The Lego Star Wars "Minifigure Scale" Universe

King_J

Hello all!

After having seen the 75192 Millennium Falcon in person (wowzers!), I was blown away by the "minifigure-scale" claim that goes along with it.  I immediately started saving for the Slave I, which makes the same claim, as the idea of collecting sets that are truly the correct size according to minifigure height seems fascinating to me, and gives an awesome sense of the size of the ship.

That being said, I went on a spree and tried to find more sets that matched this criteria (compiled in a bricklist here: https://brickset.com/sets/list-22350)!  Also below, to save your clicks.  Minigure-scale is being defined classically as 1/45 regarding the minifigure's height, so the formula I have been using is:

(length of spacecraft) / 45

______________________           x 100

(length of Lego set)

For the Bricklist, models within 10% of perfectly to-scale qualify, and only the most to-scale version of each spacecraft is included.

If any of these need corrected, or if there are any you would like to add, reply in the comments, as I would love to know for my collection!  I will continue to update the list as I continue to research as well.

75050 B-Wing Starfighter

665.35 / 45 = 14.79 (15.04)

98.34% to scale

length of ship scaled: 14.79 http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/A/SF-01_B-wing_starfighter

length of Lego set: 15.03 https://brickset.com/sets/75050-1/B-Wing

 

75175 A-Wing Starfighter

377.953 / 45 = 8.40 (7.87)

93.69% to scale

length of ship scaled: 8.40 http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/RZ-1_A-wing_interceptor

length of Lego set: 7.87 https://shop.lego.com/en-US/A-Wing-Starfighter-75175

 

75060 Slave I:

846.46 / 45 = 18.93 (17.72)

93.61% to scale

length of ship scaled: 18.93 http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Slave_I

length of Lego set: 17.72 https://shop.lego.com/en-US/Slave-I-75060

 

10212 Imperial Shuttle

956.69 / 45 = 21.26 (22.83)

93.12% to scale

height of ship scaled: 21.26 http://www.theforce.net/swtc/lambda.html

height of Lego set: 22.83 https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?S=10212-1#T=S&O={"iconly":0}

 

75192 Millennium Falcon:

1368 / 45 = 30.4 (33)

92.12% to scale

length of ship scaled: 30.4 http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Millennium_Falcon

length of Lego set: 33 https://shop.lego.com/en-US/Millennium-Falcon-75192

 

9493 X-Wing Starfighter:

492 / 45 = 10.93 (12)

91.08% to scale

length of ship scaled: 10.93 http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/T-65_X-wing_starfighter

length of Lego set: 12 https://shop.lego.com/en-US/X-Wing-Starfighter-9493

(Unless my math was wrong, I could not find any to-scale TIE Fighters or Y-Wings, which was disappointing).

King_J

I should clarify that all of my numbers are in inches (bad habit).  The numbers will be quite different in centimeters, but the percent will remain unchanged.

CCC

The problem when you start scaling things is that minifigures are not very human when it comes to dimensions.  You scale at 1/45, and with a minifigure being 4cm high that gives the height at 180cm - so the 1/45 is about right for a tall male. Now measure the width of the minifigure with the arms down, it's 2.2cm. The average tall person is not 1m wide when they have their arms by their sides. Lift the arms, it is 1.6cm, so 75cm on the human scale. What works for one dimension doesn't work in the others.

@henrysunset did some calculations http://brickarchitect.com/scale/ and also had an article in Bricks about it. His scalings came out at 1:42 for height and 1:25 for width. As your results are about 92-93%, if you use his 1:42 instead, your results will be even better. But do the same calculations based on width, and you are a long way from minifigure scale.

This has the knock on effect that even if something is in scale with the height, it won't be with the width, meaning that if two people are meant to sit side by side, chances are they cannot. Also, for example, in the X-wing, R2-D2 has to go sideways rather than facing forward. Compromises always have to be made, for SW ships the dimensions of the ships need to be relatively correct using the same scale in each direction or they look odd. But this will mean that minifigures won't necessarily fit sideways even if the height works. Similarly quite a few City sets tend to have a single driver in a vehicle, centred rather than two people seated side by side, otherwise the vehicle needs to be very wide.

King_J

@CCC Right, so as specified in the initial post, I'm measuring in regards to vehicle length to minifigure height, as Lego has done for the Slave I and the Millennium Falcon.  It may be worth a shot to see if 1:42 adds any to the roster, but I haven't found many borderline scale sets yet (vehicles like Luke's Landspeeder and the TIE Fighters are all off over 50-60%!).

CCC

King_J said:

@CCC Right, so as specified in the initial post, I'm measuring in regards to vehicle length to minifigure height, as Lego has done for the Slave I and the Millennium Falcon.  It may be worth a shot to see if 1:42 adds any to the roster, but I haven't found many borderline scale sets yet (vehicles like Luke's Landspeeder and the TIE Fighters are all off over 50-60%!).

Yeah, sets like Luke's Landspeeder have another really important constraint, the main one being the cost! It tends to be a low value price point set. Is it really that far off though, as it sort of feels right when you play with it. Enough room for Luke and Obi-Wan, droids up the back. So I can understand it being smaller to hit the right price point and doesn't affect play value much.

King_J

CCC said:

King_J said:

@CCC Right, so as specified in the initial post, I'm measuring in regards to vehicle length to minifigure height, as Lego has done for the Slave I and the Millennium Falcon.  It may be worth a shot to see if 1:42 adds any to the roster, but I haven't found many borderline scale sets yet (vehicles like Luke's Landspeeder and the TIE Fighters are all off over 50-60%!).

So I can understand it being smaller to hit the right price point and doesn't affect play value much.

On the contrary: much, much too big!  If you look at photos of the actual speeder in the movies, it's about twice body length, whereas the Lego speeder is nearly 4x the length of the minifigure.

Luke’s Landspeeder

133.86 / 45 = 2.97 (7.09)

41.96% to scale

(It's much closer in regards to width, but still not scale, so wouldn't be quite right next to the MF)

edit: Granted, it would be nigh impossible to make small vehicles to scale and fit minifigures, they did the best they could

CCC

Yes, I guess you are right, looking at the movie stills. This is where the width problem comes into play. It has to be 8 wide to allow two minifigs to sit side by side without bashing hands, so the length has to be longer than it should to keep the right aspect ratio for the whole vehicle. There was the old one (6 wide) that is probably truer to the real dimensions but not as good for sitting the figures in.

GallardoLU

Take a look at #7673 magnaguard starfighter. Surprisingly it measures in nearly perfect in all 3 directions (L,W,H) I can't remember the specific numbers but I know it's very close to scale