Yubaba, the witchy proprietress of the bathhouse in Spirited Away, is my favorite type of villain: powerful, grandiose, nasty without being evil. Yubaba has a big head to match her ego, which makes the character the perfect subject for builder Rokan Cheung, who specializes in creating character busts in LEGO. The builder sets the character on a mosaic mat, complete with the witch’s rolling “Kashira” head pets. You can see the builder’s skillful facial sculpting in play with Yubaba, like the plates with bows under her baggy eyes or the bold lashes created from minifig hands clipped to hotdogs. You can see Rokan’s talent for brick-built likenesses in this kindly old man (clearly no relation to the witch above). The post Looking for a job? LEGO Yubaba is always hiring appeared first on The Brothers Brick. Original linkOriginal author: Jake Forbes (TBB Managing Editor)

While in much of the world, October is spent getting in the Halloween spirit, in much of Asia, the month aligns with the Mid-Autumn Festival (it fell on October 6th this year), when mooncakes and tea are enjoyed to honor ancestors. Khang Huynh celebrates the festival with traditional cakes and tea alongside a Vietnamese-style fish lantern. The builder photographs with his usual care, lending a soft glow to the tableau that makes it easy to overlook as LEGO. The sand green and turquoise teapot is a beautiful sub build. Dinosaur tails are used to create the ornate handle and spout, while leaves lend subtle texture to the sides. While the pot and lamp are new builds, the cake comes from a Mid-Autumn festival tribute that Khang created three years ago. That year’s tableau featured an equally elegant teapot design. The post Mooncakes and tea under a fish lantern’s glow – Celebrating...

LEGO Spaceships don’t need to be 100+ studs long to amaze. Oftentimes, it’s the crazy angles, color blocking, and creative use of parts at a smaller starfighter scale that hit like a supernova. Take the KLR-420 starfighter from French builder Fabien (bricknap), a craft so dense with fun detail it’s dizzying. Fabian first started designing the ship a year ago and completed it back in 2024 as an addition to his sprawling sci-fi universe of Fantapolis – which is a bit like New Hashima with a heavy dose of the Friends color palette. There is so much to love about this ship design, from the cockpit module for a pilot to lay down between clear windshields, to the arms from the Mobile Construction Crane used for the wings, to the pair of Nexo Knight hubs/grinders wrapped with a Dots bracelet. The S-foil wing formation and engines are clearly X-Wing inspired, but...

In the pantheon of great dragons, you have Smaug, Falcor, King Gidorah, Toothless, and of course,   Puff the Magic, but all of these legendary beasts pale in comparison to the greatest dragon-man of all: Trogdor, the Burninator. Trogdor was introduced to the world back in 2001 with Strongbad Email #58, one of the greatest memes to arise from the pre-social media internet. Builder Grant Holyoak recreates Trogdor with all of the dragon’s essential features – smoke, fire, wing-a-lings, spinedies, and angry eyebrows. He even includes peasants mid-burninating. My only nitpick is that there aren’t enough consummate Vs! The post LEGO Trogdor comes in the night to burninate your peasants appeared first on The Brothers Brick. Original linkOriginal author: Jake Forbes (TBB Managing Editor)

We’re back for a second roundup of Halloween minifigs, ranging from slightly spooky to downright terrifying. Warning – some of these get pretty dark! Our cover image goes to 2brickmonsters who breaks out the trans neon green for an oozy splatterfest. There’s so much creative parts usage on display, but I think the green crowns as popping pustules takes the creepy cake. Excellent use of the Blacktron mutant CMF legs. Zakar.ion gets into the Halloween spirit with The Grove’s Curse. Apparently the pumpkin patch got tired of getting carved up and decided to uproot and do some carving of its own! _motherofcatdragons_  gets medieval with a perfect plague doctor. The Kubaz mask is a little bit creepy no matter what galaxy you’re from. Photographer Studsby takes on a Sleepy Hollow Challenge and plays with shadows to create a Headless Horseman silhouetted against the full moon. Speaking of “playign with shadows,” our friend Jacob...

From Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion to the clanking metal doors of the midway ghost ride, haunted houses are the best part of any theme park. Tomáš Kašpařík reminds us why, with this incredible 25,000+ piece tribute to spooky amusements. The model debuted at Skærbæk Fan Weekend last month, where we had a chance to explore the display in person.To make it easier to transport,  the model is divided into two sections – the spooky ride queue, with winding lines and a few interior set pieces – and the ride itself, a two-story motorized build. While the physical build is new, the design itself started six years ago as a collab with Jason Pyett of Playwell Bricks. We asked Tomáš about how this project came together and he was gracious enough to share his story: It all started in March 2019 when I decided I want to build a LEGO Haunted house just...

Japanese builder legonano specializes in tiny LEGO tributes to all things Disney. With Halloween fast approaching, legonano has curated a selection of iconic villains for a Not-So-Scary display. The builder has created 164 mosaic tiles in her Disney series, establishing her own visual language for adapting beloved characters. Also featured in her Halloween tableau is legonano’s miniature take on the Haunted Mansion, the latest in the builder’s series of Disneyland ride vignettes. The front of the facade captures the New Orleans Square landmark, while the back features some hitchhiking ghosts and a heart-stopping rendition of the bride. A selection of legonano’s creations were previously featured in LEGO House’s Masterpiece Gallery, delighting kids and Disney Adults in Billund last year.   The post Celebrate Halloween the Not-So-Scary way with legonano’s Disney tributes appeared first on The Brothers Brick. Original linkOriginal author: Jake Forbes (TBB Managing Editor)

The beauty of the Scottish Highlands has been marvelously captured in this build by 11drgnsMOC. Every sight imaginable, from a cottage covered in snow to a castle atop a sunny green hillside, has been nestled side-by-side in this delightful vignette. There’s even a brick-built bagpipe! We can almost smell the peat in the air. This rendering was one of several models that the builder submitted to Bricklink Designer Program Series 9. Voting for this round is closed, with the winning entries to be announced on November 19th. The post The Scottish Highlands distilled in LEGO appeared first on The Brothers Brick. Original linkOriginal author: Norm Harper

Paul Hetherington has a knack for building real-world locations in LEGO, and he’s at it again with this rendition of the West Vancouver Memorial Library, built to celebrate its 75th anniversary. You can tell what a grand place for the community this must be, with the ample greenery and curated outdoor space. Those umbrellas? Hub caps from the Scooby-Doo Mystery Machine! But cutaway sections also let us get a good look inside at the library’s main hall and children’s sections. And, if you want an even better look at this 17,850-piece model, you can see it on display inside the actual library. Paul is a LEGO institution in the Pacific Northwest, whose large-scale architecture and pop culture models have delighted the community for over 20 years. This model is particularly special for the builder as it’s the same library he visited as a child where he discovered the comics that would...

Following his incredible Charizard build last month, MitchBuilds has rounded out his party of Gen 1 starter final forms with Blastoise and Venusaur. Both of these builds feature just as many neat building techniques, and all appear to be nicely at scale with each other. Blastoise is an imposing build, and positioned just like we’d see him in the game or anime. I’m particularly fond of the face shaping, where Mitch has managed to perfectly capture his eyes and give him quite a bit of personality with his open mouth. You may notice that his nose is made out of one of the old stiff minifig capes, which is an excellent touch. The shell frame technique that we’ve seen recently with The Mighty Bowser and Spiny Shell works really well for Blastoise, though it’s been highly customized for this build to make sure everything fits perfectly. Venusaur might be my favorite...