Minifigure

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Minifigures are the small, plastic Lego people, who populate the Lego worlds. Most Lego sets include some minifigures; Lego has also sold collections of minifigures as separate sets. They are also known as minifigs, "figs", or simply "Lego people".

Contents 1 Design 2 History 3 Variations 4 Media 5 Other Lego figures 6 See also 7 References 8 External links

[edit] Design

Minifigures are composed of several separate parts: head, torso, arms, hands, hips and legs. Minifigures typically come as three separate parts in Lego sets: head, torso/arms/hands, and hips/legs.

The legs can rotate independently to 90 degrees forwards, and about 45 degrees backwards. They also attach to normal Lego bricks in either a sitting or standing position. The hands of a minifigure make a "C" shape, which allows them to hold many Lego accessories. There are hundreds of different accessories, including axes, wands, cups, guns and even lightsabers. The tops of the hands are also roughly the same size as the studs on Lego bricks, allowing various Lego pieces to be placed on top of them. Minifigure heads are cylindrical, and attach to long narrow cylinder at the top of the torso, which allows the head to rotate. This also allows items that go over the torso, such as air tanks, capes or breastplates, to be attached. The heads also have a stud on top (which is the same size as studs on Lego bricks), which things can be attached to. Head accessories are varied, including hair, helmets and hats. These variations allow minifigures to be highly customizable.

[edit] History

In 1975, Lego sets first included minifigures on the same scale as the current minifigures. However, these had solid torsos without separate movable arms, solid lower body/leg pieces that also did not move, and heads without any printed features. They had a few headpieces, including caps, pigtail hair and cowboy hats. An image on Minifigs.net [1] shows the earlier, larger scale, human figures.

The first modern minifigures were released in 1978, with seven different figures in Castle, Space and Town themes.^[1] Until 1989, minifigure heads only had a simple facial expression of two black dots for eyes, and a black curved smile. In that year, minifigures in the Pirates theme were produced with different facial expressions.^[1] The Pirates minifigures also included hooks for hands, and wooden legs, the first departure from the traditional hands and legs. Another departure from these traditional parts were little-known parts that are legs with springs in them. These legs are quite chunky, and cannot sit down. This may be for any one of three reasons; they have springs wich keep them from sitting down, they are joint together in the middle, and there are no tubes to connect with studs. The only thing they can do is stand up.

In 2003, the first minifigures with natural skin-tones – as opposed to the yellow previously used – were released as part of Lego Basketball; these minifigures also represented specific people.^[1] The following year, the use of natural skintones was expanded to all licensed products (in which the minifigures represent actors and other real people), including Harry Potter and Star Wars minifigures.^[1] As of 2003, Lego has produced 3.7 billion minifigures.^[2]

In 2005 Lego expanded the Minifigure system further, with Bionicle minifigures. At first, these were just statues which could hold a weapon. Then in 2006 they had moveable arms and possibly legs. So far they have come in four varieties: Toa Hordika, Visorak, Piraka, and Toa Inika. All except the Visorak have had weapons (the Visorak had tube-like objects on top, though).

[edit] Variations

While almost all minifigure heads, torsos, arms, hands and legs are the same size and shape, some sets and themes have included figures that differ from the standard. Some minifigures for women, particularly in Castle and Pirate sets, have used large sloped bricks instead of legs to resemble dresses or skirts. Skeletons, in Pirate and Castle sets, have the standard minifigure head, but have specialized skeletal arms, legs and torso (which are still detachable from each other). Ghosts in various themes have a full-body cape attached to the head of a minifigure, and a brick instead of legs. Shorter legs, without joints at the hip, have been used to create shorter minifigures. These pieces were created for the Star Wars range and have since been used in other product lines, primarilty licensed products. Yoda, young Boba Fett and Ewoks in Star Wars sets, goblins and Dobby in Harry Potter sets, The Penguin in Batman, and SpongeBob and Mr. Krabs in the LEGO SpongeBob SquarePants sets all utilise this piece to represent their legs. These Pirate minifigures have had peg legs and hooks for hands, as do characters in the Adventurers and Orient Expedition ranges, notably villain Sam Sinister. Hagrid, from Harry Potter, uses a larger minifigure, with only the head being separable. Recently, some minifigures have also had specially moulded heads that differ from the traditional cylindrical shape; the first was Jar Jar Binks in 1999. Traditional accessories, such as hats and helmets, cannot be placed on these different heads. Examples include heads for Yoda, C3PO and Harry Potter goblin minifigures. Some minifigs, such as Chewbacca, Gamorrean Guards, SpongeBob, and Ewoks, have head pieces that fit like ordinary heads, but also cover part of the torso, like the ghost mentioned above except the minifigure uses short or normal legs instead of a brick. These are informally termed "sandwich boards".

There are a few variations of the standard LEGO minifigure produced for the Star Wars range. The most controversial and prominent type are the light-up lightsaber (LUL) minifigs, released with some of the larger Episode III sets in 2005. These figures look like usual ones on the surface, except that, to facilitate internal electronics, all components cannot be removed, excepting the headpiece. When the head is pressed down, an LED illuminates the LEGO lightsaber blade. The batteries last three hours and are not intended for replacement, though they can be replaced. Most fans cried afoul when these were produced, some even considering them to be gimmicks. However, a large number of fans, especially younger ones, were quite excited by the advent of this innovation.

Minifigures built from special, uniquely moulded pieces were first introduced in Life on Mars. Martians are composed of five pieces: 2 double arms, mechanical torso, a combined leg piece and a head. This formula is repeated for many Star Wars droids. Battle droids follow the same pattern, while Super Battle Droids have the head fixed to the torso, General Grevious has space for 4 arms and IG-88 has a head constructed from Lego elements. Other droids, such as droideka, spider droids and pit droids, are constructed entirely from ordinary Lego elements, but are nevertheless often considered minifigures. R2-D2 and other astromech droids are constructed from specialized elements, with a separate top, body and 2 legs. Recently,the robots of Exo-Force and Bionicle miniatures have a design similar to the battle droids, but with separate legs and movable hands, and the head fixed on a small torso.

The other variation is the minifigure magnet, of which various themes, including Star Wars, Batman and City, have adopted. Strong magnets are placed in the minifigure's legs, so while they look exactly like a normal LEGO minifig, they can stick onto magnetic surfaces. Unlike in LULs, only the legs and the torso of the minifigure cannot be separated.

Various clothing for minifigures has been produced. Headwear includes mainly caps, hats, hair, and helmets. In Lego Star Wars, Clone Troopers and Stormtroopers have different-shaped helmets . Rock Raiders have green helmets, while astronauts have assorted colours of standard helmets. Exo-Force minifigures have anime hair.

[edit] Media

Minifigures have made a number of appearances in other media. In most brickfilms, minifigures are used as characters. The notable Lego-approved Star Wars spoof Revenge of the Brick (produced by Treehouse Animation) stars computer-animated minifigures with added mobility and textural modifications to add to the realism. The promotional videos on the Batman Lego official site are presented in a similar format and are also produced by the company. In the video games Lego Star Wars: The Video Game and Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy animated minifigures (with more mobility than real minifigures, though retaining the same basic appearance) are playable ones. Most other Lego computer and video games have similar animated minifigures, though with varying degrees of mobility and realism. Many other instances of Lego in art include minifigures.

[edit] Other Lego figures

In some lines of products, Lego has used figures other than the standard minifigures. Technic has used larger action figures since 1986. These figures are more realistic, although still angular, and have more degrees of motion, including knees and elbows. However, they cannot be easily disassembled; even hair is non-removable. The Fabuland line of the 1980s consisted of larger anthropomorphic animal characters, which also couldn't be easily disassembled. Belville and Scala, Lego lines aimed at girls, also have larger figures. They are similar to Technic figures in range of motion, but have less angular legs, arms and torsoes. Scala figures more closely resemble dolls, in that clothes are separate from the figures and the hair is composed of strands and not molded plastic. More recently, Lego has introduced Bionicle figures, such as Toa, which are many times larger and have more flexibility in pose; they are also composed of separate pieces, unlike other large Lego figures. In 2005, Lego released Bionicle playsets, with minifigures of characters that previously only had large figures (Toa and Visorak/Piraka). While these minifigures did not have movable parts, in 2006 Lego released Toa Inika playsets containing minifigures with movable parts.