Minifigs

Minifigures are small, plastic figural toys produced by Danish toy manufacturer Lego, which are usually sold with Lego sets, as characters intended to populate modular Lego environments. more...

Home
Building Toys
Blocks
Erector Sets
K'NEX
LEGO
Bulk Bricks, Lots
Bricks
Figures
Other, Mixed
Parts & Pieces
Duplo, Primo, Baby
Other LEGO
Robotics, Mindstorm
Sets
Buildings, Cities
Land Vehicles
Minifigs
Other
Spacecraft
Castle
Other
Space, Mars
Star Wars
Trains
Technic, Bionicle
Lincoln Logs
Mega Bloks
Other Building Toys
Rokenbok
Tinker Toys
Classic Toys
Educational
Electronic, Battery, Wind-Up
Model RR, Trains
Models, Kits
Outdoor Toys, Structures
Pretend Play, Preschool
Puzzles
Radio Control
Robots, Monsters, Space Toys
Stuffed Animals
TV, Movie, Character Toys
Toy Soldiers
Vintage, Antique Toys

Although many Lego sets include minifigures, Lego also sells collections of minifigures separate from other sets. They are also referred to as as minifigs, figs, or simply Lego people. Minifigures are collected by both children and adults, sometimes independently of Lego bricks themselves.

History

When first released In 1975, Lego minifigures were at the same scale as the current minifigures. However, these figures differed in tooling and articulation: they had solid torsos without separate movable arms, solid lower body pieces that were not moveable, and heads without printed features. They had a small variety of headpieces, including caps, pigtail hair and cowboy hats. An image on Minifigs.net 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. For the next 11 years, minifigure heads were produced with a simple facial expression, rendered as two solid black dots for eyes and a smile, also painted in solid black. In 1989, minifigures in the Pirates theme were produced with different facial expressions. The Pirates minifigures also included hooks for hands, as well as simulated wooden legs; this was the first departure from the traditional body parts.

Another departure from traditional parts was the use of spring-loaded legs. These legs are distinctively thick, and do not allow the figures to be placed in a sitting position. This lack of articulation may be the result of the bulk of the springs themselves, or that the legs were joined together at the top, or that there are no holes that allow the figures to connect with studs. Minifigures with spring legs are only able to stand upright.

By 2003, Lego had reportedly produced 3.7 billion minifigures.

Design and construction

Minifigures generally feature nine parts (widely referred to as tools in the toy industry): head, torso, hips, arms, hands, and legs; these nine parts allow seven points of articulation: swivel head, swivel arms, swivel wrists, and swivel legs. Minifigures are usually packaged as three separate parts in Lego sets: head; torso, arms, and hands; and hips and legs.

Minifigure heads are cylindrical, and attach to a long, narrow cylinder molded onto the top of the torso, which allows the head to rotate. This feature also allows items to be attached to the figures over the torso, such as air tanks, capes or breastplates. The heads have a stud on top which is the same size as studs on standard Lego bricks. Head accessories vary widely, and include hair, helmets and hats. The legs rotate independently to 90 degrees forward, and nearly 45 degrees backward. Minigfigures also connect to standard Lego bricks in both a sitting or standing position. The hands of a minifigure resemble the letter C, which allows them to hold many Lego accessories. There are hundreds of different accessories, including axes, wands, cups, guns and in the instance of Star Wars minifigures, lightsabers. Additionally the tops of the hands are approximately the same size as the studs on standard Lego bricks, which allows Lego pieces to be placed on top of them. These variations allow minifigures to be customized, keeping with the modular design of Legos.

Read more at Wikipedia.org