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 high-tech bus stop for a rapidly growing LEGO city

You can’t build a prosperous city without a fast and modern rapid transport system. As long as public buses remain one of the most popular means of transportation, bus stops need to be regularly upgraded as well. Sergey Antokhin brings public stops to the next level with this very good-looking combo of a stop and an info stand. This design is so clean and simple, it’s hard to believe you need no more than a hundred LEGO pieces to decorate your city street with a public area like this one. Bonus points are for a very smart choice of pieces for the paving: ingot tiles in light bluish gray interspersed with jumper tiles help create a very lifelike pattern.

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Giving birth to an idea

There is a dark yet beautiful quality to Reven New’s creation that reminds me of the Swiss artist H. R. Giger’s best work. Playing with the cold interconnection between the human body and technology, the sculpture counterpoints an emaciated body, built from an oddball assortment of LEGO pieces, with the new life of its title. The minifigure baby is no longer grown within the womb, instead created in a birthing tank hooked up to its mother’s brain. Photographed dramatically under a lurid green light, we are left in no doubt as to the unnatural process taking place. As Reven notes in his own description: “No more emotions… Only thoughts, only purpose.”

Gone with the wind

Although not based on a specific aircraft, the latest model from Finnish builder Tino Poutiainen accurately replicates the wild, “held together with string and dreams” frontier of the early days of manned flight. Like the real-life Wright Flyer, Baldwin Red Devil, and other early turn-of-the-20th-century experimental aeroplanes, Tino’s model appears rickety, thin, and massively unsafe: he did a superb job of making the whole thing look like it’s going to fall apart as soon as its wheels leave the ground.

Sumo is the greatest sport on earth

I’ve explained elsewhere why sumo (traditional Japanese wrestling) is the greatest sport on earth — it’s fast, complex, and incredibly exciting. I won an apple in my first sumo bout at age three, and I’ve been hooked ever since. Cindy Su apparently agrees with me, because she built this wonderful rikishi (or wrestler — sumo is the name of the sport, not the name of the wrestlers). She layers various round tiles to bulk up the underlying BrickHeadz form, and gives this mountain of a man a stand complete with a Japanese flag to pose on. He has huge arms to shove opponents out of the ring, with an expressive face that seems to say he’s relieved to have just finished a winning bout.

Interestingly, many of the top wrestlers these days are foreign-born, from countries like Mongolia and Georgia. As someone who spent 15 years getting called gaijin (foreigner, with connotations of “outsider”) in my own home country, I’ve taken a perverse pleasure in rooting for the foreigners in recent sumo tournaments. Of course, sumo wrestlers aren’t born quite so big. They bulk up by eating a special stew called chankonabe, which Cindy has also faithfully created for this rikishi to enjoy.

Green colossus can stand the heat

Is it getting hot in here? Or is it just the sizzle coming off this lovely green mech standing astride a stream of lava? Chris Perron is a designer at LEGO, and says he was inspired to create this model whilst working with the new yellowish-green parts found in the BrickHeadz Little Mermaid set. It’s nice to see LEGO designers continuing to “play” on their own time with the plastic bricks they work with every day! Even better when the results are as good as this. The striking colour scheme might capture first looks, but don’t miss the shaping of the face, the wrist-mounted sword, and the excellent rifle. And as for the colourful swirls within that stream of magma? Simply brilliant.

The best carpenters make the fewest chips

The way the sunlight streams through the wooden slats of Simon NH’s carpenter’s workshop shows not only exemplary building skill, but also quite the talent with the camera. This idyllic scene of a bygone age of craftsmanship matches nifty piece uses, such as the minifigure hair wasp’s nest in the rafters, and the subtly positioned gear rack saw blade, against an eye for pictorial representation. Using the lines of the beams and rafters to exaggerate the perspective in the photograph, Simon pulls the viewer’s eye into this little world, able to linger over every detail of the carpenter’s life; and be rest assured those minifigure hands on the floor are wood chips and not the result of a grisly accident.

Stug mkIII, a mech for the mean streets

Singapore-based Benjamin Cheh Ming Hann is no stranger to The Brothers Brick, with a huge array of top-tier, futuristic mecha and starships to his name (oh, and bugs). His latest creation continues to wow us as he presents a meaty mech that is bristling with weaponry and optional armor. The Stug mkIII features a colorful blend of chunky slopes and joints that I found really exciting as someone who has struggled to complete substantial mech models in the past. I also appreciate the nearly studless look, which is typical for Benjamin. This model would fit right at home with his prior work KURA IAM model.

Click through for more views of the back of the model and the bonus armor skirting!

Making a pig of himself

Zhu Bajie is one of the Monkey God’s fellow travellers in the classic tale Journey To The West. Western TV viewers might know him better as ‘Pigsy’ from the late-70s adaptation. However, familiarity with the source material isn’t required to appreciate this amazing LEGO version of the porcine hero by Kingmarshy. Wonderfully sculpted from a mix of Technic, Bionicle, and regular system bricks, this is a masterpiece of character building. The face is excellent, as is the headdress, but it’s the lines of the robe, with its white trim gaping around the bulging stomach, which really caught my eye. It’s also nice to see this sort of character engaged in a peaceful activity like feasting rather than set up in a more martial pose. The accompanying furniture is perfect — helping create the period feel, but not distracting attention from the main character himself.

Looks like someone forgot to turn off their studio lights

If you have the LEGO set 41597 Go Brick Me, which we reviewed in-depth, you’re probably familiar with the generic white BrickHeadz model included in that set’s instruction booklet. Well, LEGO builder Pascal Hetzel has created this tragically “melting” creation of that generic BrickHeadz model. Be sure to take a closer look at the creation, which is actually built at double size.

One of the most distinct details of this model is the re-creation of the 1×1 printed tile used for the eyes, which thanks to some clever part uses is remarkably accurate despite the scale increase. I also really like the smooth curves used to make the spreading pools of melted plastic.

Cooking up a chemically pure Breaking Bad scene with LEGO

The TV show Breaking Bad showed us chemistry-teacher-turned-drug-kingpin Walter White’s descent from sympathetic protagonist to monstrous antagonist over its run, and the ever-talented LEGO 7 has rendered the self-styled Heisenberg in brick form here at the peak of his meth-cooking days. Like the famously blue 99.1% chemically pure meth, this model has all the right ingredients to be a hit.

I absolutely love the use of the trans-clear Bionicle tooth for the chemical pouring into the pot, although I think the standout parts usage here is the trans-black windscreen 3x4x3 which expertly replicates the protective face mask of Walt’s meth-cookin’ outfit. Enjoy a bonus shot of this brilliant model with the facemask up to appreciate the work recreating Walt’s distinct glasses, goatee, and shaved head.

This LEGO AT-ACT from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story strides through the palm trees

Builder Ben Cossy intended to make a small scene set on the planet Scarif from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, but ended up with an imperial sized project, creating this stunning AT-ACT Walker. The bulkier sister to the standard AT-AT, this walker has a heavier animalistic design, consistent with its construction site deployment. Ben taps right into this aesthetic, imbuing his model with a weighty sense of gravitas, doubling the hinged knee joint on its longer legs, as well as triple plating the armoured body. Yet, it’s that first decision to situate the composition on the planet surface, where the AT-ACT can tower over the tiny palm trees, that truly captures its ominous sense of scale.

A nemesis worthy of the Midnight Ranger

Every good hero needs a villain, and this is even more true for mecha. Marco De Bon has built many mecha over the years, many of which we’ve featured on the Brothers Brick, including the Midnight Ranger, whose nemesis we see here, called the Renegade.

While it has all the bread and butter of mecha like chunky armored legs and rocket betteries in his shoulders, there is so much more to see. First thing that you might notice is the tentacle arms emerging from its back and the lime green area on the chest, which is just as likely to be an air intake or a death laser. My favourite part is its waist though – maybe it is my personal affinity for hoses, but the skeleton construction is just awesome.

Click and see how the Renegade compares to his mortal enemy