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 Star Wars palace fit for an evil emperor

The Emperor’s personal residence hasn’t appeared in any of the films (well, unless you count its prior incarnation as the Jedi Temple, according to current canon), but it still looms large in Star Wars lore. A little forced perspective helps it loom even larger in this great LEGO diorama by r_t_zan, where its appearance is inspired by its classic Legends description. The build concentrates its minifig-scale details up front and lets the eye drift toward the rear, where its forbidding spires reach for the stars. Other than a statue, we never see the Emperor himself, and the build is all the better for it—Palpatine’s air of mystery is preserved as we imagine which of those lofty spires might house his evil presence.

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Opulent LEGO “goldfish” doesn’t play coy

Last year Swedish builder Rickard Stensby (@stensbylego) wowed us with his ingenious technique for layering round plates around a frame to create a perfectly-shaped chicken. How to follow up on one of 2023’s most admired LEGO creations? Rickard plumbed the depths and hooks a gold-plated anglerfish, mounted and ready for its gallery debut. This time it’s the 2×3 flat tile with angle that gets the layering treatment, giving the fish its sleek yet pokey finish. The jutting teeth, cartoon eye, and glow-white ball dangling on a pearl gold hose round out the briny personality. Don’t let the flat presentation fool you – the model captures nearly the full spherical body of the fish (which you can appreciate in Rickard’s video). The black tile backing and gilded frame let the deceptively simple model shine. Rickard says there were two unfinished attempts at creating this difficult form but the third time is a charm worthy of a LEGO Master.

Oo-de-lally, oo-de-lally, golly, what a build

Robin Hood and Little John are taking a break from runnin’ through the forest as they hide from the schemin’ sheriff and his posse in this charming LEGO build by Isaiah Kepner. The thing that really makes the vignette fun, aside from the brick-built Little John and the sheriff’s minions, is the variety of textures that make the trees and foliage of Sherwood Forest come to life. It’s like one of those I Spy books you may have read as a kid: I spy a rifle, a broomstick, minifig hands, a whip, a halberd, a battle droid arm, and more. Are you able to track them all down?

That time I threw up in a Beetle

Famed LEGO builder Joey Klusnick has found a nightmare scenario in me that I never knew could exist. At my age, I’m happier sitting on a shady bench and watching youngins go on amusement rides rather than going on myself. Getting jostled around just doesn’t have the same appeal as it did when I was younger, plus I’d spill the cocktail I’d inevitably be enjoying. Enter the nightmare scenario, which is part gravitron, part mech-beetle and all vomit-inducing. Plus, there is no passively sitting on a bench with this thing around. No siree! This beast grabs its victims and plants them into its spinning gravitron compartment and spins them to death. To death, you hear me? I told you kids those amusement rides were dangerous!

You can even see the Gravitron Beetle in action if you’re brave enough. Not me though. I’ll just sit here with my Vodka Tonic and contemplate where my life went so wrong.

The eyes tell the story

Disney content has provided inspiration for LEGO builds since time immemorial. Builder Gregory Coquelz has recreated the main characters from Disney Pixar CGI short film For the Birds using the brick, adding to this long tradition. The builder’s depiction of the big, overly-friendly bird in the center with big, bulging, and naïve eyes. They’re only looking to be included despite being quite the nuisance. Even if you’ve never seen the source material, you can sense the annoyance of the two smaller birds from their heavy side eye, ingeniously made from minifigure helmets. But just like in the cartoon, it’s probably best for everyone if the big bird doesn’t step off the wire.

Celestial love finds poetry in motion

What is love but an irresistible attraction between two heavenly bodies? Legonerdphotos brings the metaphor to life in LEGO with an anthropomorphized sun and moon locked in each other’s orbit. Like a high-concept PIXAR project, the builder manages to turn an abstract idea into deeply relatable characters. Who would have guessed that a cold grey meteor and a trans orange tridax pod could convey such emotion? The figure designs are a perfect mix of alien and intimate, especially the tendril arms that hold each other so lovingly. The photography is stellar, perfectly staged, using compositing to achieve the slight glow around each figure’s head.

Dancing of the Spheres is legonerdphotos’ interpretation of the theme “Gravitational Energy” for the BioCup. We’ve seen blessed with some truly out of this world creations in this year’s lineup. I can’t wait to see what legonerdphotos and the other advancing builders come up with in Round 2.

Battling Atlantic waves

During WWII, Britain could only continue fighting Nazi Germany thanks to constant foreign imports and weapons shipments from the US. To stem this flow, the German “Kriegsmarine” employed hundreds of submarines, that sank 3,500 Allied merchant ships and 175 Allied warships. Besides enemy action, ships, the submarines, and their crews they also had to deal with atrocious weather, particularly in wintertime.

My latest model, for a Battle of the Atlantic display at BrickFair Virginia this summer, represents a German submarine riding the waves. Originally I was going to build just the conning tower, but that left me with a problem: visible lines are running from the conning tower to the front and aft of the boat’s hull. By building more of the boat and the waves thrown up by its passage, I could attach them. As a result, I spent more time building the waves than the model of the boat itself. This was far from the easiest thing I have ever done, but I hope you agree it was well worth the trouble.

LEGO Swamp Hut is anything but bog-standard

Medieval architecture might be a thing of the past, but it’s a wellspring of innovation for adult fans of LEGO. I’m constantly amazed at how members of the community find clever new ways to recreate decidedly old-fashioned aesthetics with the latest in plastic bricks. Builder david zambito, a long-time innovator in medieval techniques, returns from a lengthy hiatus with a singular Swamp Hut scene that shows he’s been honing those skills since we last saw his work.

The unusual choice of colors first catches the eye, with the wonderfully-mottled green walls of the hut echoing the mire of the swamp. By keeping to a narrow and muted palette, the few accent colors in the flowers and berries really pop. The stonework is perhaps the most impressive aspect of the build, both with the flagstone path nestled between brown stems (someone had fun at the Pick-a-Brick bins!) and especially the hut’s stony ground floor built from a truly eclectic mix of round parts in dark grey, from slide shoes to helmets, and even a frog. Nice parts usage (NPU) are sprinkled throughout the build; the Islander hairpiece topping the lantern and the arachnid arches over the windows are standouts and add to the witchy vibes.

Can’t find a good LEGO connection? Just add more!

I get a real kick out of seeing parts from the old Star Wars Planets line used in LEGO creations. I’m not sure why that is – perhaps it’s the round features juxtaposed with the often angular lines of other bricks, or the challenge of having only two connection points. Well, I say only two… Nuhvok_mok has come up with an inventive way to add more! In this somewhat sinister droid, the Death Star is used for the top portion, with the photoreceptors attached to it using LEGO magnets. Ingenious! Appropriately enough, the whole things reminds me of the Death Star interrogation droids from Star Wars: A New Hope. I wonder if there’s a tiny interrogation droid floating around in there…

A stout building for bitter warriors to cure what ails them

Dwarves of the Warhammer universe take their beer very seriously. No warrior worth his salt would get drunk on pig swill. Only barrel-aged stouts will do. Dwalin Forkbeard, builder of all things dwarven and steampunk, treats us to a proper Dwarven Brewery in his latest LEGO creation. Dwalin recreates a dry stone building technique of stones stacked without mortar – a tricky technique to pull off this well with LEGO bricks. The stonework is paired with a riveted rooftop, copper detailing, and a pearl gold brewing apparatus peeks out from the back of the structure to heat the wort for a heady brew. On this day, the brewery has guests of ~~dis~~honor, as Dwarven slayer Gotrek and his chronicler Felix look thirsty for a pint of Korben’s Finest.

Majestic Mayan Temple of Kukulcán towers in LEGO

The Temple of Kukulcán, dubbed El Castillo by the Spanish, is the heart of the Mayan city Chichén Itzá, now a UNESCO Heritage site and Mexico’s most visited archaeological attraction. Jakob Escher, no stranger to large-scale LEGO building ambitions, took on the challenge of constructing the sacred site at minifig scale. Jakob painstakingly recreates the 365 steps spread across the four sides, flanked by the toothy maws of Kukulcán. The massive model impressed visitors at the recent Paredes de Coura Fan Weekend in Portugal, captured here along with many other impressive creations from international builders.

Need a hand with your LEGO creation?

J6Crash has created this entry for this year’s Bio-cup LEGO building competition that looks straight out of a sci-fi movie or video game. The variety of LEGO elements used is fantastic – the use of the Toa Phantoka ball-shooters at the base being of particular note. But it’s the questions that this build asks which elevate it beyond an ordinary Contraction contest entry. Clearly this is some sort of synthetic hand, but why does it need to be supercharged with electricity like this? Is it completely synthetic? Is it – or was it – a human hand? And, er, where’s the rest of it? Surely there’s an equally cool-looking arm and body lying just out of shot. But its purpose is anyone’s guess….