Tag Archives: Animals

Strange bird struck by a strong desire

Creating a brick-built character can be quite a challenge. Not for Oliver Becker though. He created a bird-like animal out of LEGO bricks that looks like it is straight from a Pixar movie. One of the things that strikes me the most is how this big headed beast manages to stand on those thin long legs without tipping over. Especially when you take into consideration the age of the finger hinge parts used to create the legs. They tend to lose friction or one of their teeth over the years. All of these challenges don’t bother Oliver as he managed to make one stellar creation.

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The age old chicken or the egg discussion. Why choose?

Chickens might be my favourite animals ever. They have so much personality. You can see that quite clearly in Rickard Stensby’s latest chicken related creation. Using round 2×2 and/or 3×3 plates for the feathers is rather ingenious. I’ve been staring at this creation for a couple of days and I just can’t figure out how he managed to construct this creation. So far my guess is that there are a lot of minifigure robot/skeleton arms used to attach some of the plates to an inner structure. I also guess that some plates are just held on by friction of other actual connected plates. But I might be mistaken. Maybe you can help and take a wild guess in the comments. If you’ll excuse me now I have to convince my partner that we need some free range chickens for our garden.

Use LEGO flora to build LEGO fauna

I’ll just come out and say the LEGO Botanicals line is the best line to come out in recent history. Each is a refreshing and visually compelling break from the norm and that’s a flowery hill I’m willing to die on. I’ll even fight you freaks who think otherwise. Wow, that escalated fast! Anyway, Ian Hou probably knows what I mean as evidenced by this lovely owl. It repurposes several flowers from at least two copies of the new Wildflower Bouquet set. In the wings, I’m also seeing leaves from the Bird of Paradise set and I’d wager much of the brown tree branch comes from the Bonsai Tree from 2020. Not in the mood to get into fisticuffs over it? Yeah, neither am I. So instead let’s leisurely peruse through our Ian Hou archives to see the decidedly tranquil stuff he likes to build.

This turtle is hard on the outside, slightly less hard on the inside

You say LEGO mecha animals, all I hear is Mitsuru Nikaido. Few builders have such a remarkably consistent style across so many builds. Some of my favourites in this series are deep-sea creatures; something about the exoskeletal style just really works for marine life. The venerable sea turtle is latest to be added to the menagerie. The white shell really pops against the dark grey of the turtle’s mechanical innards. Some of Nikaido-san’s creatures feature white heads to draw the attention that way, but in this instance I think the grey is a better choice. It emphasises the difference between the hard shell and the soft tissue underneath. Well, as soft as a mechanical turtle can be, anyway.

A prattling party of prolix parrots

With this lively new LEGO creation by manuele vidi, I can just imagine the chatter and gossip these plucky parrots must be getting into. On the other hand, the builder is a person of few words, providing only the singular caption; “Life”. It’s actually a perfect way to describe a tree (alive) full of talkative parrots (very much alive). With creations this animated we look forward to whatever else this builder may jabber on about.

A creation so good it’ll give you arachnophobia

Writing for TBB is pretty great. Sure, we’re chained to our desks and at the mercy of our lemur overlord, but we get to write about some cool LEGO creations. Every once in a while though, we get creations like Eli Willsea‘s terrifying spider here. All this does is give me the heebie-jeebies. Which, to be fair, may be the point. With those big pointy teeth in the drooling mouth, you can imagine where this creation gets its name – “The Hunger”. If only the construction of this beast wasn’t so good, then I might be able to stop looking at it…

We look for these nightmare-inducing creations, dear reader, so you don’t have to.

Yellowfin: does what it says on the tin

LEGO spaceships sometimes get named after animals. Perhaps a creature insired the ship in question, or maybe it’s just a name like mantis that just sounds cool. Chris Perron has taken the name of a yellowfin tuna and used it in quite a literal sense with this colourful craft. It certainly bears more than a passing resemblance to a fish. The colour gradient on the fins stands out, but I love how the colour blocking goes even further to get the fish appearance across. If you squint, the trans-red cockpit looks like the gaping mouth of a fish, with the white its lower jaw. Of course the big dishes on the side look like eyes. I might be reading too much into this – perhaps Chris just wanted to make ship with yellow fins. It can’t be a coincidence though can it?

Nothing beats a good barn find

Redverse tells us that this is just a “regular barn owl” construction that’s been lying around not doing much until the picture was taken. It speaks to the quality of this particular builder that this is considered a throwaway piece! The upturned pyramid is an inspired choice for the beak. The wings use a relatively rare tan cockpit part which has only appeared in one set from back in 2001. In car nerd circles, finding a rare car in a barn is known as a “barn find”, so being a barn owl, this build fits right in!

Something slithering in the air

Fanged serpents are terrifying, whether made of LEGO or not, but this one is on another level! Aiden.Builds presents a high-flying serpent showing off its fantastic fangs and wings. The main body of the creature is black, which brings the colors forward for a striking look. There’s great parts usage at work here with all those segments allowing for the curve of the flying terror. It bends this way and that–I bet it looks amazing flying around in the sky, weaving through the air. I just don’t want to get too close! The way those fangs look, I know it’d make short work of me for a snack. This is one better observed from a distance in its natural habitat, rather than getting up close and personal. Luckily, it’s made of LEGO, my preferred way of looking at such amazing and terrifying creatures.

Flexigon cat and mouse games

I tend to love LEGO creations that have a lot of different little parts used to create the most intricate details. This creation by Michael Kanemoto does not fit that brief at all. If my count is correct, they feature no more than 20 different pieces. Most of these pieces were only used several times.

Michael uses two of these pieces in abundance — the leaves and carrot tops. These two hero ingredients get used to create the main body of the cat and the mouse. The leaves do a wonderful job mimicking the texture of fur on both animals. Although the cat is truly amazing, the mouse is what really gets me going. It is so cute, so small and yet so detailed. I wouldn’t mind having this one on display for a really long time. Just look at those whiskers and those cute beady eyes!

New arrivals in the steampunk insectarium

It’s been a while since we’ve checked in on Caleb Flutur‘s collection of insect automatons, so let’s see what he’s been up to! First up is this amazing butterfly, which is absolutely chock-a-block with inventive parts use. Two sizes of whip are used as antennae, with barrels and golden flowers forming the thorax. What really completes the look are the wings. These are made from canvas pieces from 75148 Encounter on Jakku and really look the part.

Step into the insectarium for more new creepy-crawlies!

Go for the gold!

Sure we love massive spaceships and huge LEGO dioramas here at The Brothers Brick. But sometimes you’ve gotta appreciate the little things in life. Like this goldfish built by Kashim K, for example. It has just enough pieces to make it interesting; plus it makes use of a Brick Separator so that’s fun. What clever things have you done with your Brick Separators lately? We now return you to your regularly scheduled spaceships and huge LEGO dioramas.

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