LEGO Star Wars designer has entire spreadsheets devoted to deciding minifigure details

Deciding which LEGO Star Wars minifigures receive new and unique printing is such a delicate process that the graphic designer responsible has multiple spreadsheets devoted to the cause.

Any new LEGO Star Wars minifigure that arrives with additional printing – such as Din Djarin in his Beskar armour, this summer’s Bo-Katan Kryze in 75361 Spider Tank or even the latest Ahsoka minifigure in 75362 Ahsoka Tano’s T-6 Jedi Shuttle – is worth championing, but not every character gets the honour of super-detailed decorations. The question then becomes: how does the LEGO Group decide which minifigures deserve to go above and beyond? 

During a recent panel with Brick Fanatics and other LEGO Fan Media, LEGO Star Wars graphic designer Madison O’Neil revealed that determining which minifigures get that extra level of detail – such as arm or leg printing – isn’t easy. In fact, it’s such a fine balancing act that he actually has multiple spreadsheets designed specifically to help guide him through the process.

The topic came up during a conversation around the brand new Captain Rex minifigure in 75367 Venator-Class Republic Attack Cruiser, which gives detailed arm printing to the Clone Wars character for the first time. Discussing whether we’re likely to see more arm printing for LEGO Star Wars minifigures further down the line, Madison explained that it’s a character-specific decision – and that there are limits on additional details.

“I love putting arm printing on the characters,” Madison says. “It does give a very exclusive, kind of fancy touch to them. And yeah, of course, for a model like [the Venator], we’re trying to put all the details in that we can, so that made sense. And especially for characters that do have a lot of details on their arms – we’ve done some for Mandalorian characters like Bo-Katan and Mando, because they have a lot going on.

“It basically just comes down to a matter of complexity. Essentially, we can only make so many decorations a year. These basically count as one or two decorations, the same as the face or the legs. You should see my spreadsheets of how we balance where everything goes. So when we have special cases and things that we think, ‘We should give this a little bump up,’ or it’s simply just necessary to capture the character properly, then we’re going to try to do arm printing.”

More and more LEGO Star Wars characters are starting to receive arm printing as standard, including the likes of Darth Vader and C-3PO (who are likely to regularly reappear across multiple sets). But the arms of other new minifigures – such as the latest Sabine Wren, the Endor camo versions of Luke and Leia in 75353 Endor Speeder Chase Diorama, and all Clone Trooper Commanders beyond UCS sets – are still unprinted, even where their outfits might merit additional detail.

The LEGO Group has clearly chosen to prioritise Rex, Bo-Katan, Ahsoka and so on over those characters in 2023, but that’s not to say future versions won’t benefit from arm printing. It all comes down to those spreadsheets…

If you want to grab the latest LEGO Star Wars minifigure to receive arm printing, 75367 Venator-Class Republic Attack Cruiser is available right now with double Insiders points (until October 15) and two gifts-with-purchase (one of which ends today) at LEGO.com.

Support the work that Brick Fanatics does by purchasing your LEGO using our affiliate links.