LEGO set itself up for inconsistent minifigure quality.

[BrickG]

LEGO has a habit of introducing new amazing minifigure features. From new hairpieces to tools to prints. However, I find myself kind of wishing they'd... stop. Unless they're able to put that new standard into practice for all future minifigures necessary. 

Lets take the hairpiece/hat combinations they adopted in recent years (not sure actually about the timing). LEGO was previously seemingly avoiding making hats that also had hair, probably because that limits the use of those hats to people who already have a specific hairstyle. Instead they went with the "bald" look whenever someone had a hat on, with printing on the face to show some hints of hair. This worked because... well, it didn't make much sense but it worked. It was iconic. It was just a thing that happened with LEGO and that was fine.

Then they added pieces that were the hair/hat combinations. Like with Emmet or Gale from the LEGO movie. Let me say that these look AWESOME. The uses are limited (especially gale's) because of the hairstyles, but they're still great. However, this introduced a new standard. Now every time a minifigure who is a recognizable to me comes with a "bald" style hat it feels like the hair is missing. I look at Jim Hopper in the new LEGO Stranger Things set (which is AMAZING) and I see his bald style hat. It would have been great previously but we've upped the standards and expectations now. Right now he doesn't look all that hot to me. He really needs his hair with that hat IMO. 

 

The same kind of stuff can be said about other "newer" minifigure features. When I get a minifigure that clearly would benefit from having a double colored mold for the arm or legs I feel it (especially if they printed on a pattern that would be better dual molded). The minifigure feels like it's lacking. When there's some arm printing that really should be there I feel it. When a minifigure is using a mold it shouldn't really use when compared to others (like the Wasp Minifigure... and her horrible helmet, compared to the others) it really feels like there's a larger difference in quality. When the printing quality leaves a character looking "grey" compared to minifigures from years ago (looking at you Mercy and Buzz Lightyear) it feels cheap. Whatever your opinion on the Star Wars helmets, it's odd that it's such a mix between the old style ones with the printed visor and the new style one where the visor is part of the helmet... 

 

All of these beneficial properties that LEGO makes to the minifigures really does help them feel amazing. The Dustin from the Stranger Things set looks and feels AMAZING. The Hopper and a few others just feel like the effort given to them was much much smaller. It's the difference between a 3 star and a 5 star minifigure.

I'm aware this is almost certainly a cost issue. You can't give every single Stranger Things character a new head/hair whatever mold without making the set more expensive. LEGO is a business and LEGO is already an expensive hobby and making every minifigure 5 star would just increase the costs. However, the variable quality is REALLY noticeable. And increasingly so with each new amazing upgrade minifigures get because they just don't apply it universally. And until they can keep to the new standards people like me will complain when something doesn't use those new standards.

 

I'm a minifigure man. I rarely get time to build but I still collect minifigures. But I've gone as far as to simply not display some (like the Wasp) for being sub-par in quality. And it's really one of my passions, which means I'm a bit touchy when it comes to this stuff ;). I just love them so much I want to see them all 5-star lol.

 

[Mylenium]

Well, it's a good thing that I don't care much for minifigs then, I suppose? ;-) I do get your points, though. The massive shifts in quality are so painfully obvious even if you're not an obsessing collector. I don't think LEGO really care, however. They seem to have arrived at a point where they are in a constant rush to fire out stuff rapidly. It's always the next set or minifigure series that's a hot thing without considering the bigger picture. A few years down the road this will be even messier.

Mylenium

[Peppermint_M]

So by quality, you do not mean problems with the plastic, but with appearance of a figure and how much it matches the source material?

I suppose this mostly matters if you are collecting the figures like any other bit of Pop Culture Detritus (from Pop Vinyl to Kotobukiya) kids are happy to see the characters they love and getting fun parts to play with. 

There are people who mourn the loss of the simplistic classic smiling face, there are those who "customise" a figure into some lumpy over-detailed mess. The current trend of turning known properties and characters into minifigures has created a demand for greater detail and closer matches to the source material. So, we face more printing and even more molds for parts. It costs money for the business to make the figures look "exactly"  like they "should"

Here is 2003 Luke on Degobah

Here we have 2018 Luke on Degobah

Same character, same place. Massive differences. Because people want minifigures to look like real people...

I guess that it is all a matter of opinion. 

[MAB]

The major market - kids - rarely complain about things like this so it is unlikely that they will increase the price of a set just to please people that want to collect the minifigures as display items.

There are also other quality issues (rather than design issues) - prints not matching across torso to legs, print broken across torso to legs (clone brands do better here as they print torso and legs in one go), translucent light colour print on dark parts, no inner leg print, not top of foot print even when sides of feet have been printed, etc.

The change to dual molded legs really shows off how bad some old figures look.   For example, these printed legs look great from the front:

But terrible from behind. Compare them to a similar dual molded part and the rear end just looks stupid. So all mine now wear capes to cover this up.

Would kids or people that display in a frame care? Probably not.

 

[tafkatb]

4 hours ago, BrickG said:

And until they can keep to the new standards people like me will complain when something doesn't use those new standards.

Let's not kid ourselves - they'll complain no matter what. They will always, always find something to complain about. Why doesn't every Malibu Stacy have a new hat?

[AmperZand]

I have been an AFOL with a minifigure-centred collection for over 25 years. In that time, minifigures and their accessories have diversified tremendously. The change was inevitable driven by licensing, consumer expectations and lower production costs in offshore locations among other reasons.

The change has not always been consistent across ranges, with some benefiting from new moulds sooner than others.

Some developments I have incorporated into my collection by updating older designs with newer parts, while other developments I have ignored completely (e.g. extremely oversized swords as one-handed weapons) or partly (e.g. I still use the older slope piece for dresses as well as the newer purpose-designed skirt piece). A degree of hand-waving is required. How else do you explain classic spacemen with identical facial expressions and visor-less helmets?

It should be remembered that if LEGO had never updated its design standards, we would still be using blocky figures or slabbies (pictured below), not the articulated minifigures we know and love today. I would not want to see minifigures completely redesigned, but change can be a good thing.

    

[BrickG]

On 5/16/2019 at 10:05 AM, Peppermint_M said:

So by quality, you do not mean problems with the plastic, but with appearance of a figure and how much it matches the source material?

I suppose this mostly matters if you are collecting the figures like any other bit of Pop Culture Detritus (from Pop Vinyl to Kotobukiya) kids are happy to see the characters they love and getting fun parts to play with. 

There are people who mourn the loss of the simplistic classic smiling face, there are those who "customise" a figure into some lumpy over-detailed mess. The current trend of turning known properties and characters into minifigures has created a demand for greater detail and closer matches to the source material. So, we face more printing and even more molds for parts. It costs money for the business to make the figures look "exactly"  like they "should"

Here is 2003 Luke on Degobah

Here we have 2018 Luke on Degobah

Same character, same place. Massive differences. Because people want minifigures to look like real people...

I guess that it is all a matter of opinion. 

I think this is actually kind of a separate issue.

That's a matter of opinion when it comes to the style LEGO minifigures are. Some people prefer the older styles that is more... "LEGO"y and some the newer ones (for the more modern battle, see Toy Story :P). Either way you look at it, poor grey'd out printing is bad. Some are less debatable than others and IMO just disconnected from the separate style issue.

I think there's an objectively discussable quality issue that's a bit separate. Printing, unique molds, etc.

 

[TeriXeri]

Some colors of printing are certainly bad in modern times, especially since the box-art seems to use more renders and bright colors it's even more obvious.

And the issue is certainly not just as simple as printing light colors on a dark background, as LEGO has had good examples of figures where it turned out just fine like Moltor or the Black Scurrier from Nexo Knights.

As recent as the 2018 Arctic theme, the yellow printing on a dark blue torso just turned out closer to an "olive" color and not bright light orange as it shows on the renders, and the white arctic logo printing on an orange tile turned out a bit of see-through.

The recent Mercy and Captain America head prints turned out really bad, when the color is nowhere near the flesh color, but ended up more white/grey.

Edited May 18, 2019 by TeriXeri