Random minifig of the day: sw0441

Very nice design! Love it.

@WolfpackBricks63 said:
" @BabuBrick said:
"I know it’s not the most accurate, but I always really liked this design."

None of them have ever truly been accurate (especially not that abysmal first attempt in 2002). I'm not one of the doomsday cultists who thinks LEGO needs to make a brand new mold for the droideka, but they seriously need to try harder.
"

Droidekas and STAPs. I finally designed my own STAP because I wanted to make a Christmas version, and I wanted to not hate it afterwards. Also built an Ep1 brown version, and just recently did a preliminary design for a gingerbread version. I might need to start looking at Droidekas soon. And maybe a Probe Droid...

People complain about modern battlepacks, but that one is probably one of the most hated ones.

@WolfpackBricks63 said:
" @BabuBrick said:
"I know it’s not the most accurate, but I always really liked this design."

None of them have ever truly been accurate (especially not that abysmal first attempt in 2002)."

So true.

@BabuBrick said:
"I know it’s not the most accurate, but I always really liked this design."

THANK YOU this is such an underrated version. While it doesn’t belong in a battle pack, this is one of my favorite destroyer droid variants

@WolfpackBricks63 said:"None of them have ever truly been accurate (especially not that abysmal first attempt in 2002)."

At least that version could actually roll up.

@Shadowcloner said:
"Repeat minifigure, apparently. https://brickset.com/article/124716"

I don't feel like going through the entire history of the RMotD to co confirm, but I think it's the first repeat that's a brick-built figure.

Oh come on.

So brick-built Droidekas are minifigs now?!?

They're no match for Droideks!

Decently posable and can kind of turn into a ball. It gets the job done, I was definitely happy to have some as I did want a Droideka around that time.

@Noahcat1 said:
"Decently posable and can kind of turn into a ball. It gets the job done, I was definitely happy to have some as I did want a Droideka around that time. "

Looking at it again, I see that it does have the ability to fold up to some degree. I wasn't paying a whoil lot of attention to the picture, and thought that this was https://brickset.com/minifigs/sw0164/droideka-(destroyer-droid)-copper-top, whose legs can't fold in at all.

@Somnium said:
"I hate when these brick built are considered minifigures."
@Halex16 said:
"Not a minifig"
@SillyTwig said:
"So brick-built Droidekas are minifigs now?!?"
The reason these clearly not minifigs show up in RMotD is because BrickLink made the pants-on-head decision long ago to categorize every small figure as a minifig, even all the brick-built small models like this that clearly aren't minifigs in any way, and Brickset uses the BrickLink database for RMotD because it's the only database with a reasonable API for access. The alternative is no RMotD at all, sadly.

Possibly needed to call it a mini-figure so the only set it appeared in could be called a battle pack.

@Huw said:
" @Somnium said:
"I hate when these brick built are considered minifigures."

Me too, and have no idea why BrickLink does so. I guess because it's a named 'character'. However, the likes of Hamm from Toy Story, which is aguably closer to a minifig than this, is not."

Hamm, Scooby Doo, etc get put in animals because there is an animals category where they naturally fit. Whereas there is no droids section, so R2-D2 went in minifigures and the rest of the droids followed. Then other characters that didnt fit into existing categories followed them. There was a big argument about Unikitty and so on but the catalogue admins decided they were minifigures rather than animals, even though LEGO was careful not to call them minifigures. Even worse are the cups, wardrobes and cars that get called minifigures. At least they finally marked things like dp027 "wardrobe without stickers" for deletion.

@Huw said:
" @Somnium said:
"I hate when these brick built are considered minifigures."

Me too, and have no idea why BrickLink does so. I guess because it's a named 'character'. However, the likes of Hamm from Toy Story, which is aguably closer to a minifig than this, is not."

Rex and Lotso also don't count. I'm still upset that named characters with importance to the plot of the stories the sets are based on aren't considered minifigs by Bricklink, but cannon-fodder with no lines are. At least battle droids say "Roger, roger," which is more than any droideka ever said!

@TheOtherMike said:
" @Huw said:
" @Somnium said:
"I hate when these brick built are considered minifigures."

Me too, and have no idea why BrickLink does so. I guess because it's a named 'character'. However, the likes of Hamm from Toy Story, which is aguably closer to a minifig than this, is not."

Rex and Lotso also don't count. I'm still upset that named characters with importance to the plot of the stories the sets are based on aren't considered minifigs by Bricklink, but cannon-fodder with no lines are. At least battle droids say "Roger, roger," which is more than any droideka ever said!"

You could have an AI filter of the BrickLink feed to accept/reject suggested ‘minifigs’. It would require its own training, not relying on current AI platforms like Copilot, Gemini or ChatGPT. Admittedly, it would likely be more effort to set up and maintain than it’s worth.

As for figures that BrickLink treats as animals and doesn’t consider as ‘minifigs’ so are never RMotDs, that’s a tricky one for AI and humans. The problem is that you need to be very familiar with the source material. Having lines isn’t necessarily sufficient. I’m no Disney expert, but I imagine there are animals/animated objects without lines that are still characters. From my limited knowledge, Carpet from Aladdin for example.

Are we defining ‘minifig’ for the purposes of RMotD to be any character - IP or not - that’s anthropomorphic in its broadest sense but not brick built?

This is lovely. I'll try to make one from spare parts.