Home› General

How do you know if something should be a Minibuild ?

Comments

  • 6 Comments sorted by Votes Date Added
  • Jay37Jay37
    Vote Up0Vote Down
    In my experience a minibuild tends to be (but is not exclusively) a figure of some kind that is not a standard Minifigure, such as Belville and Scala figures. Also, creatures that are constructed rather than just a single part (cows, dragons, for instance) would probably count.

    I agree that it is probably a grey area that is open to interpretation. I haven't checked but there may be a more detailed explanation in the catalog help pages to help clarify.
  • nita_raenita_rae
    edited January 2022 Vote Up0Vote Down
    @Jay37

    > I haven't checked but there may be a more detailed explanation in the catalog help pages to help clarify.

    If it's there, I could not find it. That's why I turned to the Forum. There are several items in my store inventory which are flagged as being minibuilds, but have nothing to do with minifigs.

    an example: https://www.brickowl.com/catalog/lego-blue-turntable-2-x-2-with-medium-stone-gray-top-74340

    From what I can see, a minibuild is a logical combination of parts, commonly used that way by TLG.
  • HoddieHoddie
    Vote Up0Vote Down
    A mini-build seems to be anything that is commonly combined and/or difficult to take apart once put together, like a turntable or animal comprised of several parts (crocodile for example).

    I don't recall ever seeing an official explanation though.
  • nita_raenita_rae
    Vote Up0Vote Down
    > difficult to take apart once put together

    There are a few Technic parts that meet that description, but I'm not going to go there.
  • Jay37Jay37
    Vote Up0Vote Down
    I think a certain type of logic could be applied also. A skateboard made of the deck and wheels would be a minibuild (and other minifig accessories like stud shooters), but I'm not sure where the line is drawn regarding, for example, quantity of constituent parts.
  • CalibrickCalibrick
    Vote Up0Vote Down
    For my two cents, I agree with Hoddie for the most part: a mini-build tends to be something tough to take apart, such as a gun with a shooter, turntable, those darned bionicle heads with their transparent brain stalks, a part where the sticker spans multiple parts, etc. They may or may not have anything to do with minifigs, the "mini" is more like a micro-set in context.

    But a mini-build can also be a LOGICAL grouping of parts someone has chosen to not take apart and sell as a whole, but is not in itself a "set" from LEGO. For example, I created and had accepted a minibuild here of the UCS Imperial Star Destroyer ID plaque because the sticker crossed multiple parts.

    So I **think** the site interprets it as a logical grouping of any set of parts, yet is not sold by LEGO itself as a set. I say the latter, because I would bet that if I submitted a minibuild of the all the parts from the 2022 LEGO HP calendar for Day 2, as an example, it would be rejected as an actual subset that is already in the system as part of the larger HP calendar set. Or a collectible minifigure set out of the foil bag would be rejected, as LEGO sells that as a full set.

    In that context, I suspect anyone can submit a minibuild into the catalog so long as the grouping of parts is logical and it is not the full inventory of a LEGO set. But when it's said and done, @Lawrence determines whether it makes sense for the catalog as a minibuild (so the grouping does need to be pretty logical, somewhat mini, or something hard to take apart, in my experience). Yes, as others noted, a gray area, but I suspect by design. That area probably needs some flexibility.

    Re an incorrect inventory for one of the chills, that is a great catch! You can edit the inventory at the minibuild's page by clicking Inventory and then the Edit the Inventory button. Since the image doesn't show the chassis, you also want to click Edit, Image, Remove Image and submit. I would agree that's a minibuild, UNLESS LEGO sold that as a full set originally - in which case, the category needs to be edited to SET.

    This is all just my opinion based on experience here and using the catalog a lot, to be clear! It would be beneficial to clarify under Help the definition of this category, I absolutely agree.
Sign In or Register to comment.