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.

Life-sized scale models in LEGO

Wait…I know what you are thinking, The Brothers Brick lets another sister start blogging and she gets distracted and starts posting about fashion and sewing machine techniques! Look again: the items adorning this table are life-sized scale models all built with LEGO bricks. The Singer sewing machine, glasses, scissors and tailor’s chalk are very accurately depicted using LEGO as part of an exhibition called the Tiong Bahru Show by The Brick Collective that took place at Temasek Polytechnic in Singapore.

Another scene from The Brick Collective show is a typical cafe in the 1980s with some snacks, drinks and the classic Coca-Cola sign on the wall. When I say typical, clearly this is location dependant as Green Spot, Egg tarts, Siew Mai were not on the menu in my hometown of Glasgow, Scotland in the 1980s.

If you want a closer look and images of further scaled LEGO builds that appeared in the show, then you will find more within crayonbricks album on Flickr.

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It’s dangerous to go alone! Take this...

Link is the main protagonist in the best selling roleplaying-puzzle-action franchise The Legend of Zelda. This LEGO model of Link by Nathanael Kuipers accurately depicts him characteristically wearing a green tunic and pointed cap. The shaping is excellent, especially the facial features and his green tunic. Nathanael has also taken the time to build the details into Link’s shield and sword using bricks rather than any printed parts – nice attention to detail. It’s a perfect use of the Nexo Knights blade for Link’s sword in this build.

This links nicely on to another LEGO version of the same Zelda character. In this version Koen has rebuilt his previously featured Kirby, the eponymous character from another Nintendo videogame series. Kirby has the in-game ability to inhale enemies, thereby gaining characteristic abilities from them. Clearly by inhaling Link, Kirby has gained the ability to wield a huge sword and wear a green pointed hat without looking like one of Santa’s elves! A lovely fun build.

Viking adventure island

After a hard day’s raiding and pillaging, a fearless warrior needs some time to kick back and relax. Scale the heights of the watch tower, leap from the pier, or take a nap in the cozy hall! Activities include fishing, swimming, stashing treasure, polishing weapons, herding goats, and standing guard. Brick Vader displays it all, on an incredibly tiny and detailed piece of real estate. Great trees and great rockwork, all using a cohesive earthy palette. Only thing missing is the longboat.

The horned devils

Here’s a pair of fantastic characters of the diabolical persuasion. Fresh from the brimstone lands, they’re sure to wreak havoc or worse upon anyone they meet. First up is the creepy hellspawn Lungorthin the Devil, by Leonid An. The shaping of the beast’s head is nothing short of brilliant, with so many intricate pieces flowing smoothly together to form a snarling visage.

And then we have chubbybots‘ Mazinkaiser, who hails from the anime of the same name and isn’t a hellion at all but rather a giant mech, though it does fight Dr. Hell.

Pays to be the strong, silent type

Sean Cassidy induces nostalgia for the often overlooked Halo 3: ODST with his diorama of the final stand at the entrance to Uplift Nature Reserve, New Mombasa. Having fought many campaign playthroughs and firefights on this particular area, it seems Sean’s layout is near perfect. His choice of colors and techniques for the entrance, overlook, and planters fit the New Mombasa style of a believable yet futuristic city.

There are all kinds of vignettes within the overall massive diorama to find, shown on Sean’s Flickr. My favorite is the face-off between gravity hammer wielding Brute Chieftain and rocket launcher wielding ODST. Yes, that much firepower is necessary against a Chieftain.

New LEGO 10252 Volkswagen Beetle is totally radical, man! [Review]

Announced just last month and out on August 1st, The Brothers Brick is pleased to bring you a full review of the new 10252 Volkswagen Beetle, thanks to a special delivery from LEGO headquarters in Denmark. This new Beetle in stunning dark azure joins the dark green 10242 Mini Cooper and classic 10220 Volkswagen Camper Van in what I’m hoping is a permanent fixture in LEGO Creator sets. The set includes 1,167 pieces, and will retail for $99.99.

The build

We’ve come to expect some solid techniques and clever tricks in the “Expert” LEGO Creator series sets, many of which are very obviously designed by the numerous builders who have disappeared from the face of the Internet only to turn up in Billund. And that’s the case here — the set was designed by the very talented Mike Psiaki, whose LEGO creations we’ve featured many, many times here on The Brothers Brick over the years — most notably one of the best LEGO X-wings ever made.

Mike’s Beetle doesn’t disappoint. The 211 steps span an instruction booklet 124 pages thick. I recently also built the new LEGO Ghostbusters (2016) Ecto 1, and it had far more complicated techniques than this larger vehicle does, but the Beetle is still full of half-stud-offset, SNOT, complex headlight and bracket geometry, and other techniques you’ll rarely if ever see in a LEGO City set.

Click through for the complete review!

Custom LEGO Hatsune Miku minifigure

Having already delighted us last summer with his mosaic of everyone’s favorite holographic vocalist Hatsune Miku, Chris Rozek does it again with this cute minifigure version – well, Friends “minidoll” version to be precise. We’ve featured customized LEGO Friends before but it’s always nice to see more customizers using them to recreate well-known screen characters.

This was Chris’ first try at custom sculpting hair pieces. The hair is made from 6 pieces of carved and sculpted resin. The entire figure took around a week to complete.

A medieval triptych: from affluence to affliction

Sometimes, life may be different than it appears, and comfort and fear may arise from the same space. Jonas depicts such a contradiction in the Middle Ages. His small but effective build is filled with many details and master craftmanship. The top level is occupied by a Medieval beauty enjoying her hot tub. She possesses some luxury items such as a mirror, perfumes and books which were rare for her time. She seems completely unaware of the horrifying truth happening far below. The middle floor seems to be furnished to brew homemade beers, and the arched ceiling makes the room dark and cramped. Even with the presence of mice, the room may be enjoyable for a certain type of person who wishes to craft a beverage in silence. But the big barrel hides a secret trap door which leads to misery in the lowest level. A poor man is tied to a big wheel and his screams only echo in his spinning head, which is filled with the laughter of this masochistic band. Considering the torture tools scattered around, he will suffer a lot.

King of Walt’s castle in a small, small world

Since I first visited Walt Disney World 25 years ago, I’ve been a total Disney geek. As a result, I’m very excited about the recent announcement of the Cinderella’s Castle set. However, it’s not out for a while, and I needed to scratch my Disney castle-building itch…

I figure this one might work out a little cheaper than the official set!

Enormous LEGO Battle of Hastings display [Interview]

Brick To The Past is a collective of UK builders who specialise in large-scale collaborative historical displays at LEGO shows. Their latest model is this thoroughly-impressive layout of the Battle Of Hastings, a key moment in British history…

I was lucky enough to see this display “in the brick” at Bricktastic in Manchester recently. The layout is a monster, with stark yet impressive terrain, and a wonderful collection of minifigs arrayed in battle formation ready to fight.

Brothers Brick got in touch with James Pegrum, one of Brick To The Past’s leading lights, to discuss this display and get more details on the challenges of collaborative building.

Click to read the interview and see more of Brick To The Past’s creations

This bird shoe fits the bill

This angry-looking bird isn’t the star of a mobile game or summer movie, but is actually an ingenious interpretation of one of nature’s bigger-billed birds, the African-native shoebill. The real bird stands a remarkable 4 feet tall with an enormous bill for catching fish. Builder Moko has done a great job using the shin guards from the large General Grievous figure to portray the bill, but my favorite part is the expressive eyes. Be sure to check out Moko’s blog for a cool breakdown of the construction techniques employed.

Giant problems for LEGO knights

There’s always a pesky ogre, dragon or giant hanging around waiting for intrepid knights to ply their trade. In this magical scene by Paddy Bricksplitter, it’s not going so well for the armor-clad heroes though as they fight to defend a suddenly very short castle against an enormous giant. Even the wizard for extra firepower may not be enough.