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.

Whale watching without getting wet

Creating organic natural shapes using plastic bricks is not a simple thing, and making those shapes fit together into something simple and beautiful is truly an art form. Despite being monochromatic, this sculpture of a Humpback whale by Anthony Séjourné does an amazing job of capturing the majestic grace of one of the world’s largest marine mammals. I especially liked the use of so many hollow studs to represent barnacles. And the fluke is quite nice as well (that’s the whale’s tail, for those less well versed in whale biology).

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This motorhead is monkeying around!

Builder Vincent Kiew presents his latest LEGO creation combining both System and Technic, and it’s an eye-catching racing scene that features a grinning gorilla gear-shifting through the grass!

There’s a convenient storage crate in back for all the accessories needed for an afternoon joyride around the jungle in the off-road racer. Continue reading →

Dragon unit LL-32167

I always wanted to make a mecha dragon, even as far back as 2012 when I fell in love with LEGO dragons. I always knew it would be gray and greebly, but it almost seemed like cheating. Light gray is the LEGO colour with most the available detail pieces, so it would make finding solutions to building problems easier than I would like them to be. Ironically, this is the most complicated dragon build I have made yet (of which there are 24 now, including some more open interpretations of what a “dragon” is). I working on building this one on and off for 2 months from late December to mid-February.

Click to read about the building process and see a few extra pictures

Why not close the window at night?

If you happen to come across the obscure Flickr photostream of why.not?, you will likely be asking yourself the question “why?” more often than “why not?” The builder seems to specialize in very obviously giving her builds a message, but more often than not, the message is hard to pin down. Her latest creation is a nighttime scene of a room with an open window. This scene captures the ambiance of fresh night air so well that I can almost feel the cool breeze. It is actually so beautifully mundane that I can not help but relax and go to sleep now… Wait, nope, there are some chains on the floor and I have no idea what they are there for. No sleep tonight.

The build itself seems quite simple, with a cute city skyline in forced perspective as the background, using different shades of yellow as windows with a bit of variation, making for quite a realistic effect. I also really like the moon, built with a round tile and a white rubber band around it that gives a glowing effect. The room has a few interesting details as well, especially the little marbles on the table, which seem to be made of either levers or antennas. The handles on the windows and the door are a great idea too, using pearl gold minifig arms to achieve a very classy look.

Let’s get back to the moon

As NASA looks forward to the challenge of getting back to the moon and establishing a permanent habitat, here’s a vision of a lunar base we can all sign up to. Who wouldn’t want to spend some time in Jon Blackford‘s brilliant LEGO Research Outpost? The styling is excellent, with an attractive angled frontage and good greebly detailing along the roof. The hatch and the support pillars are particularly good, and the habitat’s smooth studless look offers a nice contrast with the rougher baseplate, creating a feeling of rocky surroundings.

All the important Classic Space elements are in place — the blue and grey colour scheme, the trans-yellow windows, the multicoloured team of astronauts. But is are some novel parts use too, including the paint rollers used in the rover’s front sensors and the ingots used to create unusually-shaped cargo crates. Best of all, there’s a fully detailed interior to enjoy.

Gotta hand it to this brick artist

Hands up if you love this LEGO model! Australian artist Kale Frost is a master at handcrafted LEGO models of varying scales and this time he’s constructed a little scene full of 1:1 scale items. Although this scene was posted as a tease for a future creation, we felt this work stood on its own for the composition of the modeled artist’s hand, paintbrushes with all sorts of neat tips including a cheerleader’s pompom and rare dark green broom, pen and pencil, the spiral-bound notepad using Nakia’s chakram rings.

Hands down the biggest mystery to me here is the inclusion of the crayon girl costume collectible minifig. What’s her role? Is she one of the artist’s tools come to life? Maybe Kale’s next creation will lead us by the hand and explain it to us.

If Kale’s name sounds familiar, his handiwork has been featured on TBB several times in the past covering a broad range of styles and subjects. I’m keen on his roadside diner and microscale castle diorama.

Just cruising on the lake in my Ford Mustang

In this incredibly detailed digital build, ExeSandbox was tasked to put a 1965 Ford Mustang in beautiful scenery. I think nobody told him it was supposed to be placed on a road, but the builder just slapped it straight in the middle of the scenery. And it looks amazing! Never before has a car driving on water looked so right.

The centerpiece of the scene is the quite accurate Ford Mustang, and it really gives the scene context. But it is the landscaping that shines here. There is a lot of simple parts that just work really well, like trees built of stacked leaf pieces or the clean layers of the ground. On the other hand, there are also very intensely textured trees with plates facing all directions and an extremely realistic lake bed covered in rocks. The water benefits the most from computer rendering, as finding this many perfectly clean translucent panels and placing them this straight without bending would be nearly impossible. What does not benefit from computer rendering is the perfect curved road though. While this technique looks beautiful and requires a proportional amount of work in real life, the builder states that it was a nightmare to do digitally, reminding us all that digital builders face their own challenges (the whole scene contains over 90,000 pieces). Often skeptics see digital builds as cheating or an easy shortcut, but the naysayers are often people who have never opened a brick-building program. And below is the final piece of art with a full background, and we can all agree that digital or not, the end result is a stunning image. And sometimes that is what matters.

Party on in this re-themed Slave I

When a piece that’s exclusive to one set gets released in a new colour, it can be appealing to base a tribute to the original set around the new piece. That’s exactly what BobDeQuatre has done with the transparent purple windscreen from the LEGO Movie 2 70828 Pop-Up Party Bus set, which had previously only existed in transparent clear in the Ultimate Collector’s Series 75060 Slave I.

While many parts of the original model could be substituted for parts in the right colour scheme, some had to be replaced if the correct parts didn’t exist. I especially like the way the curves over the wing mounts were sculpted. If you look closely, you’ll notice that the weapons have been removed, as this ship is built to have fun, not chase the Millennium Falcon. And what better way to emphasize its readiness to party, than with a fun pair of cat ears. Meow!

Riding the rails like it’s 1815

It’s hard to believe, but trains are now more than 200 years old, going back to the early 1800s for the most rudimentary steam-powered rail engines. This model by Nikolaus Löwe shows one of the first such engines constructed, which hails from 1815 and was known as the “Steam Elephant” due to its large trunk-like smokestack mounted on the front. Nikolaus has done an excellent job recreating the lattice of ironwork with bars and clips surrounding the boiler. Interestingly, he’s chosen to photograph it on a brass model track, which although not LEGO does look mighty nice.

Bionicle dragon rises from the water

It’s amazing what a talented LEGO builder can achieve when they step outside their comfort zone. Andreas Lenander was inspired to build something “Bionicle-ish” and I think he nailed it. The contrast in building styles between the complex dragon and the studs-up base is the perfect way to make the dragon stand out.

The dragon’s neck is particularly well done, being constructed mainly out of robot arms to resemble scales. Robot arms are actually used throughout, also being used for teeth and the tips of the black horns. The Piraka leg pieces are the ideal choice for the ridge of the dragon’s face: they give it that undeniably rigid-skinned lacertilian look.

Getting the ball rolling

Never underestimate the power of a good color scheme. This gorgeous orange, teal, and white racer by Chris Perron is instantly eye-catching thanks to its bold shades. The car isn’t just all flash, though, as it’s designed as a futuristic mag-lev vehicle around a large rear ball, held in place with a pair of orange basketball hoops. The ball originally hails from Duplo, and it’s one of only a few elements to have successfully made the jump from Duplo to System sets. The use of 3×3 radar dish pairs for front “wheels” also works great (do mag-lev cars need wheels?).

Classic space goes to the chapel

Many depictions of space men visiting earth depict them making contact during modern times, but who’s to say they might not have visited in the past? That’s exactly what looks to be happening in Ralf Langer’s latest creation. But the visitors from space are not the only thing that’s out of this world in this little chapel – the parts usage is seriously stellar!

Ralf was inspired to build the chapel by a challenge to use the new Big Ugly Ship Hull for something other than a spaceship, and he integrates it so well here that I didn’t even notice it at first glance. Advanced building techniques abound in the construction of the chapel, from the complicated yet smooth circular wall to the chain link rooftop. My personal favourite is the front door – I can’t figure out how he achieved the herringbone inlay, but the end result is stunning.