Minifigure

Minifigures are small plastic figures just over 1 1/2 inches (4cm), or four bricks tall. They connect to normal LEGO Bricks, and usually consist of 9-10 parts. The minifigure was designed by LEGO model builder Jens Nygaard Knudsen, along with other early minifigure designs.

Design
A basic minifigure is composed of several separate essential LEGO pieces: head, torso, arms, hands, hips, and legs. Minifigures typically come packaged as three separate parts in LEGO sets: head, torso/arms/hands, and hips/legs. Each basic plain minifigure has the same height as four normal stacked bricks, but when using head accessories, it can make the minifigure slightly taller.

The legs can rotate independently beyond 90 degrees forwards and approaching 45 degrees backwards, making a total rotation of 135 degrees. They also attach to normal LEGO bricks in either a sitting or standing position. There are long legs like those of the Toy Story character Woody, which can still rotate, and short ones like Yoda's or Dobby's, which cannot rotate. These short legs are commonly used for children in the City theme, as well as many other themes. There are also tails that can attach the same way as minifigure legs, they are only used on Skales, Fangtom, Acidicus, Skalidor, Medusa, Kapau'rai, Chop'rai and Pythor. LEGO has made a peg leg that can fit in the leg sockets. A few LEGO arms, such as some of the Minifigures (Theme) have printings on them. The hands of a minifigure are shaped similarly to a "U" or a "C", which allows them to hold many LEGO accessories, as well as plates and tiles (by their sides), or on the top of the minifigure's hand. There are hundreds of different accessories, including axes, magic wands, cups, guns, swords, food etc. 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. LEGO has made extra pieces that fit in the hand socket, like pirate hooks or boxing gloves. 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 special items to fit over the torso, such as air tanks, rucksacks, capes or breastplates. The standard heads (LEGO has made other forms of heads for weird aliens and such) 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, hats and hoods. These variations allow minifigures to be highly customizable.

According to LEGO.com, most minifigures are coloured yellow to display equalization in ethnic society. The use of different tones of colour came about when LEGO decided that minifigures should look "authentic" to the way they were portrayed, this later expanded into licensed themes such as Star Wars to display correct characterization. Although, yellow coloration is still used in unlicensed themes, such as Ninjago, for purposes of equalization in ethnic society.

History
The original LEGO figures were DUPLO Figures, but the first System figures were known as LEGOLAND Minifigures. These are similar in height to minifigures, but have one-piece non-movable legs and a one-piece torso. They were blocky and their arms were depicted as being in their pockets. The figure's heads were the same as those of minifigures, but they were blank. Their only range of motion was at the head .They also came with hats or hairpieces. In the LEGO Book, they were modified by the designers of the minifigures continuously, going through various stages with movable arms, circular hands, and textured faces. Eventually the designers settled upon what is considered a minifigure today.

The first minifigure with movable arms and legs was a police man released in the year of 1978, with seven different figures in Castle, Space and Town themes. Many Town minifigure torsos had a sticker instead of a printed pattern on one. The Castle minifigures have plain torsos, instead having a body part with a sticker/symbol on it. The Classic Space minifigures were the first to be printed, but their printing rubbed off easily. Until 1989, minifigures' 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. The Pirates minifigures also included hooks for hands, and wooden legs, the first departure from the traditional hands and legs. In 1997 the release of the Western line of sets saw the introduction of the first minifigures with racial characteristics, with the Indian Minifigures. In 2003, the first Minifigures with natural skin-tones – as opposed to the yellow previously used – were released as part of Basketball; these minifigures also represented specific people. The following year, the use of natural skin tones was expanded to licensed products, such as Indiana Jones, Harry Potter and Star Wars minifigures. As of 2003, LEGO had produced four billion minifigures. There are at least 3655 different minifigures produced between 1975 and 2010 and the number of new minfigures per year is increasing rapidly. In 2010 more than 300 new minifigures were introduced.