FREE LEGO MINIFIGURE YEAR BY YEAR: A VISUAL HISTORY PDF Gregory Farshtey,Daniel Lipkowitz | 255 pages | 16 Sep 2013 | DK Publishing (Dorling Kindersley) | 9781465414113 | English | London, United Kingdom LEGO® Minifigure Year by Year: A Visual History by Daniel Lipkowitz A Lego minifigurecommonly referred to as a minifigis a small plastic articulated figurine produced by Danish toy manufacturer The Lego Group. They were first produced in and have been a success, with over 3. While some are named as specific characters, either licensed from film, television, and game franchises, or of Lego's own creation, many are unnamed and are designed simply to fit within a certain theme such as police officersastronauts and pirates. Minifigures are collected by both children and adults. They are highly customizable, and parts from different figures can be mixed and matched, resulting in many combinations. Similar figures are produced by other companies, such as the Kreons from the construction toy Kre-O by the Korean company Oxford subsidiary of Hasbroor the figures by Block Tech or the Canadian company Mega Bloks. A precursor to the minifigure was released in These were at the same scale as the current minifigures, but had a different design. They had solid torsos without separate movable arms, solid lower body pieces that were not moveable, and heads without printed features. The first modern minifigures were released inincluded in CastleSpaceand Town sets. In for the launch of Lego Pirates theme, minifigures also included hooks for hands, as well as peg legs; this was the first departure from the traditional body parts. Starting with Lego Pirates in and spreading to Lego Town and Lego Castle in the next few years, minifigures were also produced with different facial expressions such as facial hair, eye patches, feminine makeup, and sunglasses. 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, — Other leg variations include short legs for children or dwarfs, or long legs used in the Toy Story theme. Inthe first minifigures with naturalistic skin tones as opposed to the yellow used Lego Minifigure Year by Year: A Visual History this point were released, as part of the Lego Basketball theme; these minifigures were also created in the likeness of living people. The following year, the use of natural skin tones was expanded to all licensed products; in which figures were created to represent film actors and other living people. ByLego had reportedly produced 4 billion minifigures. In more than new minifigures were introduced. Minifigures generally feature six parts widely referred to as tools in the toy industry : headtorsohipsarmshandsand legs ; these six parts allow seven points of articulation : swivel head, swivel arms, swivel wristsand swivel legs. Lego Minifigure Year by Year: A Visual History are usually packaged as three separate parts in Lego sets: head, torso and legs. The plastic is melted into specially designed molds that produce the different parts of the minifigure. Some of the molds are also accessories such as weapons swords, guns, lightsabers, etc. Heads and torsos nearly always need further decoration, and sometimes the arms and legs do, too. This difficult process is why the figures are more expensive than any other Lego products. After being printed, the head is placed on Lego Minifigure Year by Year: A Visual History torso, the legs attached, and the arms are snapped on. The figures are finally bagged and readied for sale. 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. The head is the only component of the minifigure which can be used for other applications - blank minifigure heads have often been used in Lego sets to replicate other objects such as lampshades and electrical appliances. Head accessories vary widely, and include hairhelmets 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 Cwhich allows them to hold many Lego accessories as well as bricks, tiles, and plates. There are hundreds of different accessories, including swordsaxeswandscupsgunsand lightsabers. Additionally, the tops of the hands are approximately the same size as the studs on standard Lego bricks, which allows Lego pieces to Lego Minifigure Year by Year: A Visual History placed on top of them. These variations allow minifigures to be customized, keeping with the modular design of Lego elements. While nearly all minifigure heads, torsos, arms, hands and legs are the same size and shape, some sets have included figures that deviate from the standard. One of the most extreme design variations was a minifigure produced in an edition of five of the Star Wars character C-3POcast in solid karat gold. Minifigures built from special, uniquely molded pieces were first introduced in Life on Mars. Martians are composed of five tools: two pairs of double arms, a mechanical torso, a conjoined leg piece, and a head. This configuration is also used for many Star Wars Droids ; Battle Droids follow the same pattern, while Super Battle Droids feature a head fixed to a torso, General Grievous has space for four arms, and IG has a head constructed of other Lego pieces. Other droids, such as Lego Minifigure Year by Year: A Visual HistorySpider Droids and Pit Droidsare constructed entirely from standard Lego pieces, yet are still generally considered minifigures. R2-D2 and other astromech droids are constructed from unique parts, with a separate top, body and legs. The robots of Exo-ForceMars Mission commander aliens and Bionicle miniatures Lego Minifigure Year by Year: A Visual History a design similar to the Star Wars Battle Droidsbut with separate legs, movable hands, and a head affixed to a small torso. Hagridthe half-giant character from the Harry Potter series, uses a larger minifigure body, with only the head being separable. Skeletonsusually found in Castle, Pirate, and Indiana Jones sets, use the standard minifigure head, but unique torsos, arms, and legs designed to resemble a skeletal structure; although different, these figure parts are still Lego Minifigure Year by Year: A Visual History. Skeleton figures and others alike stir up controversy on whether they should be considered a minifigure or just a "figure", due to the lack of standard minifigure parts. Additionally, some minifigures, mostly piratessometimes include peg legs and hooks for hands. Kit Fisto was the first minifigure to not use an acrylonitrile butadiene styrene Lego Minifigure Year by Year: A Visual History. Some minifigures, such as WookieesGamorrean Guards and Ewoks use a sandwich board piece which fits over the body. SpongeBob has a sculpted Lego brick head that fits like a standard head, similar to the ghost figures, except that these figures use short or standard legs instead of a brick. An enormous variety of clothing and accessories has been produced for minifigures, including hairstyles, caps, hats, and helmets. In Lego Star Wars sets, Clone Troopers and Stormtroopers have uniquely sculpted helmets, adapting the original character designs to the minifigure format. Exo-Force minifigures feature anime -style hair, as does the Nightwing minifigure from the Batman Arkham Asylum set. Ghost figures have a full- body cape which attaches to the head of the minifigure, and solid brick-like legs. Some minifigures created to resemble female characters, particularly in Castle and Pirate sets, use large sloped bricks instead of legs, to resemble dresses or skirts. However, these sloped bricks are taller than standard minifigure legs, making some characters seem awkward when placed next to taller females. Ina special skirt piece was released, shorter, more softly curved on the back, and with regular leg pins to connect to the torso, instead of the studs on ordinary bricks. In the Simpsons theme as well as other themes, a skirt fabric has been created allowing the minifigure to wear skirts. However, the first skirt mold appeared for the Minnie Mouse and Alice minifigures within the Disney Collectible minifigures theme. The mold for the Ballerina's skirt does predate the Disney minifigures by several months, but it resembles a straight up oval plate and considered a tutu. Shorter legs, without joints at the hip, are sometimes used to create minifigures which are shorter in stature than standard figures i. Such pieces were first created for Star Wars sets but have since been used elsewhere. Ina medium-sized pair of legs was introduced, sized between the shorter legs and regular legs. These legs Lego Minifigure Year by Year: A Visual History a joint at the hip to allow individual movement of the legs, and were used to represent older tweens or younger teenagers, introduced for the rebooted Harry Potter theme. Minifig customisation is the practice of modifying Lego minifigures. This can be as simple as mixing and matching parts, or as complex as painting or remolding plastic. Some custom minifigures are made by affixing stickers or decals to the figures. There are also third party businesses which sell custom decals and molded minifigure accessories, many of which are inspired by popular media such as films and video games. While a relatively recent phenomenon, minifigure customisation has rapidly become popular within the wider building community, although some maintain a "purist" approach, using only elements produced by Lego.