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.

The age of the Samurai: a stunningly huge mountain hideaway with working illumination

When your 5 year old son asks you to build a Ninjago city, you only say yes. But Ben Pitchford took things a little bit more seriously and ended up with a massive diorama nearly 4 feet (or 121 cms) high! The building process took almost 9 months, which is way over the attention span of a 5 year old. I guess Ben just needed an excuse to build something large. Luckily he had 100,000 LEGO parts laying around so this fortress was no big deal for him. He sculpted the big mountain with absolute attention and mastered the art of rock building. Ben also hid small LEDs behind transparent parts, so it makes a great scene once illuminated after dark.

The rice field, dojo, shinto shrines, cherry blossom trees, numerous caves, flowing lava, amazing waterfalls, grand stairs, mountain zipline and original Japanese characters make up a most amazing diorama. It will take you some time to absorb all the details, but you can see more photographs below.

Click to see more images

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Forget the King, Clay needs a mech too!

I’m loving Nexo Knights, and it seems chubbybots is too — they didn’t just use the theme, they also created a great model.

I really like this. Not only is it a competent mech model, but it would fit right into the Nexo Knights set range as a robot for the character Clay. While the amount of gray jars at first, it works well when you think of it as a suit of armour.

Queen’s chamber

Considering how action-packed a theme like LEGO Castle can get, it’s often surprising that some of the most interesting medieval creations are ones where there’s no sword fighting or sieges at all. Enter Marcel V and his tranquil build, the queen’s chamber. Featuring all the necessary royal amenities such as luxurious garments, enticing perfumes, and under-appreciated handmaidens, this is one bedroom to make any queen the envy of all other monarchs.

What the hell are you?

I always felt distant to series such as Bionicle and Hero Factory as they didn’t really demonstrate an actual LEGO experience for me. Same goes for the recent Buildable Figure or “constraction” series. Nevertheless, Jonas skillfully manages to show us how useful these specific parts can be for certain occasions. The armor on iconic film character Predator definetely requires a different touch and many Hero Factory parts came to the aid. Such perfect presentation in this small scale would be impossible otherwise.

The Yautja hunter is easily recognizable with his dreadlock hair, plasma caster, wrist blades, body mesh, and bone necklace, all enhanced by a strong and ready-to-fight stance. But I wish Jonas could complete the scene with an Alien to relieve my stress — it feels like a prey without the presence of an opposing monster!

The Doctor visits a Victorian scrapyard

At LEGO World in Utrecht last autumn, Ruben Ras presented a large Doctor Who diorama titled “Daleks in the Bricktorian Era.” Ruben recently posted close-up pictures of some of the sections, including this excellent scrapyard with an enormous steam engine. The blue TARDIS and engine dominate the scene, but there are lots of great details, like the wooden details on the stone platform, the small crane, and the bird atop the tower.

A special delivery for a wonderful human being

While many hardcore builders like me cringe when we have to wade through atrociously cute photos of stormtroopers in unlikely situations while trying to get our LEGO fix on Flickr, there are photographers who take what is essentially LEGO product photography — just minifigs or out-of-the-box sets — to a whole new level. Vesa Lehtimäki has been posting stunning photos of LEGO Star Wars figs and sets for a few years, and has even released a book, LEGO Star Wars: Small Scenes from a Big Galaxy published by DK.

One of my favorite scenes from the book features an off-screen moment in which Boba Fett delivers a carbonite-encased Han Solo to Jabba the Hutt. With just a few minifigs and stellar lighting, Vesa brings the scene to life.

Dave, stop. Stop, will you?

…but we all know Dave won’t stop. RichardBoard conquered us with just a single picture of his recent build recreating the scene of probably the most tense confrontation between a human and artificial intelligence, from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Although this vignette is much smaller than the original spaceship from the movie, Richard did an amazing job lighting it, making all the small transparent plates look awesome. HAL 9000’s red eye being blurred in the background gives the whole shot a truly cinematic look. But Dave’s spacesuit is the only thing that looks a little bit odd; that’s due to a tiny Classic Space logo on his forearm, which, in fact, is an amazing way of combining too universes — LEGO and Stanley Kubrick’s — in one picture.

Amazingly beautiful LEGO schooner has unbelievable lines

Sometimes a LEGO model is so incredible you stop and wonder if the builder is using the same catalog of bricks as the rest of us, because the finished model doesn’t even look like LEGO. Hoang H Dang is a masterful ship builder (we previously featured his incredible fishing vessel) and he’s turned his hand to building a two-masted schooner. The finished model has some of the best shaping I’ve ever seen on a LEGO ship, making this gorgeous sailing vessel sleek and elegant.

The immense scale of the model is hard to comprehend on its own, but when viewed next to the builder, it becomes obvious that at close to four feet in length and nearly as tall, this is no mere weekend project.

And for those curious how Hoang has constructed such an elegant hull from angular bricks, you can check out this work-in-progress photo to see some of the interior construction.

He has awoken

It seems serendipity has struck again. As I started reading H.P. Lovecraft: the Collected Fiction, Leonid An comes up with this awesome microscale build titled “The servant of Cthulhu”.

To fully appreciated the great scale in this scene, check out this intimidating shot which also shows of the build of that little ship, which cleverly uses short minifig capes for sails.

LEGO stork found in the wild

While I’m not one for the current popular trend of taking pictures of LEGO in the outdoors, this build by Dödke deserves some attention. The stork’s design is instantly recognisable, and the shallow, rock-lined water pool adds a lot to the build.

Unfortunately, this also comes with some sad news as the builder states that this stork, Kele, was named after an animal that was killed. Luckily, it’s now immortalised in the brick!

Love is a many splendored thing... Love lifts us up where we belong... All you need is love!

While it will probably evoke fond memories of a certain musical movie extravaganza that turns 15 this month, this spectacular recreation of Paris’ famous Moulin Rouge music hall by
domino39 brickpirate is pretty faithful to the original building — except for a few deliberately placed incongruities! Check out the close-up shots below to see if you can spot such anomalies as a Nineteenth century Ghostbuster and hoverboard rider, to name but a few. Then marvel at all of the fine details in this diorama, from the worn down street cobbles to the many examples of brick-built signage (including some rather cleverly put-together neon lights). C’est incroyable!

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Steam dream machines

This collection of stylish personal conveyances are Norwegian builder Lego Fjotten‘s first (and apparently accidental) foray into the work of LEGO Steampunk, but I think it’s fair to say he’s off to a good start. While each vehicle sports a very unique design, note the way the builder re-uses certain design elements to make them feel like they are part of a set. Also the coloring and detail on the display bases nicely accentuates the models, and even hints at some kind of desert setting. My favorite of the bunch has to be the “high wheeler” with it’s very cleverly constructed mono-wheel.