Series 4 now in gallery

I think the gnome should be in the Extreme Sports group, subsection Lawn Fantasy. :o)

I still don't understand the point in a gallery but cool anyway!

You're amazing. :) You've forgotten to put the "(S4)" tag under the Mad Scientist, BTW. :)

For all the series 4 figs, the year comes up as '0' instead of 2011, as well as saying 'appears in 0 sets'.

Also, I might change "Punk" to "Punk Rocker", "Frankenstein Monster" to "Frankenstein's Monster" and "Man in Safety Suit" to "Hazmat Guy/Man".

Otherwise, I love the gallery so far! The new pics are most welcome!

Eh? Didn't you put the gnome's head on wrong? And the hockey player's vest backwards?

Nice call on splitting Horror and Fantasy, the horror section looks great now! Thank you for doing this.

Official LEGO minifigure names: http://minifigures.lego.com/

Mad Professor -> Crazy Scientist
Garden Gnome -> Lawn Gnome
Frankenstein's Monster -> The Monster
Punk -> Punk Rocker
Man in Safety Suit -> Hazmat Guy
Skateboarder -> Street Skater
Surfing Girl -> Surfer Girl
Female Ice Skater -> Ice Skater
Footballer -> Soccer Player (This will create endless/pointless discussion/arguments)

@wiredforsound- Yep, I can already hear the soccer/football arguments ensuing...

This is an awesome gallery. Thanks, Huw!

I do want to point out that you don't appear to have created a set category for the street skater. Upon closer inspection, it looks to me like a lot of the figures appear in "sets" with different figures, especially the ones in Series 3 and 4. I think there's something fishy going on (better start with the fisherman).... ;-D

@Huw: I intended to write about the vest, but I forgot. :P

Why is your Space Villan's (Cyborg) claw missing???

@refriedbeans: Uh... it's there. :P

I like the categories more or less. Too bad there aren't more Fantasy. You could consider a Japanese category though with Samurai, Sumo, Ninja, Kimono Girl, and Karate master.

I love all of these galleries! Great job Huw!

Since I do not have any series 4 yet, I have a question. Are the hair pieces for the punk rocker and scientist rubber, or just soft plastic?

@Huw: The gnome's head seems to be well above the beard - it looks bad, and different from the set image...

@airphloo: I agree that "Japanese" would be good- Historical and Sports seem a bit cramped and there are 5 figures for this, which is more than Fantasy and as many as Sci-Fi...

The pics look great Huw! Thanks for more wondeful images. There is a problem with the set names matching with the minifigs though...

You should split arts/entertainment into music and another category.

@jayko543, according to WhiteFang over at Eurobricks, the Punk's hair is not rubber. The Scientist's however, is.

Anyway, i love, love, LOVE the gallery! It's great, Huw!! Now i want S4 even more!!! Ergh! ;D

AWESOME WORK!

On my big monitor, I can see 12 figs at a time, so perhaps we should decide to subdivide the groups when they reach a "critical mass" of more than 12 figs. That would mean "Historical" and "Sports" for the moment.

As I mentioned, we are going to have about 21 figures that will fit squarely into the "Historical" category by Summer!

If we do the standard historical eras, it will deepen the theme of history, and it should work out very evenly...

1) "Paleolithic Cultures / Ancient World" (incl. Caveman, Inuit, Tribal Hunter / Spartan, Cleopatra, Gladiator, etc.)
2) "Global Medieval and Age of Discovery" (incl. Forestman, Viking, Musketeer, Samurai, Ninja, Geisha, etc.)
3) "Modern History" (incl. 1800s Explorer, Cowboy, WWII pilot, Sherlock Holmes, 1920s Gangster, etc.)

...whereas if you divide them up by regions, you will have a lot of Europeans and only a few others...

1) "The Americas / The New World" (incl. Inuit, Tribal Hunter, Cowboy, Gangster, etc.)
2) "Europe and the Middle East" (incl. Caveman, Pharaoh, Spartan, Cleopatra, Gladiator, Viking, Forestman, Musketeer, Explorer, Sherlock Holmes, Royal Guard, WWII pilot, etc.)
3) "Asia and the Far East" (incl. Samurai, Ninja, Geisha, etc.)

I love the first way because it will juxtapose characters from around the world that could have met up in real life, and so it allows more scenes of exploration/discovery/interaction/globalism... very "LEGO-like"... plus the numbers of characters in each group break down much more evenly!

Place your vote on which method you like better, and again, hopefully this will mostly non-controversial! XD

Plus if I am counting right, we are going to have 17 sports figs by the Summer, plus many more excellent ones to come. As I said, I can see 12 figs at a time on my screen, so perhaps we should subdivide the groups when they reach the "critical mass" of more than 12 figs. How about dividing "Sports" into:

1) "Olympic Sports" (skiing, figure skating, weightlifting, (plus boxing?) (plus snowboarding?) (plus judo?))
2) "Professional Sports" (baseball, tennis, hockey, futbol, auto racing, cheerleading, lucha libre wrestling, sumo wrestling, boxing... plus I am positive we will see basketball and american football in the near future, so that would make 11 professional sports... Can anyone think of any more sports they might do, or is this sub-category nearing completion? Will they simply create a partner or an opposing team member for each sports fig? That seems likely!)
3) "Amateur Sports" (skateboarding x2, surfing x2, and the recreational amateur scuba diver)

It would be cool to see the Lego Olympics, and again, hopefully this will all be mostly non-controversial. right!? XD

Uh, I think something screwed up the data base with the new CM Gallery, it seems as though I now own more than I actually have clicked on as owning, in fact I have all of Series 3, when I personally haven't bought a Pilot, Samurai or Hula Dancer yet.

Also, now I've got doubles and triples and quadruples of everything because everything is being listed as more than one set... It's messed up my Total Min-Fig count, but not the sets I own count, which is very strange.

And apparently I'm not the only one to notice this strange development, might I inquire as to what precisely happened when coding the new S4 figs into the gallery?

Nice gallery so far. It makes me even more excited for S4, as if I already wasn't excited enough! There seem to be some problems, though.
~ When you click on the link that tells you what set each minifig comes in, almost all of the S4 are mixed up, with the Monster saying that it is in the Mad Scientist, etc. Also, all of the S1-S3 say they come in 2 sets, but it just lists them twice, for example the Spartan says it comes in the Spartan and the Spartan.
~ The S4 Skateboarder has a little red circle with an exclamation point inside it in the top right corner of the picture, but it goes away when you enlarge the picture.
~ The S4 Skateboarder says that it is from the year "0"
~ The already mentioned Hockey Player and Gnome problems.

sports, extreme sports, and the spaceman could go into city...

@1265- can they be fixed?

there are preorders for series 5 already on ebay

Nice work once again!

Personally, I think you should just devide them into Series 1, Series 2, Series 3, and Series 4. Also, what up with the skateboarder (the date issue and the red exclamation point).

Another great gallery Huw! Keep going with these galleries; they're fantastic!

Just a question, is these galleries are to preserve the memories of these figs years from now, (as i believe is the whole reason for Huw to do this), shouldn't you include the accessories? I mean, that's part of the reason why i buy most of the figs....the accessories!!

The Gnome has two mustaches. One on the head printing and one on the beard/mustache piece. His head needs to be pushed down more... if you want only one mustache.

Looks great! The gallery is an awesome reference.

I think the Hockey Player's vest is backwards? I believe it has a 'wolf' design for the front?

Also with the names, shouldn't we be using Lego's official names (?) or maybe there are different names for different regions (ie: America, Europe)? If so, let's see both.

Also, like others above, I'd love to see all the accessories for each fig.

I think it is a great idea to divide the figures into categories because it may let us see what lego is planning for the future. I'm assuming they will use the info they get about the popularity of certain types of figures to plan new themes. (I'm really hoping for an elf theme, let's go LotR!) Keeping the gallery organized the way it is may give us a clue into the next lines of sets we will be collecting. Great work Huw!

I vote for keeping it organized by Series as opposed to a classification system.

I might suggest tags would be better suited than categories, as many figures can be categorized in different ways.

However, if we're going to classification I recommend the following:

Nix the extreme sports category. Instead organize sports as follows:

Individual Sports:

Super Wrestler
Skier
Karate Master
Sumo Wrestler
Tennis Player
Race Car Driver
Ice Skater

Team Sports:

Cheerleader
Baseball Player
Soccer Player
Hockey Player

Recreation (Non-competitive activities, for example as jogging or playing catch are usually classified as forms of recreation):

Skater
Surfer
Snowboarder
Street Skater
Surfer Girl
Weightlifter
Deep Sea Diver

Notice, I feel strongly that the diver should go under the sports/recreation label.

Subdivide Art/Entertainment as follows:

Circus:

Circus Clown
Magician
Ringmaster
Mime

Arts/Entertainment:

Pop Star
Rapper
Punk Rocker
Artist
Hula Dancer
Mariachi
Kimono Girl

Note that I added Kimono Girl to the list. Obviously, this character is a Geisha, which are traditional, female Japanese entertainers whose skills include performing various Japanese arts such as classical music and dance. This would group well with Hula Dancer and Mariachi, which are traditional entertainment forms. Or move those three under historical. Note also I moved Disco Dude out of this category because he is really a historical figure representing a consumer of entertainment, not a producer of entertainment, from a historical era.

Historical needs to be broken down. You could split it as follows:

Old stuff (needs better name):

Caveman
Pharaoh
Spartan Warrior
Viking
Samurai Warrior
Forestman
Ninja
Musketeer

Modern era stuff (needs better name):

Cowboy
Tribal Chief
Tribal Hunter
Explorer
Pilot
Disco Dude

Notes problems with breaking historical is ambiguity of period and location. Some characters occupy a very narrow historical band. Others are very wide. For instance, the_real_indy puts Tribal Hunter under Ancient whereas I put him in Modern. I figure the Native American is a American Wild West representation that should go with the cowboy, but Ancient would make sense too. Location is problematic too. I would put pilot under 1930s era of aviation in the United States while the_real_indy puts him in Europe around WWII.

The Mad Professor doesn't have his series in brackets next to his name, and under the Skateboarder it says that he was released in the Year 0! Also, as others have said, it would be better to have them organized by series. Other than that great gallery!

A note to those who suggest they are divided into series, plain and simple - you can view them in series order here:
http://www.brickset.com/search/?theme=Collectable%20Minifigures&subtheme=Series%201
Just change the last number to the series number you want to see.

Surely the idea of the collectible minifig gallery for these series is to show the grouping of the figures, and the common themes. Anyone collecting these already knows which figure belongs to which series!

all of the figs when you click the sets go to another fig!!!! :(

Can someone please tell me the name of the colour that is used for the Hazmat Guy? It was used on the fisherman too - I believe it to be a mixture of yellow and orange.

Well done Huw, quick work on buying and photographing. On the vexed matter of classification why not allow user to view by series, or by classification (sports, horror etc). Please both camps.

Great gallery Huw! Just do some changes that others already written and it will be perfect! :)

Brickmatic makes some very good suggestions (I'm glad someone else has finally shown support of moving the Disco Guy to the Historical section).

The Extreme Sports has got to go. It just makes no sense as a real category. It is completely subjective and does not really define the figures in it as a group but instead an interpretation. A "street" skater is extreme, but a skier whose biography says he skis off of cliffs is not extreme because it was decided that he does not look "cool" enough?

I'd suggest the dumbly named:

Running/Ball Sports:
Baseball
Footballer
Tennis Player

Gliding Sports:
Hockey
Ice Skater
Skier
Snowboarder
Skateboarder
Skater
Surfer
Surfing Girl

Strength Sports:
Cheerleader
Karate
Sumo Wrestler
Weight Lifter
Wrestler

And I was never really a fan of the Race Car Driver in the sports section, so of course, I don't have a place for him in my categories (Sports Where You Sit in a Car?), but I think that if you imagine these categories you will see that the figures really do start to fit together. The Gliding category could be broken into Snow, Ice, and Water (adding the Deep Sea Diver) but then those categories are pretty small. I'm pretty passionate about the Strength (with a better name) being made into its own category; those figures just define themselves into a group when placed together.

I also think that a better City subdivision would be City: Water with the Surfer, Surfing Girl, Deep Sea Diver, Lifegaurd, Sailor, and Fisherman included. It's just kind of weird to me that the Lifegaurd and Surfers are in different categories.

Huw, the gallery is weird!
For example:When i wanted to see witch sets the hazmat guy was in it said it was in the viking!
Weird...

Great gallery and no offence Huw, but you are making me soooo jealous! You already have the complete series 4????!!?!??! I can't wait to start collecting all of 4!

I might actually prefer to see them categorized simply by "Series 1", "Series 2", etc. I was trying to show someone what was in the new series and I had to jump all over.

Something is messed up with the skateboarder (s4)

Plus, it says that each are in 2 sets!?

It's nice, but I think you've better fix set appearances information. for example, it says that the surfer appears in two sets, and it also says that the hockey player appears in the ice skater minifig. :P

Yeah for the individual pages some have the wrong minifigs contained. For instance, the Hazmat Suit Guy has the Crazy Scientist in him. 0.o Lots of them are contained in the wrong minifigs, most I think so the part that links to their set(or minifig in this case) needs to be changed.

Good work but to nitpick the Mime is wearing his beret the wrong way - it should be to the side like the artist.

Also, I fear the frenzy of kidults buying box loads of the collectables will stop children getting their hands on them. I'd like to think these little guys get played with rather than sit on a shelf for eternity.

The Mad Scientist sounds more of a Horror minifig, as when I think of Sci-Fi, I think of X-Wings and Death Stars. =P

Oh, wouldn't the Skier be in extreme sports? I tried skiing once and could barely stand up, so that was pretty extreme. =P

@ Minifigure Man - I wouldn't worry about a shortage of these. Now that they're mass producing the minis, we shouldn't see the shortages that we had with S1 and, arguably, S2. We'll just have to wait until April, if not May, before they become widely available.

For the short term, yes, they'll be a lot of AFOLs and resellers snagging these up, but it will probably be like S3 and there will hopefully be a surplus of them eventually.

I would like to see additional categories that would have figures repeated in them, such as having all of the women together and/or all the warriors together (Spartan, Samurai, Elf, Forestman, Viking, Ninja, Tribal Hunter, Tribal Chief, Musketeer). Just an idea.

Isnt the sailor's hat on wrong ? And the little ticks in the corner dont work for series 3

@ Huw - does the sailor cap actually sit askew on his head like a beret? If so, that's pretty cool.

@brickmatic, @ericjohn - The Disco Dude is a ***DANCER***! Go watch "Saturday Night Fever" on Netflix. He belongs under the arts.

Yes, the Disco Dude is a dancer like those in "Saturday Night Fever" which is a movie from a specific historical period called the 70s. It's not that distant in the past, but it is still a historical era that is easily and clearly definable by its clothing and music. His biography reads that he has "travelled back in time" and "it's all one big '70s disco dance party." A figure that has travelled back in time to a distant era sure sounds pretty historical to me.

The separation of 'individual' and 'team' sports makes a lot of sense, for people who want to 'army build' (or, I guess, 'team build') - good show!

@ Huw - would those same people think Ninja currently run amok in the UK? :o)

Thanks for the awsome pics! The surfer girl and lifegaurd should be together. I think all the 'water' figs should go together like this:

-surfer
-surfer girl
-life gaurd
-fisherman
-diver
-sailor

Also, the pilot should be in the city, not historical, and the sumo in the historical.(people don't do it anymore.) To fix the whole sports mix-up would be to put them into two groups, ball and other:
BALL:
-baseball player
-hockey dude
-footballer
-tennis player
OTHER:
-racecar driver
-skier
-wrestler
-cheerleader
-karate master

Wieght lifter and the skateboarders go into city. The snowboarder goes into arts/entertaiment. And if THAT doesn't work, just go by series. >=)

Sumo is very much a current & active sport.

I'm not denying that there are people that collect vinyl because of the nostalgia, the history, of it.

There's also LARPing (Live Action Role Play Game) alive and well in today's world where people dress up at elves and forestmen so I suppose those figures should be moved to the arts/entertainment section too?

@huw, @yellowcastle, @brickmatic, @ericjohn - Yes, now that the categories are mostly set, we can move on to debating over characters that could fit into multiple categories. As we have seen, the Disco Dude, the Maraca Man, and the Hula Girl are good examples. They are all dancers or musicians, but they are all also associated with a historical period, specifically...

a) The Disco Dude is a dancer, from the 1970s
b) The Maraca Man is a Musician, from maybe the 1880s
c) The Hula Girl is also a dancer, mostly associated with the pre-1890s

So we should decide which category is the "trump" category, i.e., are they more "Artists", or more "Historical"? As an archaeologist, I might like to see them all go into historical, but it certainly could go either way... And if we do that, we would definitely need to sub-divide "Historical", either by period, or by region, as I posted.
Again, I think it would be cooler to do it by period, matching figs that could have met in historical reality...
But either way is fine!

I don't know how historically accurate the Maraca Man or Hula Dancer are - they both seem more like 'touristy' caricatures of historical types, if that makes any sense. In that respect, they're more 'entertainers' than anything else.

@ericjohn, 100% agree " disco era " is historical, in my opinion as well.

Since there is so much debate of series vs. Category... Why not do both?

I'd suggest a "beachgoers" category with the lifesaver, diver, two surfers and fisherman. That's how I tagged those images once I saved them to my computer and tagged them the way that made sense to me.

Anyway, thanks Huw, for creating these images and making them available to us. They are more consistent quality than those on BrickLink and that is a useful thing.

One criticism, however: given the way you did the criminals/aliens from Space Police, the Adventurers figs with backpacks would benefit from a profile view, too. And, AND... for heaven's sake, next time you're photographing, re-do the mime with the beret on the right way around. And another thing...

MAKE THINGS AS SIMPLE AS POSSIBLE, BUT NO SIMPLER - Albert Einstein
There is a barrage of category suggestions. In the end, there can be only...what the owner wants! ;-)

@voypro: You already CAN sort/filter by series through the standard Brickset features. See the sidebar area marked with the heading "Choose a Subtheme" on this page:

http://brickset.com/browse/themes/?year=2010&theme=Collectable+Minifigures

No need to reinvent the wheel, there. The categories are another level of sorting/filtering that can be of use to people who only want to collect certain types of figures from each series (say, only the 'Horror' category, or only 'Team Sports').

@thesinisterpenguin and @vynsane, You can sort the *database* based on series, but you can't sort the *gallery* based on series. Also, you could make the point that people can use brick lists to sort minifigs into categories themselves. Still, you can only do it with the database and not the gallery.

@vynsane, I agree the figures aren't historically accurate. The viking, for instance, should not have horns. Real cavemen did not look like that. Actually, if you really think about it, the entire collectible series is not a representation of things in our world but is instead a representation of the stereotypes of things that are in the world. In other words, it is pop culture. Think of how things are drawn in cartoons. That is what vikings, cavemen, hazard suits, artists, mad scientists, etc, etc, look like in cartoons. It makes sense a lot of sense and it works well, but keep in mind *none* of the figures are realistic depictions.

@umptybagger I have the punk rocker and I would not say it is hard plastic or completly rubber.It is like the ostriches head in the $20 prince of persia set.The crazy scientist's hair is all rubber.How do I know this u ask? I have Dr. Inferno and his hair is the same as the crazy scientist.

@brickmatic, @vynsane - I completely disagree. Besides the obviously cartoony cave man, most of these figures are remarkably historically correct.

Sure, the Vikings did not wear horns, and Hula Dancers did not wear bikini tops... but those were obviously decisions related to toy-craft.

And traditionally, yes, Mexicans and Hawaiians did dress like that. There are photographs online if you care to do a bit of research.

With the next wave of figs, the poor Cave Girl look just as cartoonish as her mate, but the Inuit, the Gladiator, and the 1980s Aerobics Instructor all deserve high honors for historical accuracy!

Go LEGO! =)

Regarding the categories, I think there seems to be too much seriousness developing for something that is supposed to be FUN. ;-)

im with Orthobotrex on this one