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.

Swan Lake ballet automaton built from LEGO

Automata built from LEGO always amaze and inspire me. Growing up, my favorite ballet was Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, which I had the privilege to see performed by the Bolshoi Ballet at the height of their skill in the late 70’s when they toured Japan. Pixeljunkie has built a LEGO automata with a music box inside that plays the theme from the ballet while a minifigure dancer twirls around the top.

The video showcases the music box feature, as well as the way a group of dancers can also be attached to the mechanism to dance on the stage.

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Ascending from the plains into the foothills

Master microscale landscaper Full Plate brings us another lovely LEGO scene that captures the moment on a roadtrip when he finally reached rolling hills and winding roads instead of the boring plains he’d been driving on. I often feel the same way when returning to the green of western Washington State from the barren wastelands east of the Cascade Mountains. While many of the builder’s previous microscale masterpieces have featured a wide variety of trees, this build is at a smaller scale, and uses varying heights in the underlying terrain to add variety to the forest of evergreens.

Huge LEGO Star Wars carbon-freezing chamber from The Empire Strikes Back

One of the most moving scenes in The Empire Strikes Back is when Darth Vader freezes Han Solo in carbonite and hands him over to Boba Fett. Leia tells Han, “I love you.” Han of course replies, “I know.” Joshua Morris has recreated this key scene in LEGO, at a monumental scale that dwarfs 75137 Carbon Freezing Chamber (which I thought was a rather terrible set anyway). The entire platform lights up, giving it a very atmospheric look.

The platform is surrounded by tanks and pipes, with a catwalk where stormtroopers can ensure the Rebel prisoners remain compliant. “He’s alive. And in perfect hibernation,” Lando reassures Vader.

Achieve new heights in comedy with the stair car from Arrested Development

” Watch out for bridges and hop-ons. You’re going to get some hop-ons.”

TBB’s own Ralph Savelsberg continues adding to his collection of iconic vehicles with the airport stair car from the TV series Arrested Development. Ralph’s vehicles, built at a larger scale than the minifig-scale we typically feature, has a distinctive style that doesn’t shy away from showing the studs that LEGO is so famous for. With the stair car owned by the dysfunctional Bluth family, Ralph incorporates brick-built stripes as well as custom signage.

Naturally, the stairs actually extend, and the outriggers flip down to stabilize the vehicle.

The coziest hole you ever did see

Last month we featured Patrick B.‘s lovely version of Bag End, Bilbo’s house in the Hobbit and later Frodo’s in The Lord of the Rings. It turns out Patrick wasn’t done making cheery hobbit holes, though, as now he’s followed up with Samwise Gamgee’s home on Bagshot End, which is just as welcoming and snug.

It’s loaded with details, including lots of clever uses for unusual elements, such as the unusual Scala flower pot and vase paired together along with mini-doll Belle’s light yellow dress as large garden jars. Each section of this homely dwelling bears close scrutiny to tease out all the shrewd techniques. Continue reading →

Take to the skies in your own little helicopter [Instructions]

Perhaps this helicopter is actually a better size for ants rather than people, but it is definitely a fun little LEGO build. GolPlaysWithLego has built this great microscale helicopter out of 30 LEGO parts. The fuselage is built using some of the newer 1×2 curved slopes with notch and the tail rotor is a boomerang. Clever use of parts for a small build!

Click here for Instructions

A whimsical world with a waterfall

Whether in person or through the tubes and pipes of the internet, looking at a LEGO castle diorama has always been somewhat akin to viewing a renaissance painting in an art gallery for me. Like many great medieval artworks, there’s always so many things happening, and so many visually foreign and intriguing things occuring all at once — so much to take in. Brickwielder‘s latest build is filled to the brim with fun details and nifty building techniques. From the waterfall to the winding staircase, the bridge, or even all the foliage, there’s enough here to get lost.

To the moon and back again

Giving a fresh new twist on the classic LEGO grey-and-blue space theme, this shuttle by Horcik Designs is a perfect example of what fans like to call Neo-Classic Space. Despite its relatively small size, the shuttle seats two minifigures abreast in the trans-yellow clad cockpit, and the addition of lots of stickers adds a bit of extra flair that makes this spacecraft feel more industrial.

Continue reading →

One small step for man, one giant leap for pug-kind

I’m starting to get suspicious that LEGO builders are creating pug-themed creations because they know I’ll feature just about every single one. Well, keep it coming! This pug astronaut by 鄭仲恆 appears to be surprised by something he sees off in the distance above him. The space suit is well-constructed and realistic, with a bubble helmet to encompass the pug’s bubble head and bubble eyes.

Here at The Brothers Brick, we can’t help ourselves sometimes — we hope the talented builder doesn’t mind — and we took it upon ourselves to give this lovely space-pooch some adventures. Here he is landing on the moon. Or was he already there and he’s been surprised by the Apollo 11 crew landing next to him?

See more of this adventurous space pug’s adventures in space!

The speediest way to travel the future

It doesn’t take a big model or a lot of pieces to be clever with LEGO. In fact, one of the best ways is to take take a piece and find a use for it so good that it looks like the element was purpose-made for it. Case in point: the hood of the tiny speeder by F@bz, which was originally the barding (blanket) of a Friends horse. It’s also worth pointing out the background made of brick anti-studs and spaced plates, with a Mars Mission aero tube in the foreground.

Be the coolest kid on the street, 30 years ago

Cassette players scream eighties so loudly that it seems kind of redundant to mark tapes as “80s mix”, but Jarekwally still decided to bring out the nostalgia even more. The builder was inspired by his father’s stories of how they used to pirate music nearly forty years ago with a radio and a tape deck. Cassette players are so iconic, you don’t even need to have 80s nostalgia to be inspired by them.

Jarekwally’s build is not the first time we’ve seen cassette players in LEGO, which kind of makes sense, as tapes are just blocky technical items with a limited variation of texture — which translates into bricks very well. What I love about this particular version is the use of chrome silver around the cassette slot and the underside of a plate as the speaker mesh. Simple indeed, but inspired.

Check out these other LEGO retro audio instruments:

Spread our codes to the stars

Take a journey back before the launch of humans, robots, and Tesla Roadsters to space with a LEGO 1950s retro rocketship built by Jason Hlavenka. Slick transitions from the cone shape on top to the cylindrical body and quad fins at the bottom make his model pop.