar solo – Duncan’s magical-looking tree is constructed from transparent purple Bionicle elements, which are lit throughout to give it a sparkly, crystalline appearance. If something could be grown from a shard of the Dark Crystal I’d imagine this would be it!

If you’d like to see more of Duncan’s work in purple, be sure to check out his loathsome worm we featured back in September.

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This is why Roswell can’t have nice things

Farmers don’t seem to be the type who like to be messed with, but that doesn’t stop aliens from messing with them pretty much since man has learned to plant green beans. Lokiloki29 builds a micro-scale scene depicting the classic battle between hapless farmers and the alien invaders who are hellbent on doing weird things to their livestock and crops. The gravel road beside the barn is a whole slew of these laid in sideways while the dismembered minifig hands cleverly depicts a cornfield. While small, the tractor is accurately created using just a few parts. I’m pretty sure I saw that exact model on the John Deere website. I’m not sure what this poor farmer did to deserve a close encounter of the probing kind. But to our new alien overlords, I like my beef tenderized and singed with just a touch of pink on the inside.

It’s a swamp out there

The Land Rover Defender has been newly revitalized for 2020 with a complete overhaul of its aesthetics from the ancient-looking offroading beast that it’s been for decades, and LEGO commemorated the launch of the new generation with the Technic set 42110 Land Rover Defender. Early reports show it’s got promising off-road chops (as any Land Rover should), but it remains to be seen what the durability of the new model is. However, it’s obvious what Peter Carmichael thinks given this diorama of the classic model rescuing the newer one.

Peter says he began his concepting for the classic Land Rover design with an existing LEGO design, but ended up changing nearly every part of it in pursuit of greater accuracy. The result is fantastic, with the Defender’s iconic lines showing through from every angle. The sand blue for the new 110 model is a bold choice, given the paucity of elements in that color, but it works well to mimic the available Tasman Blue.

There’s something fishy going on here.

There’s a lot of beauty under the sea. There’s also a lot of creepy looking fish. jarekwally brings us a bit of both in this underwater vignette. Created around two tricycle frames, a bone-white fish swims among a colorful coral reef. I’m not sure you’d want to come face-to-face with whatever breed of fish that is, but the rest of the scene is certainly somewhere I’d like to visit.

This whole build abounds with creative part usage. The fish continues it’s unusual construction with minifigure wings, Mixel eyes, and cattle horns. Each plant in the reef has it’s own clever combination of elements, too. There are multi-colored flower-edged round plates, 2×2 round petal bases, and even purple 2×2 gears.

North Pole or bust!

I love Christmas as much as anyone. In fact, I would wager that I love it more than most people. But I have to admit that my jaw clenches, a tic twinges in my cheek, and my guts churn when I start seeing Christmas merchandise and commercials before Thanksgiving. I once worked at a store where the Holiday displays came out at the beginning of October, and I had to see them almost every day for three months. It was torture. And the Christmas songs played on a loop piped into the stores – don’t even get me started on how much I despise all 3,000,000,000 versions of “Jingle Bell Rock”. That being said, I do appreciate a good LEGO build when I see one, even if it is Santa Claus at the start of November. Kale Frost had the opportunity to build a huge Christmas display for a mall out of LEGO bricks, and the head of the Head Elf is particularly noteworthy.

The bushy white eyebrows make good use of some wings, and the clips are surprisingly effective as eyelashes. I love the clear blue eyes and the jolly face. This Santa looks like he needs some more cookies, though, since that neck is not as, ah, girthy as I would expect. It doesn’t look like he is hiding multiple chins behind that LEGO beard, and he is hardly ruddy. Perhaps this is Santa after some weight loss and exercise, getting swoll in the North Pole Crossfit Gym. Not that it really matters, as long as he leaves me some presents under the tree — the kind that make the proper rattling noise when shaken.

The Gates Await

If you’re going to build a castle, you’re going to have some guarded gates to go with it. That’s exactly what builder JS_Ninjnerd did with this fantastic medieval creation. First off, we need a round of applause for the incredible amount of landscaping this build has. Look at the tiny details in the rocks and grass! The variety of sloping bricks used to achieve such level of attention reflects JS_Ninjnerd’s LEGO building skills. Certainly, no stone was left unturned.

The castle itself is a marvel of plastic engineering. Personally, I can’t stand having gaps in between my walled bricks, but here they’re pulled off perfectly. The distressing on the castle is equally expert. The sand-green bricks add age to the towers, helping establish the narrative that they’ve been guarding the entrance to the kingdom for centuries.

Also age-impressive is the tree on the far left of the display. This tree is shedding its leaves as it enters into the Fall season. I love the colors and how they reflect actual color changes in real trees. The leaves on the ground are a nice touch as well, continuing to bring as much realism as possible into this creation.

Thomas the Walking Tank Engine

Thomas the Tank Engine has had enough of Sir Topham Hatt’s rule over the Island of Sodor, and builder Dvd showcases a well-beloved children’s hero that has literally gone off the rails.

This is absolutely terrifying, and would be the stuff of nightmares if it weren’t for the genius of how it’s put together. The builder utilized some of the smallest LEGO bricks stacked sideways to create the number “1” and the red border on Thomas’ sides. The finger joints on Thomas’ hands are also well built, allowing for this unhinged steam engine to rip up rails and potentially throw train cars.

The level of detail work on the legs and on the back of the body imply a specific mechanical look, as though for all these years the little blue engine we watched on TV had been hiding four limbs within his innocent body. If Dvd can make Thomas look this scary, I can’t imagine with what he would do with a bigger engine like Gordon or Henry.

Sometimes the parts used are as beautiful as the whole

I’m a sucker for new or nice parts usage (NPU) and Simon NH knows the way to my heart. So allow me to fangirl out at for a moment at his latest Harry Potter creation, Winter in Hogsmeade.

Did you see the brick walls built out of Mjölnirs or the underside of jumpers? Or the window arch made out of cheese held in by pressure alone? I love the modified plates with teeth as shingles and the lance as a downspout. How about the welding torch as a sconce, or the (extremely in-theme) sorting hat as the top of the lamppost. I’m really only scratching the surface here, as there are all kinds of other creative parts usages throughout, and that’s not even mentioning the smart colour choices (like, hello yellowish-green and light aqua as frozen grass). The creation as a whole is fantastic, but the smart use of parts really does make a LEGO fan weak in the knees.

Send those undead warriors running back to their mummies!

I love winning. Nothing quite compares to the thrill of victory, whether that is beating your friends at a casual game of Scrabble or annihilating your four-year-old son in an epic basketball throwdown where you channel prime Wilt on a six-foot net. John Snyder loves winning, too, and also loves seeing the bad guys lose. In his latest massive diorama, John depicts the forces of the wicked Desert King, a resurrected mummy-wizard, being routed by the armies of good Queen Ylspeth. I haven’t seen this many mummies running away since Brendan Fraser was a major Hollywood star, and it looks great. Everywhere you look, there are highly detailed buildings, ornate arches, intricate domes, meticulously-laid streets, and more.

See more of Al Tajir here

The Infernal Dictionary has no word for this

Builder [VB] and his friends have built an entire royal family of odd creatures such as this King Asmodeus. The kicker is the only description they left for us is written in some crazy, arcane, completely indecipherable moon language. They state; “Aucun avant n’a songe de réunir un pandémonium d’aberrations et de porteurs de malheur sous une seule entité surnommée le Dictionnaire Infernal”.

I just wish there was some sort of online translator to make heads or tails of this muck. It would be like Googling something except, instead of looking up photos or articles, you could plug the indecipherable gibberish into one section and it would spit up a translation in English, or whatever your native language happens to be. But we’re probably like fifty years from having such technology, which is a shame really. Oh, well. Here’s a prior time the same builder totally delighted us with Uranus.

You ever driven with the devil in the pale moonlight?

Jerry Builds Bricks Returns with a stunning rendition of the Batmobile from Tim Burton’s Batman (1989). This is Jerry’s 2nd iteration of the Caped Crusader’s ride; we featured his building instructions for the first version last year. While it features some design cues found in the first model, the latest rendition looks sleeker and meaner. This is especially noticeable in the curve of the fins and the front fenders, which consist of curved slopes on hinges instead of angular slopes.

Once you’ve finished drooling over Jerry’s bat-tastic Batmobile, be sure to check out our review of LEGO set 76139 1989 Batmobile!

The F-16 Viper is still sleek after 40 years

Almost two weeks ago, the first example of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter to be based in the Netherlands arrived at Leeuwarden Air Base. It marks the beginning of the end for the forty-year career of the F-16 with the Royal Netherlands Air Force. The F-16 is officially named the Fighting Falcon, but commonly known as the Viper. I’ve been thinking about building a larger scale version of the Viper for years. A reason why I didn’t was that the 1/18 scale model by Everblack basically was just too good.

However, the arrival of the Viper’s eventual replacement and the 40th anniversary finally made me decide to bite the proverbial bullet. I picked the same scale, 1/22, as most of my cars and my Top Gun Tomcat. The F-16 was a lighter and cheaper alternative to the F-15 Eagle and, as such, it’s a fairly small aircraft. The large scale does make the model quite a big beast, with a span of 56 studs and a length of more than 80 studs. However, it also allowed me to add more details and to more accurately represent the jet’s sleek shape. I couldn’t have done this on a smaller scale or without some of the new parts that LEGO has released in the last few years.
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