2025 is turning out to be the best year for LEGO pirates since Barracuda Bay opened for business. Fun One Piece playsets, a gorgeous new Black Pearl, collectible minifigs, and let’s not forget that One-Eyed Willy’s pirate ship is currently in design. September is also a big month for pirate minifigs with two contests running that fans of Minifig Monday will want to take note of, including one that The Brothers Brick is sponsoring. But first, let’s have a look at some amazing pirate-themed minifig creations that have come on our radar lately, as well as a few classic creations.

This week’s cover image comes courtesy of Garret (2p_figs), who created the post-apocalyptic pirate crew above with some inspiration from Waterworld. Garret also created this cursed clown pirate that incorporates some incredible parts usage at minifig scale. The Illithid head from D&D is perfectly employed as an octopus, and the pony tail looks great as a sash.

Speaking of clowns, Jacob Manahan assembles a full crew of pasty-faced sea dogs. They don’t need a big ship, though. You can fit a dozen clown pirates in a rowboat, no problem. That flag looks familiar…

That’s right! It belongs to Buggy the Clown from One Piece. lavishlump is a fan of the anime and manga series’ outrageous character proportions. We previously featured the builder’s Whitebeard. Now lavishlump is back with the treacherous Blackbeard. The Netflix version of the show has included some fanciful fishmen, but the first season is still light on the series’ weirdest characters. Speaking of…

That’s about to change in Season 2 when the Straw Hats pick up their medic, Tony Tony Chopper and adorable talking reindeer. No doubt LEGO will be making a figure of him with the next wave of One Piece sets, but for now, BadFigs found a fun solution using existing parts.

If a reindeer can be a pirate, why not a crab? Josh shared this adorable scene to celebrate “time to crab.” I never get tired of seeing that hermit crab piece and it’s never looked better than here.

Brick Vignettes assembles an animal crew, the Glib Glub pirates, with wonderful characters that mix minifig elements and bricks in creative ways.

Hide your grog cuz Captain Ironbeard Gorruk  is coming! Sword Bricks deftly blends LEGO orcs and classic pirate elements. If that troll-mounted cannon doesn’t have you timbers shivering, you’d best see a witch doctor.

phiphibrick also plays with epic armaments for a fantastical pirate captain. His captain, Crooky, needed a prosthetic hand and figured why stop with just one and ordered the biggest hook

Expansion Bricks specializes in Samurai figs, so it’s no surprise that when tasked with making a pirate crew, the builder brought in Japanese inspirations. I love the hermit crab with a skull for a shell.

Evelynn, The Octopirate makes fantastic brightly colored figs of every genre, but come on, she’s the Octopirate, so of coruse she’ll have some incredible seafaring scallywags. Brilliant technique on the purple ghost-pirate with the split body. This picture was a collab with Abe (a_dracocyanic) an artist who creates illustrations based on people’s minfig desgins. Abe added the blue dragon character to The Octopirate’s scene, then broke out the markers…

a_dracocyanic‘s work is such a fun and unique side of the LEGO minifig scene. Definitely give the artist a follow.

Lynn is a phenomenal toy photographer specializing in female LEGO minifigs. Here she brings a pirate fan from City to mingle with some recent additions to LEGO’s classic pirate crew.

Lately Kamil Karpiński has been creating some incredible minifig-scale creatures from the world of the Witcher, but earlier this year, to celebrate the CMF pirate lass, he put together this salty crew that look modern and dangerous while keeping to classic pirate yellow.

Cristoph is a pirate fan with a soft spot for classic sets. Here are a few of his more recent crew mixing modern elements and classic yellow faces. I like the inclusion of a fiddler. Pirates have culture too!

As a pirates super-fan, Christoph collaborated with Customfigs to make a limited run of “The Sleepy Governor,” a pirate with Pajamas based on the classic LEGO map tile. He has a nice little bed too!

Speaking of governors and furniture, Bryckland created this “Dinner at the Governor’s” vignette for a pirate-themed LEGO RPG. Every brick-built detail is incredible.

As we near our last port of call, we have this trio of monochrome pirate statues from  Llana. In addition to sharing inspiring minifig creations like this one, she also runs the We ARRR Family Minifigure Build challenge.

Llana’s focus is on diverse and inclusive crews. Different skin tones, different species, Minidolls, Fabulanders, and even Jack Stones are welcome.

If you’d like to participate in the challenge, post your crew according to the rules and add wearrrfamily as a collaborator.

Jacob Manahan ran straight off the plank with this crew that incorporate parts from the upcoming Black Pearl set. (You can read Jacob’s review here).

Finally, we’re excited to announced that Brothers Brick is collaborating with Umbasa LUG for a Pirate Vignette Contest. One lucky winner will receive a copy of the Windmill Village set from One Piece. To participate, follow UmbasaLUG on instagram, post your pirate vignette per the rules, and add UmbasaLUG as a collaborator.