The latest series of LEGO’s Collectible Minifigures theme based The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part are now hitting stores. We’ve already brought you our full, in-depth review, so that means it’s now time for our Feel Guide to help you poke and prod your way to a full set of 20 characters. 71023 LEGO Minifigures – The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part are available now in retail stores and online, for US $3.99 | CAN $4.99.
So let’s check out what makes these figures stand out from one another when all you’ve got is an opaque package and a crowd of onlookers in the store aisle.
The case
Like the majority of previous series, this set comes packed in cases of 60. Unlike previous series, they seem to be pretty well sorted within the case, but it’s not perfect. The cases are divided into three rows of 20 packs each. Many collectors have been reporting success with grabbing one full row and getting the full set of 20, or very close to it. We paid extra attention to this when sorting our case, and ours didn’t break down quite that neatly (nor did it break into precisely three full sets, having one figure mismatch). However, even with our case, grabbing a row would have netted you about 17 unique figures, so if you’re short on time or dexterity, this will be your best bet. One big caveat, of course: this only applies to new cases that haven’t already been rifled through by others.
This series also differs from previous ones in another way. Several of the characters are packaged with an inner plastic bag. This bag was found in six characters in our review, and the bag was present in all of the packs for that given character. However, we’ve talked with other collectors who found inner bags with other characters, or found these without bags. Ultimately, it seems a bit random (perhaps LEGO has more than factory or production line making this series). So although the inner bags crinkle loudly and might have served as a good indicator on which fig you’re handling, we can’t recommend this method as it doesn’t appear reliable enough. Thankfully, the presence of an inner bag doesn’t have much of an effect on the ability to feel the elements inside.
Download a PDF of this cheat sheet to use on your phone in the store when searching for minifigures. As always, we’ve developed this guide by experience, having started way back with Series 1. And of course, we’ve already sorted lots of The LEGO Movie 2 Collectible Minifigures by feel.
Let us know in the comments your own tips and tricks for finding figures! Do remember to also check out our Full Review of this LEGO Movie 2 minifigure series!
71023 The LEGO Movie 2 Collectible Minifigures are available now from the LEGO Shop Online (US $3.99 | CAN $4.99) and Amazon, as well as third-party sellers on Bricklink and eBay.
The LEGO Group sent The Brothers Brick a copy of this set for review. Providing TBB with products for review guarantees neither coverage nor positive reviews.
Great guide! I was surprised how easy Dorothy was to identify by finding her soft folded skirt made from fabric. The hair was also very flexible in my bag and a good distinction from the dangerously similar Scratchen-Post hair piece.
Wow, who decided on this?
1) For Battle Ready Lucy, you’d be better off feeling for the hood piece.
2) For Sherry Scratchen-Post etc, the hair piece is much more reliable to feel for. The cat is hard to feel for and you’re likely to cause damage to it.
3) To get Apocalypseburg Abe, feel for the hat, it unmistakable. The bar may well get you Pres. Business instead due to his driver.
4) The Cowardly Lion is best found by both feeling for the mane piece and the inner plastic bag. Feeling for the tail may get you Kitty Pop, which also has an inner plastic bag.
5) Feeling around for a 2×2 tile in order to locate the Scarecrow will give you about a 40% chance of confusing it with Throwback Wildstyle. Best bet is to combine with the hat part.
6) Good luck trying to get the Tin Man by attempting to locate the smallest piece in the bag. Better bet is find the funnel hat piece.
7) Unikitty just sounds like a bag of parts when you shake it, because that’s exactly all that it is.
Hopefully these alternate suggestions will assist those searching for a complete set.
You do know there are “dots” on bottom of each package this is unique to the mini figure. No need to “feel” your way around. Find 16 unique dot patterns in a box and viola!, you have them all. Works every time. Has been this way since the very first series.
@R:
Right? And why would anyone have started palping the packets way back with S1? S1 and S2 basically told you what was inside each packet with a barcode. I’m pretty sure at least one app got written so you could just scan them with your phone. I actually had just over half of them memorized, and probably would have picked up more but that was the limit of how many were super easy to pick up (Crash Test Dummy) and which ones I was actually hunting for after completing the first few complete sets.
Anyways, after searching through maybe 2-3 cases of these, here are all of the parts I’ve used to positively ID each minifig:
1. Mostly the coffee cup, but at least once by the hair
2. Mostly the quiver, but at least once by the hood, and one delayed ID by the binocs (they honestly feel like two microphones right next to each other, which has a high degree of possibility in this wave)
3. Almost always by the claws, but sometimes by the toolbox (never by the helmet or airtanks)
4. Always by the giraffe head, which feels like nothing else in this wave (it’s pretty obviously _not_ the crayon, and nothing else has the same general shape)
5. Crayon, every time, super simple
6. Scarfield and Toto have the same general shape, as do the hairs, so mostly it was checking for rigid vs squishy hair, but one time I did actually identify Scarfield by his head
7. Mostly the record, but once by the hair
8. Watermelon, every time, super simple (one time I did find the little watermelon slices, but before actually getting my hands on a heart tile, so I thought maybe it was one of those)
9. Usually the hair, sometimes the record plaque
10. About 50/50 between the whip and the triple-finned scalp
11. Mostly the hair, sometimes the skirt
12. Hair slightly more often than the golf club
13. About equal between the hat and the bars, but one time by the axe blade
14. Mostly the hair, but at least once by the raptor
15*. Usually the hair, and I can’t remember if I ever caught the guitar
16. As mentioned with 6, it was always the squishy vs rigid hair
17*. The hair
18. About equal between the hat and the combination of 2×2 tile and no crayon
19. Mostly the tuxedo collar (there are _THREE_ of them, and nothing else in this wave feels like them), but sometimes by the axe, once by the funnel, and sometimes by the heart tile
20. Oddly enough, mostly by the 1×3 plate or the Unichinny tile, but once by the arch brick and I think only once by a cheese wedge (really weird, given the array of shapes that are unique to this character
The most important thing to remember when palping CMF packets is to never get too hung up on finding any one shape, because when you’re looking for (in this case) 20 different shapes out of over 60 possibilities (with the packet and CMF plate being common to them all), it takes way too much time to sort through them all. If it takes you more than about 10 seconds to identify any one specific packet, or about 5 seconds on average per packet for any quantity, you’re doing it wrong. I generally go into these things blind. No guide, and unless they put the case out (not always how it works) or I made the trip to The LEGO Store where they laminate one of the inserts, I rarely even have images of the complete wave to work from. I just pick up a packet, find a piece that’s not a head/torso/legs, and start eliminating the possibilities until I have it. My error rate on this is usually only about 1-2 minifigs per wave (as in, out of all the packets I’ll palp from a given wave, I might miss on 1-2 individual packets), and usually that’s rejecting something because I thought it was something else.
* regarding Kitty Pop and the Cowardly Lion, once I’d scored one of each, I often ended up finding the tail, and that was enough for me to toss them back without knowing which of the two I’d found. Indeed, once I’ve filled most of my needs for a particular wave, I can really start burning through the packets (maybe 1-2 seconds each) without really paying attention to what is actually inside them, as long as I’ve determined it’s not anything I’m still looking for. On this wave, tiles and microphones get a lot of them rejected without digging any deeper. If you count the Watermelon and Tin Man, fully half of this wave come with tiles and/or microphones. If you count the fact that Wyldstyle’s binocs feel similar to two microphones next to each other (happens more often than you’d think because small parts tend to settle out at the bottom), it actually gets you to 11 out of 20
I for one thought this guide was infinitely better then all the other guides and comments I’ve seen. The day I confuse a bar for a golf club or a square tile for a record plaque is the day I quit collecting lol
Actually, I just realized I _do_ palp S1 and S2 minifigs. I’ve long since lost any paper copies of the barcodes. I have no idea where I may have the images saved. And I never downloaded any apps, so feel is all I have left when I need to check any of my nearly-depleted stash of sealed packets.
I also just realized there’s no checkboxes to subscribe to comments or posts anymore. Bummer.
Todd D: I’ve never been able to use the dot method and neither have many other people, which is probably why they’re not mentioned. I’ve also seen some people saying that the TLM2 minfigs don’t even have them any more.
@Paul Mison:
I’ve had luck with the dot codes in the past, but you really depended on getting a set that got the spacing spot on or they were worthless. And even then, they started adjusting them after a while so that common minifigs looked like they were popular rare minifigs. What really killed it for me was realizing I was faster with my fingers alone _and_ I could dive right into the first case I found even if I hadn’t located and printed a set of codes.
And yes, it appears they skipped dot codes on TLM2. Makes me curious about Unikitty, which uses a completely different packet style (it’s the same size as these, but sealed on all four edges and uses the classic CMF hanger hole).
Dots at bottom? I did not see any dots for years. I cant see them here or any last.. I dont know.. 5 series at least back.