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 blessing in the old chapel at Marbury Village

As we start wrapping up our coverage of the various LEGO Castle creations that were part of the Ye Old Merry Battleground collaboration by “InnovaLug” at Brickfair VA, we would be remiss in our duties if we failed to highlight this beautiful village by TBB alum Mark Erickson. Mark’s village includes two half-timbered houses and an excellent church in unconventional tan (sandstone, I presume). The church has sculptures in the same color as the structure — though in fact these would likely have been painted garishly when carved originally in the Medieval era — as well as a graveyard and a red roof with some subtle texturing.

Mark’s extra pieces of rounded landscaping that sort of “drip” off of his main diorama illustrate the interesting approach that the InnovaLug team took to their collaborative display. Rather than integrating the various contributions on a single underlying brick-built landscape (as we did with our Battle of Bricksburg display), the team used white space between the builds to highlight each build separately. We tried this approach with TBB’s “ChronoCon” display at BrickCon a couple of years ago, and it’s not generally a style of collaborative display that I think works all that well — though InnovaLug seems to have pulled it off quite well by spanning the open space with little details like the smaller landscaping pieces here. What do you think of this display style?

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Alexander the Great in the Battle of Issus, 333 B.C.E.

legopthalmos has a strong eye for historic scenes, as he demonstrates with this excellent LEGO recreation of the iconic “Alexander Mosaic” in the Naples National Archaeological Museum. In the Battle of Issus in Anatolia (modern-day Turkey), Alexander the Great personally led his Macedonian army against Darius III and his Persian army. Alexander defeated Darius, further enabling Alexander’s conquest of Asia. This LEGO scene includes all the details of the historic mosaic, from Alexander astride his war horse to Darius in his chariot. Both the horses and minifigs are posed well, with artistic angling of the Persian lances balanced by the denuded tree on the Macedonian side.

Here’s a closeup of some of the great action in this diorama.

Magnificent Maleficent makes a scene

Jme Wheeler has created a brilliant vignette featuring Maleficent and the fearsome dragon she transforms into at the end of Sleeping Beauty [ oops, spoiler alert! ]. I love everything about this scene — from the impressive billowing smoke effect, through the fabulous sculpting of the dragon’s neck and head, to the touches of gold on the base. But it’s the shaping and coloring of that dragon’s eye that makes the model for me — an instantly recognisable detail that’s perfectly-captured.

If you’ve ever seen the Phantasmic show at Disney’s Hollywood Studios theme park then this model will instantly grab your attention. It reminded me of the massive version of Maleficent in full “dragon mode” which ends up rearing over the entire stadium. Great stuff.

LEGO baby delivered in style

Angela Chung has made great use of the new baby minifig in an excellent hospital scene depicting the arrival of a new baby. Sometimes “obvious parts usage” makes for the best models.

The details of the delivery room surrounding the central action are nicely done with a variety of mobile medical machinery at the ready. I particularly like the incubator trolley with it’s little heat lamp waiting to keep the new arrival cosy. However, close attention to the scene does raise one troubling question…what is the screwdriver for? Regardless, this is a lovely model, and is all the more refreshing for depicting the sort of real-life events we don’t often see “in the brick”.

Sleek cruiser hides a dark side

John Moffat‘s latest build is the Marie Curie, the first of Earth’s Manchester class attack cruisers which sailed out of the Lagrange shipyard in 2380. What a sleek beauty she is with her subtle dark red highlights and that smooth aerodynamic upper hull covering the intricate ‘greebled’ inner workings of the ship. The little touches of dark tan and yellow add interest and draw the eye to the darker greebled areas — a great way to ensure that all those subtle details are appreciated.

Now, I wonder if John built two Marie Curie attack cruisers or if there’s a clone in our midst?

Angry Birds are instantly recognizable in micro form

In a testament to the insane popularity of Angry Birds and the amazing skill of the builder, this microbuild by Letranger Absurde is instantly recognizable.

Despite the tiny size, the birds and slingshot are brilliant. I count nine pieces, and they perfectly encapsulate the birds. My favourite part usage here is the minifig slingshot which becomes supersized thanks to the scale of the scene. There are many more details, and I highly encourage you to scan the pig castle to see all the other little details for yourself.

Scout mech takes inspiration from Overwatch’s D.Va

The mecha world seems to have fallen in love with D.Va’s bright pink mech, and it has already been the basis for a great LEGO build. But today we have a new mech inspired by the pink robot/bomb in the form of the Scout Walker by Nate Rehm-Daly. Make sure you check out the back view to see the design of those spindly legs and a cockpit closeup to see the superb shaping that was accomplished at this small scale.

Creepily colorful LEGO skulls

David Hughes is building a series of wonderfully creepy LEGO skulls. They have a definite Mexican Day Of The Dead vibe going on with bold color choices and geometric patterns. Our hobby is generally dominated by minifig-scale models depicting scenes or vehicles — sometimes it makes for a pleasant change when we get these kind of larger-scale art pieces beautifully put together from good old-fashioned bricks.

Then & Now with Doris the aging minifig

TBB contributor Elspeth De Montes has been working on a fantastic series of scenes contrasting the life of a woman named Doris in 1966 and later in her life today, in 2016. Originally built for and published in Bricks magazine, Elspeth’s scenes are not only well-built LEGO creations, but also poignant and funny. She describes her Doris series thus: “On the left it is 1966 and she is a young vibrant lady in touch with the latest fashion, technology and trends. On the right, time has passed and it is 2016 and Doris has to cope with new technology, innovation and the changes in society.”

In Elspeth’s first scene, Doris happily tosses her rubbish out in 1966, but struggles to sort her recyclables in 2016. What impresses me most about this scene is how many LEGO trash cans in various colors Elspeth owns!

Click through to see all of Doris’s adventures through the years

Stunning LEGO A Link Between Worlds mosaic

While I have not yet played this particular title in the Legend of Zelda series, the LEGO mosaic version of Link in wall merged form built by Hans Demol is instantly recognizable. In game, Link can take the form of a wall painting to traverse the worlds and puzzles in interesting ways, and Hans shows this with a stacked plates mosaic style that works well for both the painted Link and the uneven brick wall texture.

In this close-up of Link’s face, you can see several different colors used to achieve the painted look.

Djordje creates the Makuta LEGO didn’t

It was a sad day when the beloved Bionicle theme was canceled for the second time. In comment sections far and wide LEGO was critisised for many things, but one specific complaint kept cropping up: there’s no Makuta set.

Thankfully our hobby is based on the fact that we can make whatever we want, including what LEGO didn’t have the incentive to create. Djordje has stepped up to provide us with this build which would not have been an official set for another reason: it’s massive.

A gentleman’s sidearm

A fantastic selection of primarily Technic elements come together in a LEGO double-barreled steampunk handgun built by nobu_tary. All kinds of interesting details are found throughout, such as the split paneling revealing the barrels, compass piece as some sort of gauge, and a thin wire trigger guard.