Tag Archives: Animals

Decapo-dacious

Adding to an already impressive biomechanical menagerie, this cracking-good Coconut Crab creation by Mitsuru Nikaido bears all this talented LEGO builder’s hallmarks. Chiefly, their signature monochrome style, and absolutely nailing the character of the subject.
LEGO Coconut crab mech_02
This latest offering takes full advantage of a variety of new-ish angled and wedge shaped LEGO tile elements, used to great effect by a talented builder with an unfailing eye for proportion and detail.
If carcinization (look it up) really is the ultimate destiny for life on earth, let’s all hope at least it comes with this much style.

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

The vulture will clean up after you’re gone [Building Techniques]

You can tell someone has fired up the Iron Forge because of so many clever uses for their seed part. This time, we’ve got LEGO flower stems and filbrick pulls it off with style. The large cactus (or succulent) is adorned in your usual green flower stems to create its spines while its smaller prickly friend sports the same part in olive green. There’s even one flower stem in lavender. Finally, a few brown stems creates the unmistakable ruffle around the vulture’s neck. The eye looks as if you can screw that in with a flathead screwdriver but it is a clever use of the wheel bearing part. I don’t know about you, but I’ve always been a fan of the pouring un-bricked parts as demonstrated here with the desert ground.

The vulture

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

Honk if you love geese!

According to his biography, when he’s not building LEGO spaceships, Thomas Harding can be found photographing pigeons. That affinity for birds must extend to geese as well, as Thomas rustled up this charming fellow for us to take a gander at. Thomas first tried to make the Canadian goose using only the remaining parts from his phenomenal deer alt-build using parts from 31154 Forest Animals: Red Fox, but the plan didn’t quite fly. With a few extra parts, the bird came together swimmingly. I especially love the minimalist yet unmistakable head. It’s funny how the 2×3 design plate was first designed for simulating rock, but has found life in LEGO sets as fur and feathers.

Canada Goose

Honk!

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

This charming snake denotes wisdom and transformation

2025 is the Year of the Snake according to Chinese tradition, which symbolizes wisdom and transformation. So naturally, LEGO phenom Ian Hou has built this tantalizing cobra to denote the celebration of the Chinese New Year. I’m enamored over how the repetition of curving LEGO pieces adorning the snake’s front can seem like scales. The hood of the cobra, the snake’s stance, even the base are expertly crafted. Whether you feel that snakes are fascinating or they give you the heebie-jeebies, you have to admire the excellent build techniques at play here. I’m in the camp of snake fascination and I think that Ian agrees. You know how I know? Well, I hope that Google Lens didn’t lead me too far astray here but the large characters to the left state that all snakes are fine. Indeed, Ian.

nEO_IMG_2025_Everything in life is good_01

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

A beautiful bird and a praise-worthy pun

As much as we like coming up with witty comments about the LEGO builds we feature on TBB, sometimes, the original title says it all. A tip of the hat to Mike Sinclair, who has conjured up a superb ornithological pun to go with this creation: “No Egrets.” But even referring to it just as a great blue heron – which bird this depicts – would have been accurate enough. It’s immediately recognisable as a heron, the blue plumage is wonderfully textured, and it does indeed look great! Impressively, the heron’s full weight is balanced on just one leg and a reed towards the back. Together the reeds, water, and a hidden dragonfly elevate this build from a brilliant bird to a terrific tableau of nature. Bravo, Mike!

No Egrets

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

Give that lizard a banana

Over at New Elementary, the results are in from the “Mind that Banana” contest that challenged builders to make creations featuring any of LEGO’s banana elements. Filbrick crawled into the bunch of first-place builds with this mellow yellow iguana. As the builder mentions, yellow iguanas do exist as the typically green lizards appear yellow if born with albinism. Bananas are featured as spines, toes, eyelids, and the tip of the tail. Speaking as a former Iguana owner, the anatomy here is spot-on.

The iguana 2/3

Creating a lifelike lizard with limited colors is no easy feat. Here’s a behind-the-scenes pic of how Filbrick found this scaly friend in a sea of yellow.

The iguana 1/3

The Crash Bandicoot tribute that we spotlighted last week also made it into the beautiful bunch of banana winners. Congratulations to everyone who participated, and thanks to New Elementary for such an a-peeling competition!

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

Giant LEGO jellyfish glistens like an undersea jewel

The minifig diver in this undersea scene from Julius Kanand has lined up a lucky shot of an incredible giant jellyfish. Of course, there’s no luck involved, just incredible skill on Julius’ part with both assembling and photographing this transparent wonder. A range of transparent LEGO elements, from the umbrella top to the flame tail, bring the creature to life. Julius uses an ingenious connection around the jellyfish’s bell, clipping antenna holders around the transparent dome. Ball joints allow the jellyfish to hold its ethereal shape, and the whole thing is supported by a nearly invisible black girder. The results are magical, a mode that looks so organic, I wouldn’t dare touch it for fear of getting stung!

Giant Jellyfish

This isn’t Julius’ first tentacled ocean build – we also loved the builder’s cracking Captain Kraken ship.

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

Here’s one LEGO hedgehog who takes it slow

Small LEGO scenes like this make me smile. With just a few parts and a simple story, Eli Willsea crafts a fun and colorful vignette of a hedgehog taking a walk after a light rain. The chopstick element makes perfect spines, yellow rainboots are instantly recognizable, and he even has a frog friend along for the ride.

Puddle Splash Pals

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

Righteous swimming LEGO sea turtle totally rocks, so give him some fin

Grant Davis is a true LEGO wizard. His talent for creating whimsical and nearly stud-free models that innovate with colors and complex angles would be enough to make him one of our favorite builders, but it’s Grant’s mechanical artistry that makes him a legend. Like his LEGO Ideas pop-up book collaborator Jason Alleman, Grant often builds kinetic sculptures – LEGO models that integrate power functions for fluid movement. His latest creation, the Swimming Sea Turtle Machine, is a slice of Finding Nemo brought to life in bricks. The adorable seat turtle with its surfboard fins and cartoon eyes delights as it swims under the waves, but to truly appreciate the model, you need to look deeper.

Swimming Sea Turtle Machine

On his Brick Innovations youtube channel, Grant walks us through the months-long development process. The video reveals Grant’s iterative design process and serves as an excellent primer on the challenges of kinetic builds. You’ll learn ratios of how gear rotation translates into vertical motion and see the pitfalls when rigid bricks and motors are out of sync. You’ll also see how the turtle evolved from a more realistic sand-green model to the cartoonier lime green version here, and you can even see them swim together! Even if you’re not ready to invent a kinetic model of your own, Grant’s behind-the-scene look is sure to give you a greater appreciateion for what your LEGO bricks are capable of.

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

LEGO tiger burning bright

Although I like both cats and dogs, I’m definitely more of a cat guy. And of all the cats, my favourite has to be the tiger. Now admittedly, keeping a tiger in my one-bedroom apartment is a recipe for disaster, but I’d settle for this stunning LEGO big cat built by DeRa. With its menacing demeanour and the nimble joints that DeRa worked into the build for posability, it looks ready to knock my LEGO collection off the shelves, just like a real feline.

LEGO Tiger

At first glance, the technique used for the stripes is not dissimilar in places to LEGO’s own incredible tiger set. But DeRa has really cranked up the detail and realism with some savagely clever parts and techniques. I spy a spider, croissants, Islander crests, and even whole roast turkeys in that furry face. It may look like an apex predator, but I still want to pet it.

LEGO Tiger

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

Build your own baby pygmy hippo Moo Deng [Instructions]

Pygmy Hippo calf Moo Deng is just two months old and already is the viral star of Thailand’s Khao Kheow Open Zoo. She has her own makeup trend, merch, cryptocurrency, and now, thanks to Cornbuilder, her own LEGO fan model. Cornbuilder perfectly captures Moo Deng’s bouncy meatball energy, and thanks to instructions generously shared by the builder, you can too!

Moo Deng

Click here for Cornbuilder’s MOO DENG INSTRUCTIONS.

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

Hitting the bullseye with a poison dart frog

One thing you should know about the LEGO community is that certain animals have something of a cult following in brick form. The crab craze has been well-documented in our TBB archives, for instance. But another favourite is the humble frog. This one comes in all shapes and sizes, from the little green frog piece to more life-sized models like Áron Gerencsér‘s latest amphibian. Áron is a bit of a don when it comes to Bionicle and other ‘constraction’ figure pieces, so it’s little surprise to see them used to such good effect here. The blending of organic shapes is practically seamless. This li’l guy looks about ready to jump off the screen!

Poison Dart Frog

And yes – the frogs, too, have their own Brothers Brick archive. Hop on over to have a look!

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.