How to Design Custom LEGO Minifigures

Gather together reference pictures for the character you wish to create a custom LEGO minifigure for. Pictures can include photographs of real people or drawings of characters from a video game or cartoon.

Write down the key features of the character. Because LEGO minifigures are small and simplistic, telltale physical traits are required to identify them. For example, if you are creating a LEGO figure to look like Freddy Krueger from ̶0;A Nightmare on Elm Street,̶1; his main features are his red and green striped sweater, brown hat, burnt face and single glove of knives.

Divide the characteristics into six categories: legs, torso, arms, face, hair and accessories. These main categories are how you will eventually construct your figure once you design it.

Sketch an image of a blank LEGO minifigure. Draw a cylinder for the head, a trapezoid for the torso, two rectangles for the legs and two sticks for the arms.

Color in the torso and legs of the design with the colors that correspond to the features you categorized. The Freddy minifigure would have the striped sweater with brown pants while a Wolverine figure would have yellow and blue to make his costume. If you are creating a real world person or celebrity such as Paris Hilton, you may color the torso and legs pink for a dress.

Add details to the face of the design. If your figure will wear glasses, sketch them in. The face should represent a caricature of your inspiration person. The face of a Madonna figure can have Madonna's mole on it.

Sketch out the hair and accessories for your figure. If your figure will wear a hat, draw it in. Use chunky shapes whenever possible to ease the eventual translation into your figure. These accessories will be molded out of sculpting putty.

Mark on the sketch all the tools needed to create the figure. List the colors of paint, the sculpting putty and additional parts.