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 hunter weathered and a hunter feathered

There is an ancient manner of hunting that involves the use of a trained hawk to catch the prey. Few now practice such an art, but LEGO builder Hongjun Youn has created one such hunter, who is perhaps one of the two left in Korea, the builder’s home country. Shown with his hawk perched on his shoulder, the pose is regal, the sort of thing you might see in an old National Geographic magazine. What sets this build apart from the crowd is the level of texture, something difficult to do with hard plastic bricks. While the hawk is one of the better ones I have seen at this scale, the best feature is the deeply lined and weathered face of the hawker, implying that he has spent most of his time outside exposed to the elements.

Speaking of the face and the elements, it took me a while to figure out what pieces the builder used. A deep dive into Bricklink revealed them to be a hockey mask from the 2003 Sports theme and another hockey mask flipped upside down; together they make for an impressive and expressive visage. The glorious fur texture around the neck and boot cuffs, as well as the neck feathers of the bird, is accomplished by the use of this armor piece, and the layering of various tattered cloth elements completes the look. All in all, this pair of hunters looks ready to set out into the wilderness and bring back some game.

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Fortnite Mecha Team Leader, heck yeah!

Tackle the Fortnite article? Sure, I can do that! (clears throat) You were delighted when we featured the Loot Llama. You went completely ape-poopy when we showcased the Fortnite Battle Bus. Now prepare to totally lose your collective cookies at the sight of this Mecha Team Leader built by Kelvin Low. Fortnite is a series of three video games that has kept 125 million players up for more than a fortnight at a time with its awesome game play and graphics. It is a pop culture phenomenon that I am definitely savvy to, so don’t go getting it into your heads otherwise. I was totally thrilled when I finally saved the…um…Fortnite princess from the…uh…Fortnite monsters. And I like how the mech looks sort of like Voltron except with silly faces which, as you and I both know, is completely integral to the plot.

Kelvin’s model is accurate to the source material–and I am speaking from personal gameplay experience and definitely not research I did two minutes ago. Care to build one of your own? Follow Kelvin’s step-by-step instructional Youtube video if you’re into that kind of thing, which you probably are.

Half bulldozer, half tank, half robot, and 100% awesome

I have never played Overwatch, but I have purchased several of the LEGO sets based off the game just because they look cool. A little while back, though, I did a quick browse of the different characters to familiarize myself with the ones appearing in brick form. Apparently, there are different roles in the game, one of which is Tank. (This might be obvious to everyone but me, but I have never been a gamer.) Djokson has built a tank, not from the game itself, but inspired by it. Called the Siegebreaker, the mech looks more than capable of doing a lot of breaking, with big scoops up front, a big gun on the back, and additional armaments on the arms. Siegebreaker reminds me quite a bit of Bastion, but cooler.

The visual highlight is the large spring in the middle, giving it the appearance of rugged durability. I love the yellow color scheme; it makes it look almost like a cross between an excavator and Bumblebee from Transformers. The fact that Djokson used Constraction gun elements as part of the base makes it even cooler. Curious about what the sentry mode of the tank looks like? It has one, of course.

20 pieces to crow over

As those with some knowledge of Latin might expect from the user name, Corvus Auriac seems to have a thing for crows. Crows are among the most intelligent of birds and are often known to make use of tools. Corvus the builder is also a tool user, as demonstrated by this lovely digital render of Arminius, The Crow. Creating a recognizable avian can be a challenge, yet Corvus manages it in only 20 pieces. Among the creative part choices are Minifigure wings, a tooth for a beak, and a flipper for the tail. Even the branch is a nice little build, making use of an elephant tail and carrot top.

Although this is just a flight of fantasy (brick) at present, Corvus says that a real-world version is on the way. I’m looking forward to seeing it!

Objects in picture are larger than they appear

With the recent release of the Jurassic Park: T. rex Rampage set, I can imagine that many LEGO fans will want to recreate more of a scene for the legendary dinosaur–the largest LEGO has ever made–to inhabit. At first glance, that would appear to be exactly what Richard Van As has done, but his creation is, in fact, much larger than even that dino! It seems fitting to me, as we learned in Jurassic Park that objects are sometimes larger than they appear.

Building in the larger scale, Richard couldn’t rely on minifigures to represent the characters, or any other specialized molded pieces, but still managed to unmistakably capture likenesses of Dr. Alan Grant and Dr. Ian Malcolm. The entire display is complete with all the right details from the movie scene, including a full interior for the car and a goat in the tyrannosaur paddock (though I think it was eaten already at this point). Flick through the rest of the album and see what hidden details you can spot!

Cry havoc and let slip the wolves of war

Steam-driven military walkers are a staple of the LEGO Steampunk building genre, and this one, by Carter Witz, is a great addition to the corps — a spindly tripod affair with touches of dark red in amongst the grey greebles. The functional-looking joints on the legs support a nicely detailed body packed with texture (and armaments).

I particularly liked the evocation of a classic Prussian-esque “pickelhaube” spiked helmet. This is one of those LEGO creations where the presentation adds immensely to the overall effect. The base is simple but well done, and the addition of the figures advancing beneath their mechanical companion gives an impression of scale the central model alone might lack. And dropping in that wolf is a masterstroke — immediately creating a sense of mystery, danger, and otherworldliness. Steampunk needs more wolves.

Give me a career as a buccaneer, the life of a pirate for me

Ah, the pirate life — it’s all palm trees and rum, blue skies and treasure chests. Oh, and scurvy. And tropical insects. And crabs. Regardless of the reality of the pirating lifestyle, it remains a perennially popular subject for LEGO builders. Here’s Isaac Snyder‘s take on a small pirate hideaway — Cutthroat Cove — a rough wooden shelter built into the rock, complete with jetty and a lookout position on the cliffs above. The vegetation and the dual-coloured rockwork are nicely done, and the mix of browns used for the shelter gives it an appropriately ramshackle feel.

Aircraft, another way

History produced a lot of weird-looking aircraft during WWII, such as famously great P-38 Lightning. But LEGO builder Jon Hall has long been known for turning his skills to the weird-looking aircraft of WWII that history did not produce, designing his own batch of bizarre dogfighters instead. Looking like a cross between the Grumman F6F Hellcat and the Vought V-173 “Flying Pancake”, Jon’s crafted this crazy airplane with stubby wings and a flat nose, which he’s dubbed the P-65 Tomahawk.

As usual, Jon’s designs are clean and sleek, this time sporting a two-tone Navy color. Presumably, the short wings help with carrier storage. Two of the best details deal with airflow: first there’s the intake, which sports a Technic disk 5×5 behind the propeller, an old-school part that originally hails from the short-lived Robo Rider theme. The second detail I love is the exhaust on the sides of the fuselage, which are a series of ports made of the Nexo bot shoulders.

Ich bin ein käfer

Alright, I’ll keep this short and punchy. Speaking of short and punchy, Lino Martins (hey, that’s me!) has built a car. When I ran the LUGNuts group I had built at least one car every month for ten years so I was a bit of a kingpin in the LEGO automotive world. After retiring the monthly challenges, it is understandable that I wanted to take a break from car building do some art, gaming, and blog all about your creations instead. After nearly two years, I return to car building with this Volkswagen Käfer Racer based on a Hot Wheels design.

The requisite round corner bricks are currently not available in yellow so instead of replicating the Moon Eyes design, I went with a primarily red color scheme and used stickers from the 8041 Technic Racing Truck

The shell can be removed to reveal the seats and massive V-8 engine within.

Precise, clean cuts. No one saw anything. Again.

The world of Magic: the Gathering is, despite its cheap fantasy storyline, a treasure trove of characters and other motives. Some (far too few, if you ask me!) LEGO builders like Eero Okkonen take inspiration from it and create amazing works of art. This recreation of The Wanderer is a great example of a builder capturing the original artwork perfectly. The Wanderer is a clichéd mysterious character in the lore that would be quite interesting if it was in any other story.

The build is mostly what one would expect from this master character builder. The real highlight is the incredible accuracy to the source material. The exotic colours like pink, gold and sand green are not the easiest to work with in LEGO, but Eero stretched his collection to the limit and successfully recreated the character, with all her challenges. The most interesting part usage to me was the Technic figure scuba flipper used as the ends of the hair. To read more about the building process, check out Eero’s own blog post on Cyclopic bricks.

Ancient Aliens

I’m not saying it was aliens–but it was aliens! Builders Aaron Newman and Tristan Cain teamed up to build a close encounter of the ancient kind. Cleverly named “Parthenonsense,” the scene depicts a microscale Greek-inspired city being visited by a red “chariot of the gods.” The city itself is enjoyable to look at, with curved walls, a bridge, and buildings of varying heights. I particularly enjoy the UFO, which has a self-sustaining habitat under its dome. The beam of light over the lighthouse is a nice touch, almost as if the spacecraft is engaging in oneupmanship with its terrestrial subjects.

To learn more about the model, visit Aaron’s personal blog post on “Parthenonsense.”

Just follow the yellow (LEGO) brick road

Thanks to The LEGO Movie 2’s Collectible Minifigures, the full crew from The Wizard of Oz is now available in minifigure form, so the time was ripe to start seeing some great models from the classic film. Enter Livin’TheBrickLife with this amazing diorama that mixes scales to great effect. With the city of Oz a tiny microscale sculpture in the distance, the four adventurers loom large in the foreground.

The whole diorama is much larger, though, incorporating a variety of iconic scenes, each connected by the yellow brick road, made of sideways bricks.

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