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.

An office with a view

Whatever people may think about Darth Vader’s regime, there’s no doubting his taste for classy work spaces. Whether he’s working from his head office or on a business trip to a distant system, the interior and the views he and his staff enjoy are to be envied. Brick Ninja perfectly captures his excellent model of the Imperial Super Star Destroyer Executor, so perfect it looks almost exactly like a shot from The Empire Strikes Back.

And it’s not just a pretty-looking diorama, but a proper copy of the ship’s bridge. While the front of the bridge is for admiring the fleet, there are some important business meetings happening on its other side.

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

The 10 most popular custom LEGO creation instructions on The Brothers Brick for 2018 [Instructions]

LEGO bricks are amazing little parts that can bring to life almost anything you can imagine. There are many reasons to build — some people do it to relax, some to impress, and some are artists who love to sculpt with bricks as a medium. Regardless of the reasons, we can all agree that for those of us that just prefer to follow instructions, it can be delightful to still have a chance to build a few of these custom creations. For the designers, creating instructions is an effort that needs to be commended, as it a great deal of takes time and patience. Today, we’re recognizing some of the builders who shared instructions of their fantastic creations that were most popular in 2018 with readers of The Brothers Brick.

Click to see the Top 10 Custom builds with Instructions

Princess Monoblock protects the forest

The blocky Brickheadz building style meets classic Japanese anime in this cubist LEGO rendition of San from Studio Ghibli’s Princess Mononoke. Immediately recognisable to fans of the movie, Nathan DeCastro‘s model captures all the essential elements of the famous character. Those streaks of red makeup are perfect, tapering to a point thanks to the use of curved 1×1 tiles, and the white fur headdress and the necklace are excellent. Now all this needs is a giant wolf built to the appropriate scale!

Beware the dangerous depths of Layers City

With sets like 70620 Ninjago City and 70657 Ninjago City Docks, The LEGO Ninjago Movie brought a cyber-punk aesthetic to official LEGO sets, which in cool factor is only eclipsed by the post-apocalyptic aesthetic of the new LEGO sets from The LEGO Movie 2. While LEGO fans have certainly been building cyberpunk creations for many years, even more builders have embraced this aesthetic, inspiring numerous custom LEGO models, including our own Ninjago City collaborative display at BrickCon, featuring over 60 custom city blocks. Sebastian Bachórzewski is an incredibly talented builder who builds in everything from medieval to post-apoc style. His latest large-scale model is “Layers City,” featuring a slice cut from a teeming metropolis full of colorful characters.

Take a closer look at Layers City

A small reflection of life as it is

We often build with LEGO bricks to imitate, in other words reflect, life. While Ralf Langer‘s latest creation is a completely realistic microscale depiction of medieval life, the word reflection has more meanings to it.

First we see a micro mountain village with some cool techniques like the church roof, printed tiles as windows and modified plates as pine trees, but then something interesting in the water catches the eye. Ralf states in the picture description on Flickr that this is an experiment in water reflections, and I can see where he is going with it. A little extra bit is exposed in the description; if you go to the beginning of Ralf’s Flickr photostream, you can see that the building being reflected in the water is a microscale version of his first custom LEGO creation, earlier this year.

Rorschach test in LEGO bricks

While these strange shapes don’t look anything like inkblots, they’re as good as any Rorschach test to me. It’s titled “Rot” by builder Sheo, and it’s an enigmatic scene to test our visual perception of what we see. If had to guess, I’d say that it’s partial skeletal remains of an alien lying in decay in a faraway galaxy. I can’t say for sure what the balloon-like piece depicts but I can say it’s an ingenious use of parts with LEGO rubber tires held together by mechanical arms that we frequently see on droid figures.

LEGO Bumblebee in beetle form is one sweet ride [Instructions]

The new, much-anticipated Bumblebee movie has inspired LEGO fans to build some fantastic creations recently, from this large-scale figure by Ekow Nimako to this transforming model by Jerry Builds Bricks and this cute model in Volkswagen Beetle form by hachiroku24 is the latest. One of my favorite details is the gently curving back of the car, which very closely matches its real-life inspiration. The extra curvy front wheel well is also a very nice detail and helps to complete this iconic car profile.

Click through to see the parts list and instructions to build your own LEGO Bumblebee

A battleship for the digital age

Specializing mostly in digital builds, CK-MCMLXXXI has made quite the beauty of a spaceship with his recent build, The Solomon & Guggenheim. Certain bricks may not exist in the colours used in this build, but that is really not the main quality of the creation. Pieces like a tile with UNITED text print (from the LEGO Ideas Saturn V) and all sorts of modified tiles such as ingot pieces, pentagonal tiles and 1×1 tiles with a rounded side make for some great patterns and colour blocking that look like a legitimate spaceship. The shaping with a large portruding segment on the bottom and all sorts of crazy angles just add to that and the end result is quite an enjoyable sight.

To boldly research where no one’s researched before

We’re going far away from civilization into the cold reaches of space with this LEGO ship by Chris Perron. But it’s not for fame or glory — no, this ship has a more noble goal: to research! Even Chris admits he’s not quite sure what it’s researching, but one thing is clear: it looks awesome outfitted with highly scientific doodads and whatsits. And there are lots of interesting techniques, from the mix of struts holding up the large side-mounted instruments to the cheese slopes crammed into the front of the ship’s long probe.

The one thing that worries me, though, is that the ship doesn’t look big enough for an airlock, which might be bad news for the astroscientist doing an EVA.

Smooth sleek spaceship soars the solar system

Give me a sleek looking ship in black and white any day and I’ll fall for it – just like the Ranger from Interstellar or the classic NASA Space Shuttle. This build by Oscar Cederwall stands out strikingly with some red highlights over a classic black-and-white design. I really love the effort of the arrowhead detail at the front of the ship, formed so perfectly with cheese slopes. Hardcore LEGO fans would also notice two very rare parts – the red X-pod lids on the wings and the extremely long boat hulls that appeared only once in a LEGO Speedboat set.

Here’s another look at the ship without special effects added to the scene.

When your keys become Christmas bells

During Christmas, many of us decorate our homes, trees and more, so why not our keys? Chungpo Cheng has the right idea with this classic Santa keychain creation.

The only problem in this case would be finding keys large enough! The builder has super-sized the classic Santa Claus minifig which still used a pirate cap instead of the modern purpose-moulded piece. What is most amazing in this creation is not just the accurate recreation at the scale (those hands are especially cool!), but the fact that each individual body part is its own finished creation, as seen on the picture below!

Now I really want to see a whole range of up-scaled minifig body parts that can be mixed and matched like the originals!

Holiday cheer rolls into town on a LEGO gingerbread train

What better way to celebrate the season than with a delicious gingerbread train? Well, maybe not so delicious, but this build by TBB alumnus Tim Lydy certainly looks incredible! All aboard the Gingerbread Express! The colors and parts usage are full of fun. And perhaps one of the best aspects is that the giant tree “cookie” on the third car spins, much like the one from the 2016 LEGO 10254 Winter Holiday Train set.