Introduction
Lego minifigures have historically been available in a limited range of skin tones that have further marginalized POC builders. When POC builders want to build a minifigure that represents themselves, they have to deal with a limited number of Lego pieces currently available along with the other issue of having a minifigure head in their shade but with a limited stock available or different facial expressions. Lego has been attempting to diversify the shade range of the minifigure heads available, so we used Bricklink’s color guide as a resource to track the progression of parts available per every skin tone that respondents to our flesh tone survey stated represented themselves. The skin tones that we are focusing on are Dark Brown, Dark Orange, Dark Tan, Light Brown, Light Nougat, Medium Nougat, Medium Tan, Nougat, Reddish Brown, Tan, and Yellow.
Figure 1. A legend of all the skintones Lego has released minifigure head parts in.
Breakdown of Total Minifigure Skintones Released
As of July 11th, 2023, Lego has released minifigures in all the shades found in the figure above, so I scraped the counts of every head part released to compare which colors were more prominent to track any patterns or discrepancies.
Figure 2. A bar graph showing the total number of minifigure parts for every skin tone respondents wanted to see be made available
One of the most important conclusions we can draw from the bar graph above is that the overwhelming majority of minifigure parts released from all time come in the shades: Yellow and Light Nougat. Meanwhile, the next and third most frequently released shade, Reddish Brown, is close to ten percent of Light Nougat, which shows the lack of darker skin tones available in minifigure parts. The majority of the darker tones come in a limited number of parts and thus expressions or designs, which speaks to the marginalization of POC Lego builders.
Last Four Years (2018-2022) of Minifigure Skintones
To take a closer look at how Lego has made changes to diversify the minifigure shade range, I decided to examine the minifigure parts released in the last four years (2018-2022) in order to determine if there have been any positive developments in the limited inventory for POC builders.
Figure 3. A bar graph showing the total number of minifigure parts per every skin tone released in 2018
In 2018, Lego released mostly Light Nougat and Yellow minifigure heads, which reflects the lack of diversity in the inventory for that year. Likewise, the top three most released parts are the same in the overall trend found in Figure 2.
Figure 4. A bar graph showing the total number of minifigure parts per every skin tone released in 2019
Similar to 2018, Yellow and Light Nougat were the most frequently released minifigure shades; however, there was a decrease in the number of Reddish Brown parts while Nougat doubled from the previous year. However, a new color Dark Tan was introduced adding another shade possible for POC builders though only one was released.
Figure 5. A bar graph showing the total number of minifigure parts per every skin tone released in 2020
In 2020, Yellow and Light Nougat remained the most prominent shades while the number of Reddish Brown stayed consistent with the parts released in 2018 though Nougat decreased in count. Unlike in 2018 and 2019, there were no minifigure heads released in Medium Nougat.
Figure 6. A bar graph showing the total number of minifigure parts per every skin tone released in 2021
While Light Nougat and Yellow were the most prominent shades once again, there is a slight increase in the number of Reddish Brown, Nougat, Tan, and Medium Nougat though still noticeably much fewer compared to the remaining shades. In particular, there has only been 1 Dark Orange part released per year while there was no Dark Tan minifigure head released at all since the first time the shade was introduced by Lego.
Figure 7. A bar graph showing the total number of minifigure parts per every skin tone released in 2022
Similar to all the previous years, Yellow and Light Nougat remain the most frequently released shades though once again there is a slight increase in the remaining colors while a Dark Tan part was released this year unlike in 2021, the previous year.
Overall, Lego released the highest number of shades, 8, in 2019 and 2022 though Yellow and Light Nougat remain the most frequently released shades across all four years with the darker shades in particular being released in limited quantities reflective of the lack of diversity Lego promotes through the limited shade range available for POC builders.