Tag Archives: Minifigs

Everybody loves LEGO minifigures — well, almost everybody. Minifigs are often the stars of the LEGO models we feature here on The Brothers Brick, but we also feature some amazing custom minifigs you’d never expect to see in an official LEGO set.

Citizen Brick’s custom LEGO minifigure elements for Halloween 2020 [Review]

In addition to excellent custom minifig parts and minifigs inspired by the likes of the Beastie Boys and Bob Ross, our friends at Citizen Brick have begun producing their own injection-molded items. For Halloween 2020 the CB team have released a bevy of creepy custom minifig parts for you to mix and match with your LEGO.

We’ve said before that what’s so awesome about Citizen Brick products is that they’re the sort of thing that LEGO themselves will likely never release, while remaining compatible with LEGO. This makes custom parts produces like Citizen Brick distinct from knockoffs and clone brands that compete with LEGO and are often of inferior quality. Because CB has earned our respect with printing quality that’s indistinguishable from LEGO’s own, it’s exciting to see them branch out to custom parts, allowing LEGO fans to go beyond the confines of the staid bricks from Billund. Let’s take a look at what the mad scientists of Chicago have cooked up.

Read our full hands-on review of this year’s Citizen Brick Halloween release

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It’s all a big joke(r)

At a glance, this may look like a LEGO minifig, but it is indeed a Maxifig. It has the same shape and proportions of your usual minifig, but it built up to a monstrous size. Pascal Hetzel has crafted this Joker Maxifig nicely with a bright bowtie, a purple and green outfit and even a pocket watch chain.The hands are shaped by using actual minifig legs. Using minifig parts to build a Maxifig; I’m sure there’s a clever word or phrase for that but damned if I can figure it out now. Perhaps you can in the comments.

As this shot reveals, Pascal has even built each section as if it were an actual minifig, complete with separate legs, torso, head, and hair elements. That is some clever Maxifig building right there! Pascal has built the Joker, and now he should build the Smoker and the Midnight Toker to finish out the trio. Boy, did I just date myself! Nevermind Googling the reference, kids. Just get off my lawn.

TBB Cover Photo for September 2020: Fit for the Gods

This month’s cover photo, from Aaron Newman, features the Gods of Olympus. From Hades to Zeus, Aaron has recreated these Greek Mythological Gods in LEGO, while capturing the essence of what makes each of these mythological characters unique. Hit up Aaron’s blog post to learn more about his approach to each minifig.

And if you’re looking for even more Greek minifigs, Aaron has also recreated some of the most well-known Mortals and Monsters from the pantheon of Greek myth. I’m a big fan of Icarus, who looks to have just flown too close to the sun, but honestly, these all look great.

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Minifig springs from the original LEGO brick

In the beginning, there was Brick, and it was good. It was smooth, perfect, and devoid of all color. Then one day, a great rumbling was heard deep within the brick and a wonderous sloshing sound. With a mighty crack, golden yellow life burst forth from the brick and spilled color into the universe. So goes the legend of the first Minifig, captured in all its glory by Andreas Lenander

When you gotta go, you gotta go

While it’s best to stay indoors, sometimes you just need to go outside. Particularly when you need to “go” outside. This slice of modern LEGO life from Crises_crs is just cute enough to not be super-depressing.

There’s just the right hint of disrepair to the scene. The mix of exposed studs and 1×1 round tiles has the grass looking a little ragged. The pavement has a similar mix, leaving it just a little cracked. But both the dog and owner look pretty happy in their protective gear, all things considered. You have to wonder where they found that toilet paper, though. My local shops have been out of stock for a while.

Watch out for splinters – hands on with LEGO Originals 853967 Wooden Minifigure [Review]

A surprise announcement, a pop-up LEGO art gallery launch in London, and the start of a new line of LEGO products — 853967 Wooden Minifigure has had quite the introduction to the world. We’re not sure we’d call this a “set” as such, although it does feature a handful of regular LEGO bricks as well as the titular 20cm tall oak figurine. LEGO themselves describe the figurine as a “blank canvas” for personalisation and creative decoration. Whatever you want to call it, the wooden figure is available from Nov. 3, 2019, for VIP members, and Nov. 8 for everyone. It can be purchased from the LEGO Shop online for US $119.99 | CAN 154.99 | UK £109.99.

(EDIT: The wooden figure is also available from LEGO in bundles including a discount of up to $30 US when combined with various other LEGO products, including one 1,500-piece Classic set.)

Read our hands-on review of LEGO 853967 Wooden Minifigure

Open the gates!

Builder Louis of Nutwood packs a lot of story in a small space in this snow-covered castle scene. This is part 8 of a wonderful ongoing series by Louis, and not only is it visually interesting, but there’s a written component that accompanies each part of the heroes’ journey.

In this chapter, a pair of weary travelers, one in dire circumstances, arrive at Svalg Keep to seek help from its residents. The castle is nicely sculpted and I really like the way it seems to spill off of the confines of the base. The small wooden structures are a fitting addition and do a great job of breaking up the mostly gray and white color palette of the castle. Adding more color to the proceedings are the snow-laden trees utilizing fall colors on their branches. It can be hard to work in a limited number of colors, but Louis excels at it here.
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Some alone time in the Herbology Lab

Neville Longbottom is working overtime for that extra credit in this lovely scene by architeclego. A quick scroll through their Instagram feed shows architeclego’s skills at creating great models and a mastery over lighting and effects that really elevate their photos to the next level. This beautiful little Harry Potter themed creation is no exception!

While everyone else is out practicing their broom skills and spell casting, Neville is hard at work on his Herbology homework. His wand is at the ready and earmuffs firmly in place for working with the screaming mandrake root.The lab has a lived-in look with the many jars and plants scattered around the room and the two levels give the whole thing a nice sense of vertical scale. Ron’s rat Scabbers even makes an appearance, peeking out from behind the pots. It takes a deft hand to seamlessly use non-LEGO objects in a model, but architeclego does so here with great results. The real plants blend in quite nicely with their plastic counterparts and the spray of water in the greenhouse is a perfect dash of realism.

While the whole scene is fantastic, it’s the lighting and effects work that really make this scene shine. The daylight coming in through the windows looks authentic, but it’s the light beams coming from the greenhouse that provide the most impact. We all love seeing a nicely photographed LEGO model, but as this set up demonstrates, a little attention to lighting effects can really transcend the art form.

The Encroaching Empire

Order 66 has been executed. The Clone Wars have ended. Sith Lord Darth Vader has become Emperor Sheev Palpatine’s trusted enforcer, bringing Imperial order to an unruly galaxy. Tim Lydy has put his stamp on this era of turmoil with his first-ever Star Wars creation, and it is most excellent.

I really love how cramped and chaotic the trench feels. However the highlight for me is the giant statue of Palpatine constructed out of Light Aqua which doesn’t really have a very extensive parts selection yet.

I also appreciate the effort Tim went to incorporating the writing on the side of the scene in Aurabesh, the Star Wars universe’s standard alphabet.

TBB alumnus Tim has been featured in the past for his work with superhero–themed models. I certainly wouldn’t mind if he dabbled in the Star Wars sandbox some more!

Get a deeper look into the iconic minifig with this anatomical model

There have been pictures showing anatomical diagrams of minifigs as far back as 2008 and brick-built versions starting in 2009, but this idea is still quite alive, as proven by Brixie63 with her latest creation. This half-dead minifig is not Brixie63’s first attempt at a scaled-up minifig — check out this Santa we featured last Christmas!

The minifig is built with the iconic red torso and blue legs on one half and a faithfully recreated skeleton on the other. The head is especially well built, capturing all the printing and curves with bricks facing all possible directions. I especially like the skeleton’s teeth made of 1×2 grill tiles.

When your keys become Christmas bells

During Christmas, many of us decorate our homes, trees and more, so why not our keys? Chungpo Cheng has the right idea with this classic Santa keychain creation.

The only problem in this case would be finding keys large enough! The builder has super-sized the classic Santa Claus minifig which still used a pirate cap instead of the modern purpose-moulded piece. What is most amazing in this creation is not just the accurate recreation at the scale (those hands are especially cool!), but the fact that each individual body part is its own finished creation, as seen on the picture below!

Now I really want to see a whole range of up-scaled minifig body parts that can be mixed and matched like the originals!

Water you talking about?

Sweden’s Andreas Lenander latest LEGO creation is a terrifying canoe ride right over the edge of a waterfall. These minifigures certainly appear as though they’re on an adventure they’re not likely to forget. I think what strikes me the most about this diorama is the palpable dynamic energy of the rushing water, free-floating figures, and tipping canoe as the river crests the edge of the cliff.

You could argue that there’s nothing particularly innovative about the techniques on display, but what Andreas has achieved here with a few simple, repetitive pieces is really remarkable. It’s a strong exhibit of how purposeful prop placement (the minifigs, canoe, water) over background noise (plants, splashing water, textured rocks) can achieve a visually interesting composition.

This was the winning entry in Swebrick‘s head-to-head elimination AFOL-vs-AFOL contest, which for 2018 was based on Adventure. We’ve also featured Andreas here recently for his lifelike cigarette smoking in an ashtray and earlier this summer with his Titan starfighter.