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.

Creator Expert 10256 Taj Mahal, LEGO’s 2nd biggest set ever [Review]

Last month we announced that LEGO is re-releasing the iconic 10189 Taj Mahal set as Creator Expert 10256 Taj Mahal. There was a mixture of surprise, pleasure and dismay at this announcement, depending on your ownership of the original 10189 and whether the re-release could affect your “investment” or your ability to finally afford this iconic set. Taj Mahal is the second-largest LEGO set of all time with 5,923 pieces, and is available beginning today in LEGO stores and from the LEGO Shop Online for $369.99 USD / £299.99. It is rated as 16+, reflecting the size and nature of the set as a display piece rather than any technical challenges when building.

In contrast to some recent re-releases like UCS Millennium Falcon 75192 or UCS Death Star 75159, this is not a re-modeled set but a pure re-release of the same set under a different set number. Let’s take a quick look at the two sets for comparison, as there are a couple of differences worth highlighting.

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Iconic Luke & Vader scene from Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back recreated perfectly in LEGO

One of the most iconic scenes from The Empire Strikes Back takes place in Cloud City, where Darth Vader reveals Luke’s parentage. Due to the sheer scale of the film’s setpiece, this memorable scene hasn’t appeared in many brick-built creations, but Caleb Watson and Carlyle Livingston have managed to pull off an incredible huge-scale build that’s appropriately and simply titled “Noooo!”

This impressive size of the central duct of Cloud City stands out, recreated perfectly though with a detailed backlit background. Although the patterned backdrop may look simple, the careful placement needed to get the textures just right isn’t easy.

Here Caleb (left) and Carlyle stand behind their masterpiece to give a sense of the scale needed to do justice to this scene in bricks.

View more details of this creation below.

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Set a course for the East

We’ve perhaps not seen as many Eastern-influenced LEGO creations as we might have expected following the LEGO Ninjago Movie and sets, but here’s an excellent medieval/Oriental ship creation from ElviN. The colour scheme is a little sombre, but that’s helping me imagine this her slipping her moorings before dawn and heading silently out of harbour, bound for faraway shores on nefarious Imperial business. The vessel’s dragon prow is nicely-done, and the circular entrances, lanterns, and roofing all contribute to an Eastern feel to the ship’s lines. But my favourite touch is the line of oars — protruding from smart oarholes, and well put-together from clips and tiles.

Let’s crack it open and see what happens

When you stumble across some sort of alien pod embedded in the ground, the obvious choice is surely to open it. I mean, what could go wrong? Devid VII‘s LEGO scene doesn’t illustrate the consequences of the choice made by this pair of foolhardy characters, but I can’t imagine it’s going to end well. At first glance this scene might seem simple, but then you spot the landscaping — built using the 6-sided “Nexogon” piece. It’s a wonderfully alien-looking crystaline structure, and coupled with the twisting foliage and purple pool, it creates an appropriately other-worldly atmosphere.

Designed with a single purpose – to destroy Imperial ships

Inthert has put his talent for building outstanding copies of Star Wars spacecrafts to good use with another brilliant model to help the rebels fight the Imperial forces. As the builder comments his own creation, the biggest challenge during the work on this B-wing was the problem with proportions; it’s so easy to ruin the build with just one extra plate or a tile. Fortunately, the result is beyond any compliments.

Hear the high tone of the xylophone

This xylophone built by Pistash looks just like the real instrument some of us have grown up with. Although the brick-built version probably sounds different, it still has all the vibrant colors of this traditional toy. It’s shown that LEGO has really come up with a diverse palette that makes wonderful creations like this possible.

Sometimes even an invisible creation can be good

Transparent clear is definitely not a rare LEGO colour, but the pieces that come in clear tend to be ones appropriate for windows and similar constructions. Apparently disagreeing with that, Grantmasters has built a stealth Predator figure using as many translucent parts as possible, and even the odd gray elements do not stand out somehow. While we wait for LEGO to release more diverse parts in translucent colours, this figure transpires to be one of the more impressive in its scale.

Photographing LEGO in a non-LEGO environment may be viewed as cheating by some, but I believe it adds a lot to the character in this specific example.

No sleep ’til bricktime

The Beastie Boys’ debut album Licensed To Ill is a certifiable classic. Not only is it packed full of awesome tracks, but I can distinctly remember how cool the gatefold sleeve looked when the LP first appeared back in 1986. Brick Flag is also clearly a fan. He’s recreated the iconic cover art in LEGO bricks — a Boeing 727 smashing into a mountainside, and looking more than a little like a stubbed-out cigarette. The model would be great anyway, but the fact it’s such an accurate representation of its inspiration just makes it even better. What’s the time? It’s time to get built.

Supercute and superfast

Here’s a pair of cute and colourful microscale LEGO space racers from Victor. Great shaping, partly due to them being built around one of the new(ish) large-scale Nexo Knight figure torsos, but also from some smart parts choices — small angled plates, sloped tiles, and some curved Technic panels. The colour choices are brilliant, making these guys stand out from the usual crowd of grey spacey stuff. And I love the slight angle on the hull beneath the cockpit — that’s a class little detail. These wouldn’t look out of place in an R-Type or Gradius clone, and in my universe that’s a compliment indeed.

An airplane might disappoint any pilot but it’ll never surprise a good one

Even though brick-built airplanes cannot fly yet, designing a cool LEGO aircraft is no easier than engineering a real one. Wesley reveals a wonderfully looking copy of Albatros D.III biplane fighter, which was used by the Imperial German Army during World War I. Its design seems very simple and straightforward, but, no doubt, capturing all the proportions correctly is quite a challenge considering the scale of the build. And, of course, the picture itself is a very sweet example of a proper presentation!

Nature’s ascending colour palette

The changing colour of trees and their foliage can be diverse in Alpine areas, usually making the long, steep hike with a camera well worth the effort. Inspired while hiking in the Swiss Alps, Emil Lidé has built an artistic impression of these natural foliage changes by creating a beautiful slice of LEGO mountain. As the eye ascends his build from left to right, the colours change from vibrant green and lime though the autumnal palatte of oranges and reddish browns to peak at the stark, snowy summit.

We have blogged previous builds by Emil, showcasing his skill at capturing the natural world in LEGO. Have a look at his polluted ocean, Krakatoa’s volcanic eruption, changing seasons in microscale and fall in the Avalonian countryside.

Black and white and rad all over

NoVVember is an annual LEGO building event — a celebration of the Vic Viper spaceship style. It’s been a fixture of the LEGO calendar for years now, so it takes something genuinely different to stand out from the Viper crowd. This interesting spaceship from Shamisenfred does exactly that, with striking colour blocking and imaginative use of hot-air balloon pieces. The excellent building continues beyond those eye-catching elements — don’t miss those engine nacelles, the little splashes of gold, and the smart use of stickers. I only wish the photos had been taken against a grey backdrop rather than white — it would have provided a far better contrast to the model.