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.

Daisy and Donald Duck are built and dressed to impress

Disney’s Donald Duck recently celebrated his 85th birthday, and his companion Daisy is technically 82 (she was originally introduced in 1937 as Donna Duck). Koen Zwanenburg is just in time for the party with fantastic looking LEGO versions of the beloved pair. Thanks to a variety of curved and angled elements used, the sculpting of each character’s body looks spot-on. Their eyes are particularly expressive and well angled, especially Daisy’s partially closed eyelids. Meanwhile, Bionicle ball and socket joints used as legs look to be just the right size. Donald looks especially happy, with Daisy giving him a birthday kiss.

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Hi diddly ho, droidorinos!

If you plan on taking robots into war, you need a formidable assault droid. Enter the bulky, badass HUF-2 built by Marco Marozzi, complete with a massive machine gun. The mechanical detailing of the droid is impressive, and the color scheme is perfect for a robotic predator. You have your industrial grays and silvers, but you also have splashes of gold and red to warn of what’s to come…almost like a poison dart frog. There’s even an “Easter egg” for fans of The Simpsons TV show.

See more details of Ned Flanders’ deadly droid

Kissed by a rose in a little shop of horrors

Some people think talking to plants helps them grow faster. To that, I say it’s all great until one of those plants turns into a man-eating flower bent on devouring you, green thumb and all. Unafraid of the consequences, Jayfa built this LEGO beauty of a ferocious flower. The curved stem and flower petals are cleverly formed using constraction (constructible action figure) elements, along with palm tree leaf pieces and a tan prickly bush. Fortunately, this looks like something you would find in a Castlevania game instead of your backyard, but you never know what the garden guru next door might be cooking up….

If you like fantastical creatures like this, you’ll also want to check out Jayfa’s colorful Rygas the Basilisk.

AL-SPSS-N9 Spessar redefines striking darkness

A prolific name in the realm of LEGO mecha is Lu Sim. His mecha present functional articulation, compact cockpits and a ton of character. Each one holds its own in originality and portrays a definite omnipresence. Lu’s latest titled “AL-SPSS-N9 Spessar” is an excellent example. Supported by a predominantly black and dark bluish grey frame, the encasing armour has been completed in a brilliant use of trans-neon/trans orange elements.

See more of this great orange mech

A beautiful bonsai built from bulk-bought bricks

André Pinto‘s build took me by surprise. I said to myself, “That’s a nice LEGO bonsai tree photographed on a nice piece of antique furniture.” Part of that is true; it is a nice LEGO bonsai tree. But part of it is false, too, because a closer look revealed that the table and the rug were also made entirely from LEGO. André says that there are 5,000 pieces in the build, but 85% of them are the limited selection that comes from the Pick-a-Brick walls in LEGO retail stores. The large amounts of somewhat odd pieces comes together for a stunning build.

The sand green telescopes form a lovely border around the edge of the table, and the copious yellow click hinges provide a surprisingly realistic rug texture beneath. The white flowers still attached to the sprue drape elegantly from the branches of the tree. The details that deceived me, however, are the reflective surface of the table with small petals on it, and the finely crafted legs, with cross supports, beneath it. What a clever use of bulk parts!

An immersive garage to get your landspeeder serviced

When not writing articles about fine LEGO creations or taking care of my young children, I crawl down to my basement man-cave and build things out of LEGO. Yes, I am a bit like the dad in The LEGO Movie; and also yes, my toddlers ignore my prohibitions on touching the bricks. But some things survive the attack of sticky little fingers, and I am pleased to present the readers of The Brothers Brick with my latest.

As my alter-ego, Henjin_Quilones, I built and shared this landspeeder repair shop as part of an annual Star Wars competition on Eurobricks. Run by a Twi’lek named Veenac’ebla, the garage on Nar Shaddaa services many types of speeders, often providing them with upgrades to boost the specs. Three speeders, all loosely inspired by real-world cars, sit in the shop for repairs. The red and the grey speeders hearken to classic muscle cars (and to the M-68 from Solo), while the dark blue was inspired by curvy sports cars.

See more of this shady landspeeder garage

Off the grid to find Akira

The prototypical LEGO piece is the 2×4 rectangular brick. It has ninety-degree angles on every side, and using it, together with most other LEGO bricks, one can build things with lots of right angles. Unless you are Thorsten Bonsch, that is, and you are building off the grid, setting your scene at a cool forty-five degree angle. The greebled elements that comprise the science fiction setting, all the pipes and valves and whatnot, are a lovely backdrop to an epic showdown between Tetsuo, a character from Akira, and one of the authorities trying to stop him. I hope Tetsuo can avoid those rockets firing at him!

There is nothing that fancy going on in the sloped section, though I do enjoy the ubiquitous fence piece making an appearance; it is just a masterfully arranged assortment of textured elements and repetitive piping. The cumulative effect of it, however, is brilliant. But the platform is what catches my eye. The yellow and black striping is excellent, and the various subtle offsets of the grey surface are gorgeous. Now, I don’t know much about Akira, but if this creation is anything to go by, it must be awesome!

Classic flight plan hanging around

If you love LEGO flying vehicles, chances are that you may have come across the models of Maelven. His ability to switch between slick renditions of Star Wars vehicles and classic planes is beautiful. It always makes me wonder what he’s going to come out with next. His Blind Man’s Bluff Hangar is full of fine elemental compositions. The plane by itself looks great, with one wing folded up and step ladder at the ready.

This is a new rendition of Maelven’s previous Hawler Sea Fury T.20, a LEGO plane he has been refining since 2012. Accompanying it are a host of other fine details, from his beasty Ratrod to the stripped fuselage and workshop fixtures. However, my eyes kept being drawn towards the top of this superb diorama to take in the roof trusses of this classic hanger. A seamless combination of Technic connectors, liftarms and Technic bricks achieving a specific form such as this always makes me happy. Between the truss and the rigid hose conduit, this fantastic scene is well-framed.

The kids aren’t alright

Stranger Things is a show where, thanks to absentee parenting, children spend more quality time with horrific Demogorgons than their own parents. (That’s the 80s for you!) As a result, the kids often have to take matters into their own hands. Case in point; that one time Eleven had to flip a van with her magical nosebleed powers. See, their parents are so absent, she doesn’t even have a normal name like Jessica or Brittany. Still, that doesn’t stop her from being an absolute badass and the kind of kid I would have totally hung out with in my youth. Builder Hachiroku24 replicated this scene nicely with a brick-built bicycle and a neat effect that makes the van seem as if it were levitating.

Speaking from experience, brick-built text on a smallish surface can be a tricky endeavor but this builder did a great job with the fictional town name blazoned across the side of the van. This creation is enough to turn anyone’s frown upside-down. See what I did there? If that didn’t make you smile, maybe our review of set 75810 The Upside Down will!

Stressed? Have a cup of tea

Builder Eero Okkonen is no stranger to The Brothers Brick. His large-scale figures are something of a legend around here, often featuring warriors, wizards, and sci-fi women. Today, he brings us a samurai warrior, joined by a maiko, or apprentice geisha sharing tea. He beautifully captures both the modest down-turned visage of the maiko and the tired pride of the old warrior. What makes this build unusual for Eero is that the stunning figures are set in a lush landscape, which features a blooming garden complete with Zen Buddhist shrines and a reflection pool.

I love the way he has used the texture of the undersides of 1×2 plates for the samurai’s armor, along with the decorative flowers stuck to them. The elbow brick in light bluish grey is used to good effect in both the facial hair of the samurai and the three legged shrine in the corner. You also don’t want to miss the golden chainsaw blade used as a hair ornament on the maiko! The whole scene is so tranquil that I wish I could go there and take part. Now where did I put my tea cup?

Your lightsabers will make a fine addition to my collection

Each installment in the Star Wars cinematic saga has introduced new villains for audiences to obsess over, from Darth Vader’s first rasping breath in A New Hope to Darth Maul’s devil-like countenance in The Phantom Menace. Revenge of the Sith was no exception, although General Grievous first appeared in the 2004 animated series, Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Dissatisfied with the official 75112 General Grievous LEGO set, Marcin Otreba has built a stunningly detailed model of the wheezy cyborg commander of the Separatists’ droid army with some truly inspired designs.

By far, my favorite features are the arms which, like his on-screen counterpart, can separate into two slender but no less nimble and deadly appendages. I also love the translucent body cavity housing his vital organs. You’ll also want to take a closer look at the fingers, which are built using B-1 battle droid heads, of course.

This voodoo panther is no bonehead. Or is it?

The LEGO Bionicle line may have ended in 2016, but that hasn’t stopped fans from expanding on the theme. Case in point: Alex Mertens brings us a sleek version of the Rahi beast Muaka, inspired by a deep cut of Bionicle lore. I’m a fan of the smooth curves that give this model a sense of feline grace. The splash of color from the orange hose and lime green claws adds visual interest against the blue of the Hero Factory armor and Bionicle shoulder armor plating.

Speaking of that armor, we recently featured another re-imagining of Muaka that kept the yellow highlights from the Muaka & Kane-Ra set from 2001. Alex has gone one step further, taking the blue color from a Bone-Heads of Voodoo Island prototype that likely lead to Muaka! This early prototype can be seen in Christian Faber’s demo footage.