Other Lego

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

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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 reIeased in 1974, Lego minifigures were at the same scaIe 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 1977, 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 peg 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 joined together at the top. These legs were only featured in basketball sets, 2002-2003.

By 2003, Lego had reportedly produced 3.7 billion minifigures.

Design and construction

Minifigures generally feature six parts (widely referred to as tools in the toy industry): head, torso, hips, arms, hands, and legs; these six parts allow seven points of articulation: swivel head, swivel arms, swivel wrists, and swivel legs. Minifigures are usually packaged as four separate parts in Lego sets: head; torso, arms and hands; headgear; 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 which could allow one to be placed on it. Head accessories vary widely, and include hair, helmets and hats. The legs rotate independently to 90 degrees forward, and nearly 45 degrees backward. Minifigures 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 swords, axes, wands, cups, guns, and, in the instance of Star Wars minifigures, lightsabers and blasters. 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 Lego elements.

Read more at Wikipedia.org