In previous research by the Women’s Brick Initiative (WBI), we highlighted the persistent lack of racial diversity in minifigure head options, despite recent expansions in flesh tone variety. For many people of color, finding a minifigure head that reflects both their skin tone and a range of facial expressions remains a challenge. This issue has been voiced across multiple platforms, including this powerful reflection “Finding Myself in LEGO” on BrickNerd, which documents the experience of queer builders of color who must settle for “close enough” when constructing their sigfigs.
Although LEGO has taken steps toward more inclusive representation, such as the Queer Eye (10291), Black Panther (76214), and Everyone Is Awesome (40516) sets, the distribution of flesh tones across minifigure heads remains deeply unequal. Yellow and Light Nougat heads dominate the catalog between 2022 and 2024, while darker tones appear at a ratio of approximately 1:3. Excluding additional lighter tones like Nougat, that disparity becomes even starker.
Why the Over the Moon with Pharrell Williams Set Matters
The Over the Moon (10391) LEGO set was created in 2024 through collaboration with Pharrell Williams and based on the animated biographical film, Piece by Piece. Beyond its novel cloud-launch display, the set contains 49 interchangeable minifigure heads and two full minifigures, marking a significant leap toward intentional diversity in LEGO. But how well does this set actually deliver on equitable representation, and what limitations still remain?
A visual scan already suggests progress: unlike traditional sets, this one presents a seemingly equal distribution of seven current LEGO flesh tones. This was a deliberate decision made in collaboration between Pharrell Williams, director Morgan Neville, and The LEGO Group. Their team worked closely to ensure hairpieces and head prints represented a more inclusive range of African American features and hairstyles as noted in this article. As the Piece by Piece movie centers around underrepresentation and the power of community in reaching success, the LEGO set was designed with the same themes in mind.
Our analysis confirms that all seven LEGO flesh tones tones appear between seven and eight times among the heads in the set.
Even when disaggregated by gender-coded features, based on BrickLink descriptions, both masculine-coded and feminine-coded heads are similarly balanced across flesh tones. This is, in many ways, a landmark achievement.
This article will not go into detail about facial expressions and other facial attributes, as many are easily observable at a glance. The Over the Moon set includes a range of features, such as vitiligo, beauty marks, facial hair, wrinkles, and a variety of glasses, with mostly neutral expressions. This marks a notable improvement from previous prints, especially in darker flesh tones. A prior study by WBI found that a disproportionately high percentage of reddish brown and medium nougat minifig heads, commonly used to represent people of color, featured angry or negative expressions compared to those in yellow or light nougat tones, which are typically coded as white. This imbalance reinforces harmful racial stereotypes by associating darker skin tones with negativity. The Over the Moon set offers a hopeful shift toward more positive and inclusive representation, even if it’s just a baby step.
Limitations in Access and Affordability
However, availability to the broader public reveals several challenges. While the Over the Moon set is rich in diversity and representation, it is rated as an adult set, likely due to its display-oriented build rather than play features. As a result, it’s marketed to Adult Fans of LEGO (AFOLs) and less accessible to children, the very audience most in need of diverse role models in play.
Pricing is another barrier. At $109.99 on the LEGO website, it sits at the higher end of set pricing, justified in part by its unique assortment of heads. On BrickLink, prices range from $86 to $169, and are expected to rise as it is a limited-release set. This cost places it out of reach for many families and fans, particularly those from communities that the set is designed to represent.
Market Dynamics: Price and Availability of Diverse Heads
We also examined the availability and market price of the set’s minifigure heads on BrickLink. Medium Nougat and Light Nougat heads are priced highest, averaging around $2.34, which is well above the net average of $1.72.
It’s important to note that those heads, Light Nougat and Medium Nougat tones, appear in 2.43 and 1.88 sets per head, respectively. It’s significantly higher while newer tones like Dark Orange are found in only one. This could indicate a correlation: the more frequently a head appears in sets, the more likely it is to be in circulation and, paradoxically, in higher demand, contributing to its elevated market price.
A prime example of the correlation between sets featured and price is the Light Nougat head [3626pb3418] used for multiple Disney Princesses, which costs over $4.60 and feature in five different sets.
On the other hand, newer heads introduced in Over the Moon, which are limited in distribution, fall below the price trendline, indicating low visibility despite their representational value.
From the graph, two outliers stand out:
- 3626pb2907 (Head photo featured): A reddish brown masculine head with black eyebrows and a beard stands out for being priced significantly higher than other heads, despite its wider availability. This suggests that darker flesh tones remain in high demand, and collectors or builders may assign greater value to them regardless of how many are available on the market.
- Heads exclusive to Over the Moon (Circled pink): While groundbreaking in design and representation, they are already showing signs of limited reach and adoption, potentially due to their scarcity and short production cycle.
Conclusion
The Over the Moon set marks a major step forward in inclusive design and equitable representation in LEGO minifigures. Its thoughtful balance of skin tones, gender coding, and storytelling purpose aligns strongly with the themes of the movie it was based on. However, barriers such as age restrictions, limited production, high cost, and lack of exposure prevent this progress from reaching the wider LEGO community, especially younger builders and fans from underrepresented groups.As LEGO continues to evolve its catalog, Over the Moon should be seen not as a one-off achievement, but as a benchmark for future sets. Representation matters, but it must also be accessible, affordable, and sustained.
Credits and Methodology
- Data source: All minifigure head data was gathered from BrickLink as of June 24, 2025.
- Gender coding: Classification of heads as “masculine” or “feminine” was based on BrickLink descriptors, which often include keywords such as “female” or “male.”
- Images: All images sourced from The LEGO Group or BrickLink, unless otherwise noted.
- New Heads Update (2022–2024): To update our dataset beyond the 2022 cutoff in our previous study, we collected minifigure heads released between 2022 and 2024 from the Minifig Heads page on BrickLink (excluding 2025, as it is not a complete year). We filtered out heads with unnatural colors (e.g., Azure, Lavender) and non-human descriptors (e.g., Alien, Skull, Fangs) to focus solely on human-coded heads. After removing duplicates, we identified 427 unique human-coded minifigure heads released during this period.