To get more fans excited about LEGO Build-a-Minifigure at LEGO Stores (and Legoland Discovery Centres), some time last year, LEGO switched up their build-a-minifigure station strategy to start including exclusive parts – from entire minifigures, to new colour variants and prints.
It’s a pretty smart strategy to make Build-a-Minifigure a bit more exciting, and gives people like myself a reason to visit my local LEGO store, or Legoland Discovery Centre.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve paid a visit to the Melbourne Legoland Discovery Centre and Doncaster LEGO Certified Store to hunt down some of these new parts.
In Australia, the timing seems to be that the start of every month typically yields new parts and accessories, and they seem to be quite limited, or because LEGO fans get win and buy up many of these for their own collections/to resell.
Here’s some of the new minifigures I’ve been able to build, that have been available from January and February 2020.
Be sure to check your local LEGO store’s Build-a-Minifigure station to see what’s there. Your mileage may vary depending on stock levels.
One of the most exciting new minifigures is what I dubbed The Love Elephant. A special release to coincide with Valentine’s Day, this lovey-dovey pink Elephant minifigure should make your heart flutter.
There are three new parts, the pink elephant headpiece, the torso with a bright red love heart printed on it, as well as the awesome new face with heart sunglasses.
If that’s not mushy enough, the face also has an alternate kissing expression.
Here’s a comparison with Series 18’s Elephant Costume Girl.
It’s a little early, but there’s also a Chocolate Easter Bunny, which is a fun little seasonal minifigure. The bunny is dark brown, so it’s very different from the Nougat-coloured March Harriet from Batman Movie Series 1.
It’s an all-brown take on the Bunny Suit Guy, with colourful icing printed across his belly, and a cute little bow.
His all-white face is new, and you can pair him up what I also believe is a new blue teddy bear.
The new white bunny face is useful, as you can pair it with the Bunny Suit Guy for an all-white bunny.
I believe this minifigure’s torso came out in January to celebrate the Year of the Rat, and it’s a traditional Chinese top, with Rat motifs printed on it.
It’s in a festive shade of red, with gold accents, and I love the rat pattern on it. And yes, the Build-a-Minifigure accessory section is also filled to the brim with rats.
Despite LEGO’s family friendly image, these parts were totally created to allow fans to create their own Game of Thrones White Walkers, and I’m all for it.
The icy male face is new, and so is his torso and curved dress slope piece, which just makes him look like an icy sorcerer.
According to HokayBricks the skirt piece is Leia’s from the 2019 UCS Tantive IV!
The all-white Santa Hat is also new and a fantastic new part.
That or he’s Series 16’s Ice Queen’s spouse.
To usher in Spring (in the Northern Hemisphere), I also found this new Baby Blue Flower Hairpiece, which I paired with a stalk torso, and last year’s Halloween pants.
You may remember this Flower and torso combo from Series 18’s Flowerpot Girl, but the new Flower headgear variant is pretty nice.
That’s not the only Spring-themed minifigure – for little butterfly-obsessed girls, we also get a new Butterfly Girl.
She looks almost identical to Series 17’s Butterfly Girl (the wings are the same), but I believe she has a new polka-dot top, with a pink bowtie.
What’s new is the new Pink Bumblebee headgear, and her adorable face which has a small pink butterfly painted on her cheek.
She also has the cutest smiley face I’ve seen in a long long time.
So yeah, that’s how I ended up spending more than I usually do on the Build-a- Minifigure station.
Apparently, there are also new Penguins in the accessories section, but when I visited the Doncaster LEGO Store, they were all gone, which was a bummer.
If you were waiting on a reason to visit your local LEGO Store or Legoland Discovery Centre, maybe these new minifigures will justify a trip!
If you like more posts like these, let me know in the comments and I’ll try and see if I can do a recurring one every time new parts arrive at my local LEGO Store!
Thanks for reading!
Do nintendo release information each month on what they put into the mini figure bins? Or do we just have to search through them?
I hope you mean LEGO and not Nintendo! Unfortunately, it’s a bit random, and I rely on tips from readers, or when I come across them at the LEGO Store.
Hey Jay,
I noticed that you packed some of your minifigures with butterfly wings, a headpiece and a teddy bear. When I tried to the same thing at the LEGO store, the lady said a minifigure can’t have wings AND a handheld accessory like a teddy bear, chocolate bar, rat etc. I had to choose between wings or an accessory.
Did you just manage to get lucky and snag a bonus teddy bears or was she wrong?
Oh, I didn’t realise that. My daughter helped pack some of these minifigures, and at the LEGO store I was at, they said it was okay.
They’re definitely right as the wings count as an accessory, but I think they let it slide for my daughter.
Ah ok, thanks for the reply!
I went to the store andI only saw the elephant and guy from game of heroes. I really wanted the butterfly girl ?
Ah, that’s random. Stock seems to fluctuate – the elephants are the most popular so you were lucky to have them in your store!
Hi Jay is there a way you can get figures without going to a store as we have no Lego stores in Ireland.
Thank you for the review! I went to the LEGO store in SF in January and saw some of these parts, but not the heart sunglasses face – I NEED that one, so will trek over and look next week. 🙂 Thanks for the parts breakdown; I +1 more of these posts!
Hello Jay! Great review! Love your setup – your photos look so fantastic! Small correction, the skirt from the White Walker is actually originally Leia’s from the 2019 UCS Tantive IV – so nice to get it in such an affordable way! If you’re interested, New Elementary recently published my article on the exclusive new parts in the January BAM batch (though you’ve already covered them very well here). I think the exclusives in BAM even date back to late 2018 as well but I can’t recall for sure.
Hey mate, thanks for the kind words! Oh, I don’t have that set, so that’s news to me – I’ve updated the post with the relevant information.
I’m a big New E fan, and yes, I loved your piece! Super informative!
I thought they were relatively new – I think the first time they came on my radar was Halloween 2019, but then again we’re in Australia, so sometimes, trends take forever to get here.
Orange pants definitely go to the last set of figures they did for Halloween. I can send a pic of the Halloween figures if you’d like.
I also believe that the long gray hair piece goes with jack frost. The store employees at my store seemed to think the white hat went with the exclusive black and blue short legs to make a snow boy/girl.
Lots of cool parts coming out for sure.
Haha yes! I missed out on the previous Halloween figures, so took this time to get a few parts that caught my eye.
I didn’t really need the Snowboy parts, but yes, they were selling him in pre-made packs. Can’t wait to see what we get next!
Hi Jay,
They look fabulous!
Have you heard anymore on where/when a LEGO store will be coming to Perth?
Hey Ray, sorry for the late reply! It’s earmarked for 2020, but there’s been no news from Alceon/LEGO yet. I’ll post on the blog when I do find out!