Looking back, it felt as though 2017 was a year full of minifigures sporting cool hairstyles. I imagine the release of The LEGO Ninjago Movie Collectible Minifigure Series had a key role in supplying these modern hairstyles, along with Batman and the odd Star Wars eclectic hairstyle. I thought it would be interesting to step inside LEGO’s minifigure hair salon to take a look back at some of the more interesting styles that LEGO introduced for our little friends last year.
1. Captain Salazar’s ‘windswept-to-the-right’ Black hair from 71042 Silent Mary.
As you can tell from the initial image I took when reviewing Silent Mary, I definitely imagined this as a windswept, blown hair style.
2. Kai’s ‘firm-hold-gel’ vertical hair from 70620 Ninjago City and The LEGO Ninjago Movie CMF Series.
I found this hair to be particularly useful when posing upside-down minifigures, such as this diver. While LEGO hair can resist even the strongest of gales, sometimes it is nice to allow your LEGO minifigure to have hair that obeys the laws of physics.
3. Dance Instructor’s Dark Orange ‘Big hair’ from CMF Series 17 Dance Instructor. This quirky big style is full of bounce and character, a very different hairstyle that I was thrilled to see.
4. Misako’s Orange Chopsticks hair from 70620 Ninjago City and The LEGO Ninjago Movie CMF Series. I love it when someone with long hair can pop their hair in a bun using a pen or, in the case of Misako, a pair of chopsticks.
Misako’s Orange hair is certainly striking, and I could only find two other Orange hair styles in my collection although there are a few more official orange hairstyles out there.
5. Cole’s Black Tousled with Long Bangs hair from The LEGO Ninjago Movie CMF Series. Cole has a lot of attitude and his hairstyle is long and edgy. While I think this style can work for both genders, I think I prefer it as a style for a young rebellious male.
6. Batgirl’s Dark Red Long Wavy Ponytail with Silver Band Pattern from The LEGO Batman Movie CMF Series 1. Dark Red hair is not particularly common and the addition of the silver band above those flowing, voluptuous locks, makes this a desirable hair piece.
7. Commissioner Gordon’s Distinguished Grey Hair with lighter grey temples from The LEGO Batman Movie CMF Series 1 and The Scuttler. At last we have a step between getting older and going bald when it comes to our older minifigures, the subtle lighter grey hair at the temples is a great new hairstyle for those gentlemen who have no desire to buy Grecian 2000.
8. Bumblebee’s Dark Brown curls with a streak of yellow from 41234 Bumblebee Helicopter, a set which was released in Jan 17 and is already retired by LEGO in Europe. As one of the more styled asymmetrical haircuts in Dark Brown, this is definitely a style to be rocked by the coolest of minifigures.
While the official mini-doll image appears to show a more Reddish Brown colour of hair, this is definitely Dark Brown, roughly in keeping with original DC Comics character who was African-American.
9. Vice Admiral Holdo’s Lavender wavy short hair aka ‘the purple rinse’ from 75188 Resistance Bomber. As soon as I saw Vice Admiral Holdo’s hair, I was immediately thrilled, I believe this is LEGO’s first proper forray into the older lady’s coloured-rinse hairstyle.
The earliest encounter I have with the ‘purple rinse’ is actually from a television show that aired before I was even born. Mrs Slocombe was a character in the British 1970s comedy, Are you Being Served? and was the proud owner of a purple-rinse. Without wanting to digress too much into uncharted hair-dye waters, the aim of a light rinse of purple ( or blue!) hair dye was to remove the yellow tinge of white hair that is the scourge of ladies of a certain age.
10. Finally, we have my unlikely favourite, Alfred Pennyworth’s Light Flesh male pattern baldness hairpiece which arrived in 2017 in 70909 Batcave Break-in from the LEGO Batman Movie and also appears in 70922 The Joker Manor and two minifigures from Collectible Minifigures: 71020 The LEGO Batman Movie Series 2.
Prior to the introduction of this hair style, I was forced to perform all sorts of serious hair cutting procedures on my minifigures to achieve a similar look. Toupee be gone, embrace that bald head!
There were actually many more hairstyles that could easily have made it into my list, but I had to narrow it down to ten. Does LEGO have your own hairstyle available for minifigures yet? Hair is important and minifigures don’t look right without something on their head, so what LEGO style is your favourite?
The Lego Ninjago Movie was definitely great for hairpieces—Zane’s “Guile cut” was also a standout (and amusingly almost resembles how the original flat-top piece was rendered in the original Lego Alpha Team video game). The N-Pop girl’s recolor of Harley Quinn’s hair from the Lego Batman Movie is also fantastic. And honorable mention to Shark Army General #1’s twist (literally) on the Zombie Businessman’s hairdo, turning what had been a sort of sloppy business cut into something that looks far trendier.
In the Lego Batman Movie, the mayor’s hairdo is way too good a new mold for a character who barely appeared in the movie (arguably didn’t even) and only appeared in a single set. Joker’s coif was also a good hairpiece that suited his larger-than-life personality, and gets another great recolor in this year’s Nexo Knights sets.
The CMF Veterinarian also has a great, casual-yet-stylish haircut.
Holdo’s hairpiece has been around since 2013: https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=11256
Two of these are not new. The purple hair was first introduced with Marilyn from CMF Series 9 in 2013 (it also came with the cat lady from the LEGO Movie CMF series that same year). And Alfred’s bald cap first appeared with a slight comb-over in the S10 Grandpa, also from 2013.
https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?S=col09-3
https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?S=col11-14
https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?S=col10-8
Barbara’s hair also comes with a gold hair-tie, which I only recently discovered. And I’ve gotta say, I’m kinda disappointed that you didn’t give any mention to the new Joker and Harley hairstyles from TLBM.
@Andrew:
The Mayor did appear later in the film at the ball when Barbara was promoted to Commissioner.
@Dano
I believe the article was referencing only the color as being new, not the piece.
I loved this article! More like this please
@dano and @purpledave, you are correct that the ‘mould’ is not new but to me a hairstyle has two components – shape and COLOUR. Therefore, in the article the hairstyles mentioned are all NEW i.e. are a shape and COLOUR that has not been released before.
At least Anonymous Hutt got it ;-)
Also @PurpleDave I find that my interest in hairstyle relates to their onward use in other scenes and I find neither Harley’s nor the Joker’s hair is particularly useful for the more realistic scenes I prefer to build. It can be distracting if a minifigure has something so distinctively ‘characteristic’ such as Jokers green hairpiece when I’m trying to build a realistic vignette.
Thanks David, I was feeling a bit sad that the comments were just trying to pick holes in my article but your comment made me smile!
Andrew you are sooo right, I nearly had the Mayor’s hair in the list and I have all the photographs taken to use her haha. I also loved the Vet’s hairpiece, very ‘Rachel’ from Friends. Iy’s been a good year for hair!
I don’t think hair gets enough attention in Lego minifig design. Fans tend to be all about the face print + costume. I think a distinctive ‘do can add so much appeal to a character even with a basic outfit, especially compared to the ‘classic’ male and female hair we’ve seen so many times in the past before things got interesting. Thank you for making this list Elspeth!
As for my own hair, ironically the classic round bowl cut is closest to my actual hair au naturel, although if I take the effort to style it, I end up looking close to the dude from Island Adventures, and is part of the reason why I love that set (https://brickset.com/parts/4535553/wig-boy).
Wig boy? Hmm…
Feels like an appropriate post for the “New Elementary” blog.
@Hakan but they are not NEW, they are sooooo last year ;-)
Thank you. I’ve added several of these to my wanted list. They will help round out my town.
Thanks for the enjoyable read! One thing though, which the scientific stickler within couldn’t let go – your comments about physics and the diving photo – if those were to be accurate, you should have had the diver going in feet first! In a conventional dive like that, courtesy of gravity and velocity, the hair would be plastered to the head, not the opposite :).