Why LEGO Star Wars fans are still turning to custom minifigures, 25 years in
LEGO Star Wars has amassed more than 1,000 official minifigures over the past 25 years, but the community continues to turn to custom minifigures – and it’s not hard to see why.
LEGO Star Wars has become one of the most popular themes in the LEGO portfolio, thanks in no small part to its minifigures. Despite this, the theme continues to lack a Collectible Minifigures series after 25 years of builds, games, books, theme park attractions and more. The designers have had to get creative with ways of debuting new minifigures and packing in as many as possible into sets.
From minifigures in Ultimate Collector Series sets to Battle Packs and the occasional book, LEGO Star Wars minifigures continue to be in high demand, but there are never enough resources to meet the wants of everyone in the community. Some fans seek more details in their minifigures while others seek specific versions of characters or those the theme hasn’t yet managed to cover.
For these enthusiasts, there’s one place to turn to until the LEGO Group fulfils their desires – custom LEGO Star Wars minifigures. Though they are not official, many of these custom minifigures come from fellow LEGO Star Wars enthusiasts and it can be difficult to distinguish between the official and custom.
Character_Growth3584‘s groups of LEGO Star Wars Clone Troopers with their corresponding leaders combine official and unofficial minifigures and various custom parts. Similarly, LazzConJr has used custom LEGO Star Wars minifigures with more detail than their official counterparts to add to fan-designed mosaic rebuilds of LEGO Art sets. These two examples showcase how and why the community chooses to turn to unofficial LEGO Star Wars minifigures 25 years on – to fill in the gaps, be they detail or character-oriented.
Many enthusiasts stick only to official parts, but that doesn’t mean they don’t get creative. Swminifiguremocs, Squorlple and DylanValenti are just a few examples of fans who make purist minifigures within the LEGO Star Wars community. Purist is a term used within the LEGO fandom to describe custom minifigures that use only existing parts and prints, rather than resorting to unofficial sources. These can be useful to make up new characters or upgrades while keeping your collection ‘pure’, hence the name.
Up until the release of 75394 Imperial Star Destroyer, one such missing character that was commonly depicted with official and unofficial elements was Cal Kestis. Now, the Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order character has debuted as an official minifigure for the 25th anniversary of the theme, pairing perfectly with the previous BD-1 figure.
It is based solely on Cal Kestis’ appearance in the first game rather than the sequel and is only featured as a one-off minifigure in the £149.99 / $159.99 / €169.99 set. This high price and specific take on the character is why some choose to turn to either purist or unofficial minifigures of Cal Kestis as pictured above. It presents consumers with more options provided you don’t mind mixing the official and custom.
Covering missing characters remains one of the biggest reasons for enthusiasts to look towards custom LEGO Star Wars minifigure makers, as Tyler Page, owner of Clone Army Customs explained to Brick Fanatics: “We try to fill the gap that the LEGO Group leaves with missing characters, prints, or retired items.
“I started making custom minifigures for myself because there were characters that the LEGO Group hadn’t produced. After the first version, I wanted to improve it and sold the first. It turns out there are a lot of people interested in these minifigures the LEGO Group hasn’t made.”
Custom LEGO Star Wars minifigure parts can also come in handy to create all-new characters to fill out existing sets. The impressive 75374 The Onyx Cinder‘s crew for instance is made up of younger Star Wars characters, but the model provides the ideal foundations for a motley crew of characters from across the galaxy.
In Brick Fanatics’ example pictured above, such a tactic is especially useful to depict a party of characters from a Star Wars tabletop roleplaying game without resorting to custom 3D-printed figures. Even with this context, finding custom parts that look similar enough to the LEGO Group’s distinct style remains crucial for many enthusiasts.
“I 3D model the helmets, backpacks, and accessories to include with genuine LEGO minifigures which all get custom art designs pad-printed to match the LEGO Group’s quality,” shared Page. “I genuinely feel that Clone Army Customs offers a higher quality to minifigures as far as detail goes, but we also sell individual figures which the LEGO Group doesn’t do directly.”
That final point demonstrates another reason for LEGO Star Wars enthusiasts to continue to turn towards custom minifigures. The LEGO Group no longer offers minifigure-only sets for LEGO Star Wars as it did during the theme’s early years. At best, promotional polybags or battle packs are available to collect and army-build minifigures, but the latter option means you’re often left with superfluous pieces.
The option to buy single minifigures is the icing on top of the cake for LEGO Star Wars enthusiasts and offers all the more incentive to look towards custom minifigures, even after 25 years of the theme.
As Star Wars continues to grow, there will always be more new characters to cover and the LEGO Star Wars team are unlikely to ever cater to everyone and depict every possible character, leaving a gap in the market that custom minifigure makers will therefore continue to fill. It’s not difficult to see why LEGO Star Wars enthusiasts still turn to custom minifigures 25 years later.
Featured image: Clone Army Customs
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