Part of sourcing minifigs as described Here, is being able to add character to a minifig army and create subtle variations that break up the uniform shape of the Lego minifig and customize them to a vignette or setting. The way that a Lego minifig is made (as mentioned Here) means that by combining a torso and arms piece with a different head or a different Lego, a new minifig can be created, additionally different decals can add to the already limitless combinations, giving a totally customized custom minifig real uniqueness.

Below you can see a photo of the 4 possible decaled Torsos from the dino attack Lego series, these minifig torsos are ideal for any one looking for military special forces style custom minifigs. There are also 4 different combination’s of Heads, two different minifig helmets and two different sets of arms, just considering the minifig heads and minifig torso you already have 16 different minifig combination’s, which is definitely worth considering when you’re customizing minifigs.

Following on from the overview of how to customize lego minifigs found here Lets go into more concise detail on how to source and find specific elements for a custom minifig. The reason we are focusing on this rather than the concept and design stages is because this part of the process is one which is not reliant on ideas.

Lego has designed hundreds of thousands of different sets, minifigs and decals, however there are also elements that Lego do not produce, publicly Lego have stated for example that you can’t get Lego weapons from Lego, as such you would have to rely on external companies like BrickArms for these.

In order to source Lego parts for your custom minifig, you need to have you idea clear. First you want to break down your custom minifig design in to the individual body parts and accessories. You can find out more about the make up of the minifig here

To save you a degree of time this site has a cool feature that allows you to structure your minifig based on the different combination of elements, its certainly not exhaustive of the entire range of Lego minifigs out there but its pretty close. Additionally other sites such as Brick Link and The Lego pick a Brick and my personal favorite Find my Brick are all great places to source individual Custom minifig torso, arm and leg parts. You can find a full list of custom minifig product suppliers here. You have to get creative here, for example for modern military custom minifigs, Lego do not produce a torso that represents this, however the minfigs from the Dino Attack collection are very SWAT team-esque and could be used as a substitute, but the again the Dino Attack Lego minifigs are no longer made by Lego so you’d either have to find them second hand or produce your own decals for your custom minifig.

As a result of changing Lego stock in the brand new and second hand market as well as the ever increasing demand for certain minifigs, when creating large quantities of custom minifigs, it may cost a lot, or you may have to wait for prolonged periods of time for the right minifig components to appear on the market. In these instances you may well find it easier to use flat colour minifigs and create your own decals, however event these flat colour torsos may be in short supply as well, so you have to be reasonably prepared to removed existing decals, or change the colour template or in extreme circumstances create your own casts and mould your own minifigs from scratch. Regardless of what you do in this context, sourcing the right minifig components can be the longest and most frustrating part of minifig customization, but it can also be very rewarding, just remember your Lego invading army that’s the light at the end of the tunnel.

 

(Custom minifig image by unknown)

After less than a month since launching custom Minifig wishes you all a Happy 2009 filled with tons of fantastic custom minifigs and loads of Lego!

We’ve now grown to over  66 articles, and over 50 readers a day, thats over 400 a month. Plans for custom minifig in 2009 include a members photo sharing feature, a forum and a quarterly custom minifig newsletter. Natrually if you can think of any other community enhancing features we can add to custom minifig, simply contact us at customminifig <at> gmail <dot> com

The custom Minifig community is very spread out and if you consider minifig customization isn’t exactly a gorup activity may minifig customizers keep intouch via online forums. Here is a list and rating of the top Lego and custom minifig online forums

Whilst this list of Lego custom minifig forums isn’t absolute, these are the more popular general public Lego forums.

Lego custom minifig forums

Forum	Description	Rating	Link
CMF forum	The Custom minifig Forum	n/a	GO
BrickArms	Retailer forum		GO
Lego	The Lego forum		GO
LugNet	community, difficult to use		GO
FBTB	Lego Star Wars		GO
Outside The Brick	Generic Lego Forum		GO
Fine Clonier	Customization Forum		GO
Classic Pirates	Lego Pirate forum		GO
Saber Scorpion	Customization Forum		GO
Classic Castle	Lego medieval		GO
Brick Forge	Retailer forum		GO

Here are some videos of custom minifigs I find surfing the web, whilst they aren’t the best or  totally unique, it’s revealing to see what other custom minifig fans are doing with their Lego modding skills

Here’s a useful Lego slang dictionary that contains most of the common abbreviations and slang relating to Lego custom minifigs, Lego MOCs and AFOL (Adult Fans of Lego) Pretty useful. Check it out here.

One of the Most elusive custom minifig modders I’ve come accross is Hazel, I can’t seem to find much on they guy, other that some of the most incredible and detailed custom minifigs I’ve ever come accross, it seems that Hazel is based out of south east asia, in Hong Kong and/or Japan, and with classic asian skill in detail the figures that really made an impact on the custom minifig community were Hazel’s gears of war custom minifigs, Hazel is also some how associated with Amazing Armoury and most of Hazel’s custom minifigs are shown with the tag – ‘custom by Hazel’

Hazel usually goes by Hazel – Fantasy and his works include MOCs, custom minfigs and custom minifig parts and weapons. His work has also been featured in Dengeki Brick magazine in 2008 (issue 12)

The custom parts by Hazel seem to be made in small custom runs and are probably highly sought after collectibles, It seems that aside from a very small Brick Link store, found here. Most orders are placed for Hazel’s custom minifig parts via the Amazing Armoury flickr profile or Hazel’s Hazel Fantasy profile.

I’m trying to get in touch with Hazel to do an interview and also to buy some of his work, so if any of you have every dealt with Hazel, please do get in touch!

(Lego, custom, minifigs, film, characters by Legohaulic)

This is an awesome collection of custom minifigs I can accross on the web, the Lego custom minifigs shown here all use generic Lego minfig parts with the exception of BrickArms weapons, rubber bands and a Lego sticker for an eyepatch.

You can prombably make out The Terminator, Bruce Lee, Rambo and the Lone ranger amongst other. And whats really cool about this collection of minifigs is that it shows you can create some fantastic custom minfigs just by putting together the right combination of existing Lego minifig parts, you don’t have to get custom decals made up.

 (Minifig by Lego)

This is a totally collectable Gold C3PO one of only 10,000 C3PO Lego minifigs to have been casted, whilst its not a custom minifig, it does show how different casting material can make a real difference to a minifig, and admit it, its pretty darn cool. The collectable Gold C3PO was randomly inserted into selected Lego Sets and is now said to be worth over $200, pretty impressive for an inch tall minifig.

(Custom minifig fire extinguisher by unknown)

This custom minifig hods a custom made unique and minifig scale fire extinguisher, Lego have previously created standard fire extimguishers for minifgs, but this custom one is more aestetically unique and far my dynamic, it adds a little bit more to a scene than simply using the standard minifig fire extinguisher from Lego

(Custom minifig accessory mobile phone by unknown)

Part of customizing Lego minifigs is customizing the Lego accessories that the minifig uses, these minifig accessory customizations can be really bold and obvious, or more subtle like this minifig mobile phone with retractable antenna, it’s a simple custom job but tells more about the minifig and makes the minifig more interesting and unique.

(buffy custom minifigs by Blinky)

Buffy the vampire slayer was a popular series with a cult following and some unique characters, here a custom minifig builder has created all the key buffy characters in Lego, the minifigs are all unique from each other and the majority of the minifigs have a degree of customization, mainly in the form of custom made decals. Below is one of the buffy minifigs with an extremely detailed decal, which really shows how detailed you can get with decals.

(willow custom minifigs by Blinky)

(Lego minifig helmets by unknown)

This photo is awesome, not just from an artistic perspective but also from the contents, here we see an amazing stack of Lego minifig scale helmets and the structure of the inside of the helmets, Lego military helmets like the one shown are really popular with custom minifig builders who create world war 2 vignettes. Brickarms and Brick forge supply a good range of Lego minifig helmets for several time periods, including roman, world war 1, world war 2 and modern. Additionally there are the usual fantasy and sci-fi genres as well. Minifig helmets add an extra level of customization and personality to a custom minifig which should at least be considered when you’re designing your custom minifig.

(all black lego minifig army by unknown)

Decals and colour add personality and uniqueness to minifigs, they help bring out the story telling effect of minifigs, however flat colour minifigs seem more artistic, statue like if you will, however, in their faceless nature flat colour minifigs are really cool, they speak volumes for the shape and form of the minfig rather than express personality. As such using flat colour minifigs can be really powerful especially in a photographic and architectural/artistic way.

(Lego banksey decal by dpstyles)

Banksy is a popular street graffiti artist primarily popular in the UK, whats really great about Lego and custom minifig is the way that Lego reflects the real world and this Lego Banksy decal, placed on a Lego wall is the perfect scaled down version, and seems perfect for the Lego environment, the key thing to remember here is that this shows the level of detail and the potential of using custom minifig decals in your Lego projects.