While some are named as specific characters, either licensed from already existing franchises or of Lego's own creation, many are unnamed and are designed simply to fit within a certain theme (such as police officers, astronauts and pirates).

[6] The arms incorporated clips as "hands" which allowed to figures to hold a wide range of different utensils and tools.

In 1989 for the launch of Pirates theme, some minifigures also included hooks for hands, as well as peg legs; this was the first departure from the traditional body parts.

Popular examples between 2005 and 2008 include Star Wars, Marvel, Batman, The Lord of the Rings and Indiana Jones minifigures.

In 2019, the number of Lego Star Wars minifigures has surpassed 1000, with the Battlefront II protagonist Iden Versio (bearing code sw1000).

The plastic is acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), a tough material that makes LEGO figures durable.

This feature also allows items to be attached to the figures over the torso, such as air tanks, jet packs, paper or fabric capes, breastplates or beards.

There are hundreds of a vast variety of accessories, including swords, axes, wands, cups, guns, blasters and lightsabers.

While nearly all minifigure heads, torsos, arms, hands and legs are the same size and shape, some sets have included figures that deviate from the standard.

Lego torsos often have black or white squares on the neck joint, this is to help with the automatic printing process when producing minifigures.

Martians are composed of five tools: two pairs of double arms, a mechanical torso, a conjoined leg piece, and a head.

The robots of Exo-Force, Mars Mission commander aliens and Bionicle miniatures have a design similar to the Star Wars battle droids, but with separate legs, movable hands, and a head affixed to a small torso.

Skeletons, use the standard minifigure head, but unique torsos, arms, and legs designed to resemble a skeletal structure; although different, these figure parts are still detachable.

In 2018, a special skirt piece was released, shorter, more softly curved on the back, and with regular leg pins to connect to the torso, instead of the studs on ordinary bricks.

Minifigures have also featured unique head sculpts that differ from the traditional cylindrical shape; the first was Jar Jar Binks, included in a Star Wars set in 1999 Since then various other minifigures like Yoda, C-3PO, Harry Potter goblin figures, tuskens, geonosians, Zeb Orrelios, Kit Fisto, Plo Koon, Davy Jones and Bossk also use non standard heads.

An enormous variety of clothing and accessories has been produced for minifigures, including hairstyles, caps, hats, and helmets.

In Star Wars sets, troopers have uniquely sculpted helmets, adapting the original character designs to the minifigure format.

One piece forms the body, consisting of torso, head and legs, in a crawling position and two arms specially made for this minifigure.

[16] NASA's Juno spacecraft which entered orbit around the planet Jupiter in 2016 carries three specially commissioned minifigures on board.

Cast from space-grade aluminum, the minifigures represent the astronomer Galileo, the Roman deity Jupiter and his wife Juno.

[18] Lego also features a variety of similar figures for non-anthropomorphic animals and other creatures like horses, dogs, cows, goats, sheep, pigs, cats, rats, mice, wolves, bears, chimpanzees, gorillas, monkeys, lions, tigers, leopards, saber-toothed cats, skunks, koalas, elephants, a variety of dinosaurs, spiders, snakes, smaller fish, sharks, squids, owls, crabs, parrots, alligators, centaurs or the varactyl from Revenge of the Sith.

At the Legoland parks, the standardized Miniland design has long been used as a template for brick-built figures, and has occasionally appeared in sets.

Though most share the same body shape and pose, There have been a few variations, such as Jabba the Hutt from Star Wars, or the wampa and the rancor which are even bigger in size.

These figures look like standard minifigures, but to facilitate internal electronics, their parts cannot be removed; the only exception to this is the headgear, the left hand and arm, and each of the legs from the hips.

Following the initial release of these figures Lego announced no more were to be produced, due to their unpopularity and more expensive production.

Yet another variation on the minifigure is the magnet figure, from such themes as Star Wars, Batman, Indiana Jones, and City.

While a relatively recent phenomenon, minifigure customisation has rapidly become popular within the wider building community, although some maintain a "purist" approach, using only elements produced by Lego.

personalised minifigures in place of business cards, with email addresses and telephone numbers details on the front and back of the torso, and hair and facial features designed to resemble each executive.

The Lego group produced 2.3 billion Minifigures between 1978 and 1998[23] and many people buy and sell these on eBay and other sites such as BrickLink.

Similar bags have also been released for Marvel, The Simpsons, Looney Tunes, DC, Harry Potter, and Dungeons & Dragons.