Update (15/4): The Build a Mini seems to have gone down temporarily. Word on the street is that some critical bugs have been identified, surrounding editing/deleting minifigures, so it looks like LEGO have temporarily disabled the service.
As it’s the Easter long weekend, I don’t expect this to be fixed immediately, so maybe check back in next week!
Close to a month after the launch of LEGO’s new online Pick a Brick experience, LEGO are now ready to soft-launch it’s online Build a Minifigure service!
The Build a Mini beta has just launched in Asia Pacific and Europe, and you can check it out via the links below, along with the pricing:
- Australia – AU$9.99 for 3, and AU$3.33 for each additional minifigure
- New Zealand – NZD$12.99 for 3, and AU$4.33 for each additional minifigure
- United Kingdom – £5.97 for 3, and £1.99 for each additional minifigure
- Europe (Germany) – €6.99 for 3, and €2.33 for each additional minifigure
Sorry, Americans, you’ll have to wait a while for this one!
In case you’re unaware, it works like a Build a Minifigure station that you’d find in a LEGO Store – where you get to customise minifigures by selecting a head, wig, torso, legs and one accessory to make your own minifigure.
The user interface is quite intuitive, and apart from it looking like Geocities graphics from 1999, it works as it should – you move seamlessly through the process, and can select from a small selection of heads, wigs, torsos, legs and accessories.
When you’ve created at least 3, you can either edit your selection, or duplicate them, which is great for army-building.
In terms of the parts selection, there’s nothing too out of the ordinary here – there are some old Build a Minifigure exclusive torsos (like the Vitruvian Minifigure design), and accessories (Black Sausage dogs, pink duck floaties) etc, but none of the newer/rarer elements from 2022.
I was surprised to see Chicken Head headgears, which I bought a few off.
I was also delighted to see some Lion Knights, and I wasted no time building some Lion Knight footsoldiers (complete with Shields), and duplicated a whole bunch of them for army-building.
I was very surprised by the pricing, and not sure if it’s some sort of error. AU$9.99 for 3 minifigures, and AU$3.33 for each minifigure, with your selection of accessories is incredible value, and if the part selection remains good, is such great value – especially considering Build a Minifigure 3-packs in LEGO Stores cost AU$19.99 here.
Not sure if this price will be the same pot-Beta, but I was very pleased to see it not costing an arm and a leg, for a bunch of arms and legs, torsos and heads.
I also think this is great to round up your cart to get free shipping, if you’re a few dollars short.
Let me know what you think of the Build A Mini section, and selection, and if this is something you’d use on a regular basis!
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They are back online. No shields or helmets though.
Unfortunately, delivery $12.50 kills the deal.
Yeah the selection is worse than what it was before it went down. Thought it was gonna have even more to choose from now that it’s back.. not less!! All the castle related parts are gone, boooo!!!!!!
Yeah, a huge bummer. My original order got cancelled as well which is super odd
Just received my order from last month – waiting to go through it with the kids as I’m hoping they remember how we’d configured each minifig!
22nd April and the Australian link still shows a 404 error?
I managed to get an order in before it went down – 20 different minifigs that we’re going to use as gifts for family and friends – and one slight negative seems to be that after you’ve customised all the designs on screen, the order details appears to only be a long list of individual parts so you can’t distinguish which go with which minifig (and I’m assuming that’s how they’ll be delivered too, rather than assembled).
If I’d realised, I would have taken a screenshot before completing the order for reference.
Not a big issue if you’re ordering a small quantity, or a larger number of identical figures I guess, but something to keep in mind.
It’s a beta, so unfortunately, they found a bug.
That said, if it’s in your order history, hopefully they’ll be able to pick it and send it out eventually.
Yeah, I understand the beta part and working through the issues, just surprised it went to a generic 404 page for so long (they’ve now updated it to a more specific message).
My order is on its way but LEGO customer service confirmed they don’t keep a record of how the minifigs are customised, just a list of the individual parts used so we’ll need to work it out once they arrive. They did acknowledge it might be a useful feature so have apparently fed the idea back to the relevant team.
This is great, it’s going to create a whole new aspect of Lego collecting. My only fear is that when this goes live in the U.S., it might crash the site lol.
Nah the selection is piss poor, nobody gonna be crashing the site for mediocre parts
Have these been taken down? I’m getting a 404 error when I follow the links, and searching the Australian website I cannot find mention of this anywhere? Any updates?
I’ve heard chatter that they’ve found a bug with it, and are fixing it in the background. As it’s Easter, hopefully it’ll be back up after the long weekend!
Ah, yeah, it’s the Black Friday… How appropriate…
In the physical store, employees have told me that a “Minifigure” is 5 pieces. So if I wanted to choose two torsos and 3 accessories, that was one minifig. Nicely flexible, if there are no heads that are interesting or whatever.
Any indication if that will fly online?
It doesn’t seem like it, from what I can see the system is too rigid to classify a minifig as anything but a combination of the given pieces in category A+B+C+D+E…
The pricing for the figures themselves were tolerably decent in Sweden. The costs for shipping were deterringly high, though. I’m not sure if there would be ways around it, considering they’re shipped separately from regular purchases.
Lol those aren’t lion knights, they’re the lion king’s torso and you definitely don’t need an army of kings lol
I was going to ask if the $9.99 amount was a typo considering it’s $19.99 in-store (went to a Lego store last week) but you’ve covered it. Minifigure blindbags are ~$5 each. In-store, it’s about $6.50 each and it doesn’t seem like there’s anything exclusive to justify the higher expense. $20 for three minifigures is kind of excessive. $10-$15 feels about right once the full range of accessories and minifigure parts are available.