Guide for feeling for The LEGO Movie Minifigures

akunthita

William just posted his guide to feeling for The LEGO Movie minifigures. As you
guys may remember, William is legally blind and has a knack for identifying collectible minifigures. He also regularly posts a guide to those of us with fingers with impaired vision: http://thebrickblogger.com/2014/01/guide-to-feeling-for-the-lego-movie-minifigs/

Enjoy!...(c;

klatu003

^Very useful. Thanks for posting.

Brickarmor

FYI, don't mix up Wiley's pistol and the Bard's plume... I was hasty, felt a very small piece, misidentified it and sent it to somebody. Hardest one for me has been the Pants man. I've trained myself (and my son) to ignore legs, so now when I find one I have to grip it with one hand while using the other to feel for more legs. Wow, that sounds weird.

akunthita

@Brickarmor, yeah, that's what William said too; that after years of feeling for minifigs he learned to just ignore the legs, and now you have to look for two pairs! I guess LEGO decided to give us a new challenge!...(c;

margot

Pants man is a total pain.. it's only after realizing you can't feel anything unique that you start feeling for pants. By then you already know it's him without even having to actually feel for the pants!
Easiest to feel out in a microsecond is Taco guy..

Yellowcastle

margot said:

Easiest to feel out in a microsecond is Taco guy..

Hope you at least bought him a drink first.

rancorbait

^ Or a glass of snake venom if its El macho ;-)

rocao

akunthita said:

William is legally blind and has a knack for identifying collectible minifigures.

This is why I've been having him get complete sets for me since Series 7 or so. He's always happy to oblige!

akunthita

@rocao, oh you know him? Are you in the same LUG? He also gets me my minifigs from each series and ships them to me to Florida! :D

Russell844

I know William too. Our LUGs are about two hours apart.

OUWxGuesser

So after quickly feeling most of the series, I was left with cat lady and Gail. Cat lady was pretty rare but finally found her. For the life of me I couldn't find Gail. I kept feeling for the Emmit style helmet. After coming across an absurd amount of packs I went back and looked at the Eurobrick review. Now I realize there is a ponytail attached... Crap. My general methodology with this set was head pieces, then cups. That allows you to quickly feel out most, although pants guy was a pain.

I'll have to go back to Target to try and track down Gail. I was accosted by a pain in the butt Target employee who informed me I was standing in one place too long, so I wish some other store would get them in here.

akunthita

Russell844 said:

I know William too. Our LUGs are about two hours apart.

Nice! I envy you guys out there in California for having so many LUGs, LEGO stores and LEGO events!...(c:

TheLoneTensor

I only found a couple hiccups for this series.

a) As mentioned, the pants guy throws you off, and when you don't find any trinkets, you have to go looking for more pants.

b) Emmet/Bad cop are really annoying. Not only are there a billion of each, both have a 1x2 tile, so you either have to find the handcuffs or feel for Emmet's ridged hardhat.

Brickarmor

^There are a few similar headpieces too: Larry's hair, Cop's helmet, the Bard's pate, those are a bit tricky.

Russell844

The one that kept throwing me off was Gail's polytail attached to her hardhat and the coonskin cap of Wiley. I had a dickens of a time telling them apart at first.

margot

Gail- feel for the jackhammer and nothing else. It's very distinct imo.

OUWxGuesser

That's what perplexes me the most- how I never felt the jackhammer randomly on "first" feel. Go figure :)

TheLoneTensor

I've always felt for the accessories first, myself, because they tend to be the most definitive things, then I'll move onto unique hats/hair, etc.

bsiu922

thanks for the hint, i feel three wrong before, while i think it is the Shakespeare, it is the Velma Staplebot, and the Scribble-Face Bad Cop actually is Emmet, then the Larry the Barista is the President Business!

I don't really like the Staplebot. so i swap out her head and hand , it look way better!

dragonhawk

Russell844 said:

The one that kept throwing me off was Gail's polytail attached to her hardhat and the coonskin cap of Wiley. I had a dickens of a time telling them apart at first.

Gail has a helmet so the top is round while the top of Wiley's hat is flat. When in doubt, look for the dynamite sticks.

TheLoneTensor said:

...
b) Emmet/Bad cop are really annoying. Not only are there a billion of each, both have a 1x2 tile, so you either have to find the handcuffs or feel for Emmet's ridged hardhat.

BUT once you find one of each, anything with 1x2 tile goes back to the box. Eliminating 2 common minifigs using 1 accessory is a huge time saver.

TheLoneTensor

dragonhawk said:

BUT once you find one of each, anything with 1x2 tile goes back to the box. Eliminating 2 common minifigs using 1 accessory is a huge time saver.

Excellent point. Btw, I'm having a bear of a time finding Gail. Not that I don't have the ability to feel for her, but wherever I've looked, she's just not there. Freaky.

OUWxGuesser

Well, quickly found 2 gails with the ponytail knowledge. Target appears to keep multiple boxes in back and just restocks the one display rack at our location on a near daily basis, so I had a bunch of fresh packs to go through. Ditto what dragonhawk said about the hat. Wiley's hat is extremely flat on top. Gail has a nice brim on the front, so you should feel a ridge when feeling.

Yellowcastle

I had sworn off this series. But the darn sets. Those darn movie trailers. These darn excited bricksetters. That darn Simpsons house.

Like Celine, my heart must go on to these next 2 series. After 11 series, I had managed to keep the streak perfect so I am now yet again afflicted.

For the first time since S3, I just grabbed 12 random but separated packs and was very excited to end up with 10 unique. After teaching myself what to look for on the first ten, I looked at the pics of the last six and actually think this series is more in the middle of the pack as to ease of feeling.

luckie_reubs

I was at TRU last week feeling some packs, was ready to buy a few, and then I saw there no one working the counters AT ALL. I only had a few minutes, so I put them down and bolted. I realized today (when looking at some feeling tips) that I might have had a William Shakespeare. I went back today and realized that TRU was charging $4 for them instead of $3, so I bolted and didn't get any.

These sets are pretty addictive, though. Thankfully, Swapfig and Reddit help out with the dupes.