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.

Party like it’s 2002 with Bob DeQuatre’s latest Neo-Ice Planet creations

Blacktron might be the most popular Classic Space subtheme in numbers, but all the cool kids stan Ice Planet 2002. It has amazing colors, chainsaws, and courtesy of the CMF space series, penguins in space suits. Bob DeQuatre heats up the Ice Planet Renaissance with his latest retro tribute, the Ice Falcon. The classic color scheme is there with the addition of medium azure for subtle gradation in the blues and a little extra black for those incredible engines. Of course a classic printed slope graces the nose.

From the front, the ship is sleek and studless. The engines bring in more greebling and cables. To give the ship texture while minimizing studs and seams, Bob incorporates Hero Factory leg elements into the engines. It’s a bit odd seeing a transparent color other than dark orange on an Ice Planet ship, but the glowing engines look great.

Best of all, as a modern Ice Planet ship, Bob makes room for the penguin co-pilot. Beautiful.

Keep chilling with more of Bob’s Ice Planet models

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A humble medieval home with waterfront views

Joel Tyer titles this medieval structure a “humble dwelling,” but when it comes to building techniques, there’s much to crow about. The rounded tiles in the brickwork, both 1x1s stacked within the wall and 2x1s applied to the exterior, add a stylized texture without getting messy. Similarly, the slope of the roof tiles is clean with a hand-crafted touch. I love the landscaping, from the giant moss-covered rock that the house is built around to the earthen path dotted with flowers and a pink frog. And the irregularly-shaped SNOT base of light blue on top of black evokes an island on a lake with minimal water. It’s a miniature masterclass in medieval building from one of the pioneers who shaped the look of LEGO Castle MOCs today.

Looking for a job? LEGO Yubaba is always hiring

Yubaba, the witchy proprietress of the bathhouse in Spirited Away, is my favorite type of villain: powerful, grandiose, nasty without being evil. Yubaba has a big head to match her ego, which makes the character the perfect subject for builder Rokan Cheung, who specializes in creating character busts in LEGO. The builder sets the character on a mosaic mat, complete with the witch’s rolling “Kashira” head pets.

You can see the builder’s skillful facial sculpting in play with Yubaba, like the plates with bows under her baggy eyes or the bold lashes created from minifig hands clipped to hotdogs.

You can see Rokan’s talent for brick-built likenesses in this kindly old man (clearly no relation to the witch above).

Mooncakes and tea under a fish lantern’s glow – Celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival in LEGO

While in much of the world, October is spent getting in the Halloween spirit, in much of Asia, the month aligns with the Mid-Autumn Festival (it fell on October 6th this year), when mooncakes and tea are enjoyed to honor ancestors. Khang Huynh celebrates the festival with traditional cakes and tea alongside a Vietnamese-style fish lantern. The builder photographs with his usual care, lending a soft glow to the tableau that makes it easy to overlook as LEGO.

The sand green and turquoise teapot is a beautiful sub build. Dinosaur tails are used to create the ornate handle and spout, while leaves lend subtle texture to the sides.

While the pot and lamp are new builds, the cake comes from a Mid-Autumn festival tribute that Khang created three years ago. That year’s tableau featured an equally elegant teapot design.

Bricknap’s LEGO spacecraft paint a colorful, cyberpunk-cool future

LEGO Spaceships don’t need to be 100+ studs long to amaze. Oftentimes, it’s the crazy angles, color blocking, and creative use of parts at a smaller starfighter scale that hit like a supernova. Take the KLR-420 starfighter from French builder Fabien (bricknap), a craft so dense with fun detail it’s dizzying. Fabian first started designing the ship a year ago and completed it back in 2024 as an addition to his sprawling sci-fi universe of Fantapolis – which is a bit like New Hashima with a heavy dose of the Friends color palette.

There is so much to love about this ship design, from the cockpit module for a pilot to lay down between clear windshields, to the arms from the Mobile Construction Crane used for the wings, to the pair of Nexo Knight hubs/grinders wrapped with a Dots bracelet.

The S-foil wing formation and engines are clearly X-Wing inspired, but the aesthetic brings in so much more whimsy. The color combination of blue and bright light orange is gorgeous (and also a favorite combo of Simon Liu!)

Click for a quick tour of some of Fabien’s other spacecraft

LEGO Trogdor comes in the night to burninate your peasants

In the pantheon of great dragons, you have Smaug, Falcor, King Gidorah, Toothless, and of course, Puff the Magic, but all of these legendary beasts pale in comparison to the greatest dragon~~-man~~ of all: Trogdor, the Burninator. Trogdor was introduced to the world back in 2001 with Strongbad Email #58, one of the greatest memes to arise from the pre-social media internet. Builder Grant Holyoak recreates Trogdor with all of the dragon’s essential features – smoke, fire, wing-a-lings, spinedies, and angry eyebrows. He even includes peasants mid-burninating. My only nitpick is that there aren’t enough consummate Vs!

Celebrate Halloween the Not-So-Scary way with legonano’s Disney tributes

Japanese builder legonano specializes in tiny LEGO tributes to all things Disney. With Halloween fast approaching, legonano has curated a selection of iconic villains for a Not-So-Scary display. The builder has created 164 mosaic tiles in her Disney series, establishing her own visual language for adapting beloved characters.

Also featured in her Halloween tableau is legonano’s miniature take on the Haunted Mansion, the latest in the builder’s series of Disneyland ride vignettes. The front of the facade captures the New Orleans Square landmark, while the back features some hitchhiking ghosts and a heart-stopping rendition of the bride.

A selection of legonano’s creations were previously featured in LEGO House’s Masterpiece Gallery, delighting kids and Disney Adults in Billund last year.

The Scottish Highlands distilled in LEGO

The beauty of the Scottish Highlands has been marvelously captured in this build by 11drgnsMOC. Every sight imaginable, from a cottage covered in snow to a castle atop a sunny green hillside, has been nestled side-by-side in this delightful vignette. There’s even a brick-built bagpipe! We can almost smell the peat in the air.

This rendering was one of several models that the builder submitted to Bricklink Designer Program Series 9. Voting for this round is closed, with the winning entries to be announced on November 19th.

Vancouver library recreated in brick by local LEGO legend Paul Hetherington

Paul Hetherington has a knack for building real-world locations in LEGO, and he’s at it again with this rendition of the West Vancouver Memorial Library, built to celebrate its 75th anniversary. You can tell what a grand place for the community this must be, with the ample greenery and curated outdoor space. Those umbrellas? Hub caps from the Scooby-Doo Mystery Machine! But cutaway sections also let us get a good look inside at the library’s main hall and children’s sections. And, if you want an even better look at this 17,850-piece model, you can see it on display inside the actual library.

Paul is a LEGO institution in the Pacific Northwest, whose large-scale architecture and pop culture models have delighted the community for over 20 years. This model is particularly special for the builder as it’s the same library he visited as a child where he discovered the comics that would go on to inspire his LEGO building.

LEGO Blastoise and Venusaur join the fray!

Following his incredible Charizard build last month, MitchBuilds has rounded out his party of Gen 1 starter final forms with Blastoise and Venusaur. Both of these builds feature just as many neat building techniques, and all appear to be nicely at scale with each other.

Blastoise is an imposing build, and positioned just like we’d see him in the game or anime. I’m particularly fond of the face shaping, where Mitch has managed to perfectly capture his eyes and give him quite a bit of personality with his open mouth. You may notice that his nose is made out of one of the old stiff minifig capes, which is an excellent touch. The shell frame technique that we’ve seen recently with The Mighty Bowser and Spiny Shell works really well for Blastoise, though it’s been highly customized for this build to make sure everything fits perfectly.

Venusaur’s up next, as well as Mitch’s behind-the-scenes videos!

A LEGO castle legend returns to the Guilds of Historica

Since 2013, over in the Eurobricks forums, Castle fans have been building out a shared fantasy world with story arcs and challenges called Guilds of Historica. Peter Ilmrud is a longtime member of the community who hasn’t added to the world in a while, but returned last month with a beautiful piece of forced perspective featuring his sigfig Parzival approaching a desert metropolis.

With just the microscale model in focus, we can better appreciate the wonderful technique, like one boat made with chocolate frogs and another from a hotdog bun, an upturned butterfly net as a dome, and a book cover for a tent.

Peter promises that the microscale model above is just an appetizer for a larger return to Guilds of Historica next year. Based on the builder’s previous creations in the setting, we’re in for a treat. Here is Peter’s creation from the GoH 10th anniversary contest two years ago – the Port of Zamorah. (Visit Peter’s Flickr to appreciate it close up.)

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How three builders celebrate travel with LEGO [Feature]

LEGO sets can make excellent souvenirs to take home from vacations, but how can LEGO prepare you for a trip and make that journey even more special?

Australian AFOL Kristel Whitaker recently wrapped a European vacation where she documented her trip with Polaroids built from LEGO. Rather than visit first, build later, Kristel prepped her “photographs” before leaving Australia based on iconic locations, then took an on-location photograph to match. The results are so much fun!

I love the use of monochrome for the LEGO versions, which makes them feel timeless but could also simplify the need to color-match exactly, like with this snapshot from Copenhagen’s Nyhavn.

Kristel’s compositions also help keep scope manageable when the subject is enormous, like with this shot of the Colosseum that she managed to perfectly match on location.

See the world with more AFOL adventurers after the fold!