Posted By Adam White on Nov 1, 2019 | 2 comments

In the extremely early hours of Friday morning I donned by BricksFanz shirt and headed off to the big smoke for the LEGO® Originals press launch event. Set with the Seven Dials area of London, for two days only a special pop-up art gallery has appeared to showcase an all-new product range from the LEGO Group and ROOM Copenhagen. LEGO Originals is an high-end product line, which has debuted with the Wooden Minifigure. The Basis of the Wooden Minifigure is to celebrate a pop culture icon in an unique medium as well as recognise the beginnings of the world’s favourite toy brand. The LEGO Group began life as a maker of wooden toys. As war gripped Europe, wood became a scarce material, so toys started to be made from plastic and of course the rest is history.

To help launch this new product, various LEGO Designers and artist were given a Wooden Minifigure to make their own. Some painted them, some added material, some went a little more extreme and carved into the Minifigures. The results are an impressive range of mini pieces of art. All the way from Billund were Design Director Sine Klitgaard, along with two LEGO Designers Nadine Lee and Laura Perron. Nadine and Laura both created vastly different designs. Nadine choose to use a photo transfer liquid to paste an image of the LEGO founders onto the Minifigure. Where as Laura, was inspired by the rainbow array of LEGO elements kept within the draws of the design studios. She painstakingly stuck hole punched dots of coloured paper over her Minifigure.

As well as a collection of Wooden Minifigures, the gallery also highlighted a number of the LEGO Original VIP prints, currently available on the VIP Rewards Centre. Those who purchase the LEGO Originals Wooden Minifigure during the pop-up store event will also get an exclusive LEGO Originals print of the UK brick patent.

The event was a great way to showcase the creativity that LEGO can inspire, the Wooden Minifigure is a fun way to launch this unique new LEGO product range. It was hinted at that this is the first in a range of LEGO Originals products. I’ll be reviewing the actual product shortly. But a brief outline of the product is that it’s a 5:1 scale of the standard Minifigure, handmade from sustainable oak wood. The reason for the plastic hands are to help it past toy safety standards, the same reason it isn’t articulated, and to allow for a point to attached the included LEGO elements. It’s a product which has been 6 years in the making and something aimed towards the collectors market. It’s also a limited product, with only a set amount of them produced.

Thanks to the LEGO Group, ROOM Copenhagen and Engine Mischief for inviting me to the event and for providing one of the LEGO Originals Wooden Minifigures for me to take a closer look at. For those unable to attend the pop-up event, the LEGO Originals Wooden Minifigure will be available for LEGO VIP members this Sunday through until the the 7th. It will then be available globally from November 8th.

See more of the LEGO Originals Wooden Minifigure here and you can see how other artists have crafted the product into their own unique art pieces here.